YouTube’s Ad Playbook

For years, YouTube has positioned itself as the future of television. Now, it’s very much the present.

In this week’s Q&A, I spoke with Brian Albert, YouTube’s managing director of U.S. partnerships, fresh off the company’s splashy Brandcast event during upfronts week.

We discussed YouTube’s ambitions in live sports—starting with its first-ever free NFL game stream this fall—how creators have become the new content studios, and what’s keeping ad buyers up at night.

Below is the Q&A, lightly edited for style.

In recent months, YouTube has become the most-watched streaming service on television in the U.S. How did you manage to conquer the living room against deep-pocketed and entrenched competition?

In a world of similar streamers, creators give viewers something they can’t get anywhere else—choice and variety. And, our creators are this generation’s content studios and they’re uploading new hits every day, by the minute—fueling an always-on stream of fresh content that keeps viewers engaged.

In fact, over the past 3 years, we’ve paid out over $70B to 3M+ creators who have uploaded 20 billion videos in the past year. It’s more than a creator monetization fund—it’s the world’s best and most relevant content fund, letting viewers, not networks, choose what original stories and voices to support. That’s why creator-driven content is the future of entertainment and YouTube sits at the epicenter of culture with the deepest and broadest content library for billions of people around the world, from long-form to shorts, live and audio.

YouTube is streaming an NFL game for free this fall—the first time ever. What does this signal about YouTube’s ambitions in live sports? And how are you treating this from an advertising perspective?

Building on our success with NFL Sunday Ticket, we're excited that YouTube will be the exclusive home of the NFL's Friday night kickoff weekend game in Brazil between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers. Last year, people spent over 350 million hours watching official NFL content on YouTube so we know we have a large passionate football fan base.

For advertisers, YouTube is well positioned to deliver a surround sound ad experience across in-game units, sponsorships and features, creator programs and other official NFL content.

We just finished a week of upfronts. You had a lot of conversations with buyers. What are advertisers most anxious—or excited—about right now?

I’ve been leading YouTube’s Upfront negotiations for 12 years now and I’ve never experienced the palpable energy during the night of our Brandcast show. From Brittany Broski and Sean Evans to iShowSpeed and MrBeast to Alex Warren and Lady Gaga, it was an incredible 20th birthday celebration! All of which made it feel like a major tipping point in the many discussions we’ve had with our clients and partners over the years, from the value of creator-produced content to the very tangible business results we’re able to deliver.

What impact do you think Donald Trump's disruptive tariffs have had on marketing budgets? At the very least, it's caused unease. But did you sense anything deeper?

Like everyone else, we’re remaining vigilant and monitoring. But overall, I would say we have a lot of experience in managing through uncertain times, and our primary focus is on helping our customers still achieve business outcomes by providing deep insights into the rapidly changing consumer behavior that is relevant to their business. We’ll continue to support and advise our partners as we have time and time again.

YouTube has long pitched itself as a brand-safe, data-rich environment that is very distinct from traditional broadcast television. But as linear declines and other tech platforms like Amazon and Netflix gain more share of attention (and roll out advertising-supported plans), do you feel the added competition?

We pride ourselves on what we’ve been able to build over the past 20 years and will continue to focus on playing to our unique strengths. Brands choose us because we’re laser focused on providing a platform they can trust and helping them achieve significant business results they can count on. It’s the same for competition. We’re one of many streaming/video platforms in a robust ecosystem of media companies - often dubbed only as competitors but they are actually some of our biggest partners.

What’s your pitch today to legacy brands that still spend big on traditional broadcast television?

We want to make it easy for advertisers to tap into the explosive power of creator influence and culture that takes place on YouTube. Advertisers often ask “How can I get the most out of YouTube?” So, for our pitch this year, we developed 5 pillars that encompass the total YouTube opportunity—YouTube Select (our top 1% channels), Cultural Moment Sponsorships, sports, YouTube Shorts and our A.I.-powered YouTube formats. Ultimately, we’re challenging advertisers and agencies to throw out the old playbook and, like billions of viewers, think YouTube first.

• News networks scrambled Sunday afternoon to cover the announcement from Joe Biden's office that the former president has been diagnosed with an "aggressive form" of prostate cancer has spread to his bones. All the cable news networks broke into programming with special rolling coverage. [CNN]

• Appearing alongside Kash Patel for an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News, Dan Bongino said Jeffrey Epstein did, in fact, die of suicide: "I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself." [Mediaite]

  • Bongino's declaration—which stood in contrast to years of right-wing conspiracy theories—immediately rattled MAGA, with some going as far as to call him a "traitor." [Raw Story]

• "60 Minutes," which will broadcast its season finale Sunday evening, said it will not air a scheduled story on the IRS slashing its workforce because it had "learned that on Friday afternoon, IRS leadership informed senior staff it had decided to call probationary employees back to work by the end of this coming week." The newsmagazine said its team "will continue to report on these new details and will broadcast the story in the future."

  • Status Scoop | Lesley Stahl appeared on a panel for a new PBS show, produced by Andy Lack, called "Breaking the Deadlock." In the clip, Stahl was asked how she would respond if a corporate honcho instructed her to take it easy on a president. Suffice to say, but she would push back! [YouTube]

• "Saturday Night Live" opened up its 50th season finale with a skit on Donald Trump's trip to the Middle East and acceptance of a $400 million jet. [YouTube]

  • Scarlett Johansson, who hosted the episode, joked about Newark airport problems. [YouTube]

  • Mike Myers returned to the show to zing Kanye West. [YouTube]

• Wes Anderson made waves at the Cannes Film Festival with his latest film, "Phoenician Scheme." [Variety]

  • Speaking of Cannes, Kevin Spacey will be honored this week at a gala. [Deadline]

• Tom Cruise said he is "working on" ideas for a "Top Gun 3." [Deadline]

• Another strong showing for Warner: "Final Destination: Bloodlines" frightened the box office to a $51 million opening weekend.

• Disney’s "Thunderbolts*" placed second with a $16.5 million showing.

• "Sinners" printed another $15.4 million in receipts.

• Elsewhere, "A Minecraft Movie" took home $5.9 million and "The Accountant 2" nabbed $5 million.

[Data via Box Office Mojo]