Deep Dive

YouTube last week officially ousted the UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster ITV as the video platform now second only to the BBC in audience size, according to the tech and media regulator, Ofcom. YouTube’s ad take is pumping everywhere – it raked US$9.8bn in the June quarter, according to its latest earnings results – up 13% year-on-year. And the Google-owned platform has been increasingly vocal on its ambition to target legacy broadcasters for bigger brand budgets and recast TV as swerving rapidly to the creator, influencer and user generated content economy. Last week UK broadcasters lobbed a counterstrike, attempting to demonstrate that advertisers needed clearer, comparable reporting of YouTube with TV audiences if it wants to take TV’s revenues. TV and streaming measurement body, BARB Audiences, and measurement partner Kantar released a world-first initiative reporting YouTube’s audiences at a channel level on connected TVs in the same way it does for broadcasters and streamers. The numbers were tiny and has already sparked much debate on whether any of this matters. Do brands and advertisers care? The dollar flow of advertising to YouTube suggests not. The Future of TV forum’s Justin Lebbon and global CEO of market mix modelling firm Mutinex, Henry Innis, duke out YouTube’s revenue romp, its surging adloads and a coming hurricane for traditional media-funded audience reporting – Innis argues business outcome-based audience measurement is set to shake-up decades of norms. 

Allianz’s Laura Halbert sees brand as the thing people say about you when you’re not in the room. For Michael Hill’s Jo Feeney, it’s the external expression of what you are, what you know, what you believe your business is to your customer, and a shortcut to recognition. Reflections Holiday’s Pete Chapman, it’s the reason someone chooses a product over a comparable alternative. While they may be facing different category nuances, brand maturity, lifecycles and market dynamics, all three marketing chiefs know brand evolution and investment is vital for continued cultural relevance, distinctiveness and commercial success. So they’re recalibrating media spend, leveraging customer insight and new marketing metrics, buying into consistent creative and distinctive assets for the longhaul, and working cross-functional relationships to flip the switch from demand to brand through the power of data and emotional connection.