The TV upfronts are usually a dog-and-pony show where networks unveil their new content slates.
At YouTube’s Brandcast presentation for brands and agencies, held for the first time during upfronts week, the focus was on the gigantic video platform’s popular creators, its scale across internet TVs — and a new solution for marketers to set limits on ad frequency, addressing one of the most irritating aspects of ad-supported streaming services.
“The audiences you most care about are coming to YouTube to watch content,” CEO Susan Wojcicki told attendees at the event, held Tuesday evening at the Imperial Theatre in New York’s Times Square. She cited Nielsen’s estimate that YouTube overall reached 230 million people 18 and older in the U.S. in October 2021: “YouTube is the mainstream,” she said.
Among the YouTubers appearing on stage was MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson), a mega-popular creator with more than 95 million subscribers who specializes in elaborate big-money giveaways and philanthropic stunts.
On brand for Donaldson, he distributed hundreds of MrBeast-branded chocolate bars to the crowd in the theater. “I thought it would be fun to give you all chocolate bars,” he said. He also announced that his #TeamSeas cleanup fundraiser with YouTuber Mark Rober had exceeded their original goal — removing 32.5 million pounds of trash from waterways.
If MrBeast’s YouTube channel were its own streaming service, it would have more subscribers than each of the next most popular ad-supported services: Disney’s Hulu, HBO Max and Paramount+. MrBeast is estimated to be 2021’s highest-earning YouTuber, raking in $54 million last year.
At Brandcast, YouTube also lined up singer-rapper Lizzo (2.6 million subs), who performed “About Damn Time,” “Truth Hurts” and “Good as Hell.”
“I’m so grateful to YouTube to provide a place where I can express myself,” Lizzo said. “Video…