YouTube to harness traditional advertising to push stars

YouTube is steering away from digital marketing platforms in its latest campaign to advertise its video creators.

Speaking to AdAge, YouTube CEO and ex-Google Ads SVP Susan Wojcicki, says the video juggernaut’s parent Google will use US TV networks like The CW and ABC, magazines like Teen Vogue and Entertainment Weekly and billboards in New York and Chicago to grow its biggest stars.

“If you look at our top creators, they have a lot of subscribers; it’s all categories like entertainment, health and beauty, food, cooking, and yet I think a lot of times advertisers and users don’t know about these channels,” says Wojcicki.

Viral music channels on YouTube will take a back seat for now, while beauty channel owners Michelle Phan (pictured above) and Bethany Mota and chef Rosanna Pansino will be the first to receive traditional ad publicity.

On top of this, YouTube is upping its advertising income with a new offering called Google Preferred. In a shift away from its previous advertising stratagy, which saw it treat all videos and advertisers almost equally, YouTube will now target TV brand budgets with an algorithm that packages its top 5% of content in 14 categories.

“We are at the point where we are trying to get advertisers who have traditionally bought TV to understand the YouTube platform,” says Wojcicki.

YouTube receives more than 1 billion unique user visits with over 6 billion hours of video viewed each month. Last year the company grossed an estimated annual revenue of more than US$5 billion and according to a Q1 report from Forbes, will reach a net revenue of about US$18.7 billion by 2020. YouTube contributes to approximately 7% of Google’s value.