Social Media

Top Creator Economy & Video Ads Insights From IAB NewFronts

IAB NewFronts, billed as “the world’s largest marketplace for digital content,” kicked off Monday with in-person events in New York City and virtually on IAB.com.

The unifying theme of this year’s series of events for media buyers is “Stream On,” which reflects the twin trends driving the industry: both consumers and brands are leaning towards streaming video.

Here are the top three meals from the first day of the 2022 IAB NewFronts programme.

Image from YouTube, May 2022

1. Setting the Agenda: Harnessing the Creator Economy

Tara Walbert Levy, Vice President of Americas at YouTube, and Michael Kassan, CEO of MediaLink, set the agenda for the 2022 IAB NewFronts Conference to discuss “Harnessing the Creator Economy.”

During the discussion at Google Pier 57, Walpert Levy was declared the star of beauty Jackie Ina And a makeup artist Pat McGrath He will lead a live shopping event on May 3 featuring items inspired by the Netflix series Bridgerton.

Then, YouTube will team up with Paramount on May 4 to stream the premiere of the upcoming movie, Top Gun: Maverick.

Now, the elephant in the room that few in the industry trade press has acknowledged is:

  • YouTube fuels the economyto generate $20.5 billion in US GDP in 2020.
  • YouTube creates jobsadding 394,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the United States in 2020.
  • YouTube is growing small businessleading 80% of SMBs with a YouTube channel to agree that YouTube has played a role in helping them grow their customer base.

Creator Talk featuring: Colin Rosenblum and Sameer Chaudhry, two Los Angeles-based filmmakers; Cassie is, a certified Pilates and fitness instructor, whose YouTube channel “blogilates” has 6.4 million subscribers; And the Collins Kwho posts funny comedy videos on his YouTube channel with 23.7 million subscribers.

NewFronts StreamOn eventImage from YouTube, May 2022

They talked about their evolution from YouTubers and influencers to creators and entrepreneurs. The commission gave a shout out to YouTube for paying creators more than $30 billion between 2017 and 2020 — $7.5 billion annually on average.

In 2021, YouTube generated $28.8 billion in ad revenue.

With about 55% of that amount going to creators, that means YouTube paid creators more than $15 billion last year, which is a huge chunk of the overall funding for the creator economy.

Other social video platforms have invested hundreds of millions of dollars just to “support” influencers and creators.

Or, as Key said,

“Divide the rate of speed that YouTube gives us is what allows us to build these companies. And as a creator, it’s very frustrating because I’ve heard every platform say, ‘Oh yeah, we support our creators. We are behind our creators. But no one is putting their money where their mouth is except for YouTube.

Now, YouTube usually holds its annual Brandcast during its IAB NewFronts, but the company bucked tradition this year by moving the event to coincide with Upfronts, its annual TV ad sales marketplace.

That means we’ll have to wait until May 17th to find out what YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has to say.

But, Jim Louderbackgeneral manager of VidCon, expects her presentation to emphasize that “Big Red is as much a television company as it is an online video platform.”

2. IAB Insights: 2022 Video Ad Spend Report

On Monday, IAB Media Center Vice President Eric John shared the results of this year’s “Video Ad Spending and Outlook 2022” report.

Digital video ad spending increased by 49% in 2021 and is expected to increase by 26% to $49.2 billion in 2022.

Ad spending on connected television (CTV) rose 57% in 2021 to $15.2 billion, and is expected to grow an additional 39% in 2022 to $21.2 billion.

Although 76% of video buyers now rank CTV as a “must buy” in their media planning budgets, they currently allocate only 18% of their total video ad dollars to CTV, which is less than 36% of all video advertising dollars. Time spent with Linear TV and CTV combined in 2022.

“Now is the time for brands and buyers to pursue consumer interest,” John said.

NewFronts StreamOn's annual ad spend share reportmeMage from NewFront, May 2022

The report found:

  • CTV allows buyers to take advantage of several types of data not available with linear TV purchasesincluding first-party brand data, location data, and shopping data.
  • 57% of video buyers increased sales because their KPIs felt CTV was more effective than linear TV. But even 46% of video buyers with improved brand perception as their KPIs said CTV was more effective.
  • 59% of video buyers said it was “very obvious” where to show CTV ads Compared to only 50% who said this for social video and 43% for other digital video.

But video buyers say they still face challenges:

  • 48% said measure increased reach Cross platforms/publishers have been an issue.
  • 43% said Frequency management across platforms/publishers It was a problem.
  • 35% said I turned It continues to be the Achilles’ heel of programmatic procurement pathways.

Video buyers are preparing for a converging TV/CTV market and implementing a myriad of creative and targeting approaches to address CTV opportunities and challenges.

But, John noted, “To use a baseball analogy, we’re still in the first half.”

3. New Amazon Virtual Product Launch

On Monday night, Amy Poehler, who is not only an Emmy Award-winning actress but also director of Lucy and Desi on Prime Video and executive producer in Harlem, hosted an Amazon event at Lincoln Center.

Eight executives from Freevee, Amazon Ads, Twitch, Prime Video, Amazon Music and Amazon Studios join her to reveal new offerings, ad products and ways to attract customers.

Amazon's NewFront 2022 is hosted by Amy PoehlerPhoto from NewFront, May 2022

The highlight of Amazon’s slew of statements was the showcasing of a new virtual product placement that incorporates the brands into original Prime Video and Freevee content in post-production and during Friday Night Football, which will air exclusively on Prime Video this fall.

If you haven’t heard of Freevee before, don’t worry. Until last week, it was known as IMDb TV.

In other news, Amazon also announced the Streaming TV Media Planner, which enables advertisers to see the growing reach of streaming TV through Amazon Advertising and compare that to linear reach.

These were just the top three takeaways from the first day of the 2022 IAB NewFronts.

Over the next three days, media buyers will also be listening to Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, and Twitter.

I’ll be sharing highlights later this week.

More resources:

  • The Complete Beginner’s Guide to YouTube Video Advertising
  • How will digital video advertising dominate the next decade?
  • Social Media Marketing: A Complete Strategy Guide


Featured image: Alessandro Biascioli / Shutterstock

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button