People are streaming more than ever before. But one thing remains consistent: When they’re looking for something personally relevant to them, they turn to YouTube.

Whether it’s celebrating this year’s graduating class with the likes of President and Mrs. Obama, Beyoncé and BTS in YouTube Originals’ “Dear Class of 2020,” reminiscing over Game 6 of the 1993 NBA finals or attempting quarantine glow-ups from James Charles, YouTube’s extensive video library creates a truly meaningful and personal experience for viewers.

And, this year more than ever, we’re seeing people make time for what matters. On June 13, viewers tuned in to watch “Bear Witness, Take Action,” a YouTube Originals live stream that assembled artists and activists to learn, heal and raise awareness for the Equal Justice Initiative. This was part of a new multi-year, $100 million-dollar fund to help amplify the voices and stories of Black Creators.

Today, at our ninth annual NewFront event, we celebrated moments like these through a more personal experience for brands and advertisers with “Brandcast Delivered.”

Throughout the completely reimagined virtual event, we celebrated the diversity of YouTube’s voices and content. Featuring appearances from creators like Lilly Singh, Questlove, Emma Chamberlain and Gordon Ramsay, we constructed a “personal primetime” for each attendee based on their passions and shared how YouTube’s deep connection to people’s lives means better results no matter a marketer’s goal – from reach and awareness to action.



Drive better results throughout the consumer journey


The first and last litmus test for any video platform — be it TV, OLV, OTT, mobile or some new acronym that doesn’t exist yet, is simple: Does it work? On every metric — from incremental audience, to new customers, to sales — YouTube delivers.



Today, we showcased how effective YouTube strategies can produce results through the announcement of the 2020 YouTube Works award recipients. The winners, honored for using YouTube to drive smart results, included Gillette with their “We Believe Campaign” in the Force for Good category, Samsung’s Galaxy Note10 brilliant strategy for the Media Innovation category, Hulu’s “sellouts” campaign winning the Ingenious Insights category for their 100% honest influencer campaign, and Bacardi’s “Beat Machine” bringing home the Grand Prix.



The success of these campaigns stems not only from their understanding of how to leverage YouTube’s full suite of ad solutions, but their belief in YouTube’s unique mission to give everyone a voice. Learn more about the smart ways these brands and others used YouTube to drive incredible business results on yt.be/works.

Reach your audience across screens, and within new content


To drive meaningful results, the first step is reaching customers where they are watching. While YouTube overall reaches more people age 18-49 than all linear TV networks combined,4 we’ve seen a dramatic shift in viewing patterns, as people increasingly watch on connected TVs. In the U.S. alone, over 100 million people watch YouTube and YouTube TV on their TV screens each month.5 And, according to Comscore, YouTube makes up 41% of ad-supported video streaming watch time.6

Last month, we announced YouTube Select — a reimagination of Google Preferred — to make it easier to reach your audiences where they are watching, and find the right content for your brand. YouTube Select includes the same popular creator content, plus a dedicated streaming TV lineup that combines the best of YouTube TV and core lineups content, both on TV screens.

YouTube Select also includes YouTube Originals programming, including the breakout hit, “Instant Influencer with James Charles,” which hit over 50 million views in its first month alone;7 “Retro Tech,” featuring tech guru Marques Brownlee; and “Liza on Demand.” And they’re all returning for new seasons.

Additionally, today we announced that Demi Lovato will be returning for a new YouTube Originals project. Demi’s new docuseries will be a follow-up to her 2017 documentary, “Simply Complicated,”which will bring you on her personal and musical journey over the last three years. David Blaine will also be joining the YouTube Originals slate with a first-of-its-kind special event. We are excited to share more on these shows, among many others, throughout the year.

Uncover new audience insights and convert demand into action


YouTube has become an important part of the modern purchase journey with 70 percent of YouTube viewers saying they bought a brand as a result of seeing it on our platform.8 We’re introducing tools to help marketers understand their audience, as well as complement their awareness initiatives with campaigns that drive conversions.

As people turn to YouTube to discover their next purchase, we’re also seeing an increase in conversions from ads on the platform. In the last twelve months, we’ve been able to help our customers achieve over 950 million conversions9 – generating quality leads, boosting web traffic, and achieving new sales on YouTube.

Last week, we announced Video action campaigns, a simpler and more cost-effective way to drive action on YouTube. It automatically brings video ads that drive action to the YouTube home feed, watch pages, and Google video partner — all within one campaign. To make it even simpler, any future inventory that becomes available, like the What to Watch Next feed, will be automatically included. This way you can save time to focus on strategic initiatives, such as crafting the right creative and messaging for your audiences.

For today's viewers, YouTube is a deeply personal experience. For advertisers and brands, so are our offerings. With flexible solutions across marketing objectives, buyers can uniquely reach and influence audiences based on what’s most important to them.

Check out #Brandcast on Twitter and LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel to see highlights from the show.

Cenk Bulbul, Director of Global Advertiser Marketing at YouTube

1 Nielsen Total Ad Ratings (TAR) Meta Analysis including 55 TAR US studies inclusive of YouTube in-app traffic commissioned by Google running 4/9/2018-10/13/2019 across desktop, mobile and TV; Incremental Reach Value calculated as YouTube’s on-target incremental reach / YouTube’s Total on-target Reach; Standard Deviation 20%; On Target Frequency calculated as On Target Impressions / On Target Reach; Standard Deviation 4; Studies running across 7 demos (P18+, P18-34, P18-49, P18-54, P25-49, P25-54, F25-54)

2 NCSolutions Sales Effect, 2018-2019. Base: a list of YouTube studies selected and compiled by NCSolutions with statistically significant results at an 80% confidence level. This list includes 59 statistically significant YouTube studies across 23 CPG advertisers
3 Commissioned Nielsen MMM Meta-Analysis, 2016-2018. Base: a list of studies selected and compiled by Nielsen, consisting of all available CPG studies completed in 2016-2018 that contain YouTube Select, Other Digital, and TV results. This list includes 45 studies for US Brands across all CPG categories. Effectiveness is defined as total incremental sales per 1,000 impressions. Studies were excluded if either channel had fewer than 500 impressions. Incremental offline retail sales measured for TV represents average across all TV broadcasters.
4 Custom Nielsen study commissioned by Google. Desktop, mobile and TV fusion. TV measurement of Total TV. Reach among persons 18-49 (Live + 7, one minute qualifier), television only, March 1-31, 2020. Results among US TV Households.
5 YouTube Internal Data, US, March 2020
6 Comscore, OTT Intelligence, Mar. 2020, U.S.
7 YouTube Analytics, April-May 202
8 Google/Talkshoppe, US, whyVideo study, n=2000 A18-64 Genpop video users, Feb 2020.
9 Google data, Global, May 2019 - Apr 2020. Total conversions reported for TrueView for action campaigns.



YouTube has always been a place where people come to be informed, inspired, and delighted. Over the past few months, as our daily lives have changed in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, we’ve seen people turning to YouTube more than ever. As part of our ongoing commitment to transparency, we’ve created How YouTube Works — a new website designed to answer the questions we most often receive about what we're doing to foster a responsible platform for our community, and explain our products and policies in detail. How YouTube Works will launch in the U.S. today with plans to launch in more countries over time, starting in mid-June.

Answering the important questions


How YouTube Works addresses some of the important questions we face every day about our platform — involving topics such as child safety, harmful content, misinformation, and copyright, as well as tackling timely issues as they arise, like how we have responded to the COVID-19 crisis and how we support elections. Within the site, we explain how we apply our responsibility principles (the Four Rs) — which work alongside our commitment to users’ security — to tackle these important questions.

Get to know our products and policies


How YouTube Works provides an in-depth look at our products and settings, such as YouTube Search, Recommendations, privacy controls, and Ad Settings, showing how they help people have the best possible experience while they’re using YouTube. Additionally, users will find details of our policies — like our Community Guidelines and monetization policies — so everyone in the community knows what they can and can’t do on YouTube. We explain how our policies are developed and enforced in partnership with a wide range of external experts and Creators.

Learn about the progress and impact we’ve made


To show the progress we’ve made on managing harmful content, How YouTube Works includes facts and figures from our Community Guidelines Enforcement Report, which explain how and why we’ve removed videos recently.

We also provide data, records, and current trends that have emerged on YouTube to help you better understand the next generation of Creators and artists. People can explore the stories behind some of YouTube’s creative entrepreneurs as well, and discover how they are transforming their lives and communities — like Cheong Choon Ng, who built a thriving craft business; and Meredith Bell, who was able to realize her dream of becoming a farmer.

How YouTube Works is an important part of our ongoing transparency efforts to ensure millions of users, creators, and artists can continue making YouTube a place to connect with others, learn about the world, and showcase their creative talents.



FOR THE ADVENTURE LOVER


If you’re looking to bring the outside in, we’ll have an adventure camp that will help you explore the world around you and appreciate nature. Teenagers can enjoy wildlife, unscripted and unedited, with Explore.org; learn how to examine the outdoors the way scientists do when they’re doing fieldwork with The Brain Scoop or discover dinosaur fossils and organisms from all over the planet with the American Museum of Natural History.

We’ll also have a dedicated section for families with kids under 13 across each camp theme, where parents and kids can watch summer camp-themed videos on YouTube Kids that encourage creativity, curiosity, playfulness and offline activities. For adventure camp, families can discover how to make a tide pool aquarium in their backyard with Brave Wilderness, learn how to best prep for a hike with PLUM LANDING or find their animal soulmates from Dodo Kids.

FOR THE ARTS LOVER


For those looking to be creative, we’ll have an arts camp focused on self-expression and talent-building. With arts camp, the teenagers in your household will be able to cover everything from art history, dance and music; to acting, songwriting and drawing, including a creative-writing workshop from TED-Ed.

And for those under the age of 13, families can tune in to YouTube Kids to express their creativity with Art for Kids Hub, make art with household items while learning art history with the ArtistYear or practice ballet for beginners with NANI NANI KIDS. If music is your passion, you and your kids can learn dance moves together with KIDZ BOP.

FOR THE SPORTS LOVER


There will also be a number of videos focused on sports and wellness from soccer, football and baseball to yoga, meditation and stretching. With the help of the WNBA and NBA community, the Jr. NBA has developed two youth basketball development camps, one for kids ages 13 and younger that features beginner basketball exercises and drills, and one for teenagers that features intermediate and advanced training.

FOR THE STEM LOVER


We’ll also have a STEM camp for those interested in science, space, coding and more. For teenagers, STEM camp will have a number of science facts and experiments, and cover everything from coding to chemistry. You can learn about space exploration from National Geographic, earth science from AsapSCIENCE or computer programming from Jabrils.

Families with little ones can also join in on the fun and get their feet wet with STEM through YouTube Kids, too. They can learn coding with Goldieblox, or complete fun and weird science activities with PBS KIDS.



We know this summer may be a bit different for a lot of us. However, with the help of creators on YouTube, we hope you and your families can experience the magic of camp from home!

Malik Ducard, VP of Content Partnerships, Learning, Social Impact, Family, Health, Film & TV



What YouTube BrandConnect offers


Through YouTube BrandConnect, we’re making it easier for creators and brands to create branded content that is both authentic and effective. Our focus will continue to be supporting and driving revenue to creators, providing measurable campaigns for brands, and reaching viewers with authentic and relevant content. We’ve built unique, industry-first features within our branded content platform to support each of these goals.

On the creator side, we’ve developed insights-based matchmaking tools that allow more access to branded content deals for eligible creators across YouTube. Because of the connection that creators have with their fans, our proactive matchmaking produces highly engaging and relevant branded content. And it’s working - over the past two years, average deal size across the full service product grew more than 260%.

YouTube creators have a real-time pulse on their community and have the flexibility to pivot their content to serve audience (and brand) needs, something we’re seeing firsthand right now. For example, the Reese’s brand’s March Madness campaign took a turn when the annual basketball tournament was cancelled due to the pandemic. Creators including 2Hype, Smosh Pit, and Eh Bee Family were able to adapt their previously-shot content to still bring a relevant vibe to fans at home, while driving strong consumer engagement and awareness for Reese’s Miniature Cups newly designed packaging, which was perfect for a stay-at-home game of couch basketball.

For brands, we’ve added new measurement solutions like Brand Interest Lift, Influencer Lift, and organic view-through conversations that provide them with real-time campaign results and bring the accountability of digital advertising to branded content campaigns. Brand Interest Lift allows advertisers to measure consumer search behavior resulting from viewing the creator’s video, and Influencer Lift measures consumer sentiment on Purchase Intent, Brand Recall, and more. Through Google insights and tools, it is possible for brands to measure the impact and ROI of influencer marketing for the first time on YouTube.

We’ve also introduced several ads technology innovations such as the shopping shelf and app shelf to help viewers buy products and download apps being discussed in creators' videos directly from the watch page. This will soon expand to a new media shelf, where viewers can buy or rent movies and shows. We’ve also introduced new technologies like the AR try-on experience that allow viewers to virtually try on and shop products, alongside their favorite creators.

Eligible creators in the U.S. with 25,000+ subscribers will be able to sign up for YouTube BrandConnect directly in YouTube Studio, where we’ll be adding more campaign management features in the coming months. With YouTube BrandConnect, brands can easily connect and measure branded content campaigns with their Google and YouTube advertising strategies - allowing for full-funnel influencer marketing integrations.



Looking forward with YouTube BrandConnect


We’re always looking for new ways to help creators earn more money, and we’ve added additional resources to help creators get started making branded content on Creator Academy. We’ll continue investing in our technology and expanding internationally to bring new experiences to creators, brands and their fans globally. This is just the beginning for YouTube BrandConnect, and we’re excited to bring even more value to creators, brands, and viewers through branded content campaigns in the months ahead.

Lori Sobel, Global Business Head of YouTube BrandConnect

Henry Scott-Green, Product Manager at YouTube BrandConnect




“I think we are at a huge inflection point.” - Rashad Robinson, President of Color of Change

“This is a time when we can actually make some ground” - Kimberlé Crenshaw, Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum and Professor of Law at UCLA and Columbia.



The effort to combat racial inequality will take continued work from all of us. Last week, Susan Wojcicki shared YouTube’s commitment to the Black community, and we will continue those efforts in the months and years ahead.

These are some ways that you can take action to end police violence against Black Americans and promote a more equitable world for all people:

Read


Learn about policies and proposed changes like those available via The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights or Center for Policing Equity. Learn about the history and struggle for racial justice through resources like those available at the Equal Justice Initiative. Learn about actions you can take in your community now at Imagine Justice. For those who seek to be better allies, learn more about anti-racism using resources like those available at Racial Equity Tools.

Watch


Check out the YouTube Spotlight playlists for videos on these topics:




Check out these feature films and series that have been made available free to watch and rent on YouTube:




Speak up


Use your platform to call out racial injustice, and share the message of equality to educate those around you. Maybe your platform is the dinner table, maybe it’s bedtime stories, maybe it’s your YouTube Channel. Use it!

Vote


Turn your voice into action with your vote.

— The YouTube Team
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Yesterday afternoon, YouTube virtually gathered for a star-studded event called “Dear Class of 2020” — an online graduation special. It’s a strange and hard time to be entering this new stage of life, but each speaker delivered a unique message of hope to the next generation of leaders. There were tributes, there were performances and moments of surprise-and-delight planted throughout. (Hint: You’ll hear an arrangement from Finneas O’Connell, plus an appearance from a classic, animated American sitcom.) From the Obamas to Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, the over four-hour event also peppered in celebrity powerhouses like J.Lo and Mariah Carey.

“Dear Class of 2020” definitely can’t replace the feeling of physically walking across a stage to receive your diploma, but it was memorable. The 10 following quotes left more than an impression on us. These words will be ringing in our heads in the days to come, as we ready ourselves for the second half of 2020.


  1. President Barack Obama: “America changed — has always changed — because young people dared to hope. As someone once said, 'Hope is not a lottery ticket. It’s a hammer for us to use in a national emergency to break the glass, sound the alarm and sprint into action. '” 


  2. Beyoncé: “Look how far you’ve come and how much you’ve contributed. Keep pushing. Forget the fear. Forget the doubt. Keep investing and keep betting on yourself.”


  3.  Jimmy Kimmel: “I know this is a lousy time to enter the real world, but years from this, you will have what few people do: a cool story. Know what year I graduated high school? 1985. You know the most interesting thing that happened in 1985 was? “Police Academy 2,” ‘kay? Look it up. But when you tell people the year you graduated, everyone will be super interested, they’ll wanna know what was it like? Did you live underground? Did you used to touch hands with each other? Who did you take to the prom: your mom or your dad? Did the president really tell people to drink bleach?”


  4. Alicia Keys: “You, my friends, you are graduates in the most powerful time to be coming of age. And there’s nothing and no one that can stop you from changing the world. I see you. You’re unstoppable. We honor you and celebrate you.” 


  5. Sundar Pichai: “You will prevail.” (Read his transcripted speech here.)


  6. Michelle Obama: “In an uncertain world, time-tested values like honesty and integrity, empathy and compassion — that’s the only real currency in life.” 


  7. Liza Koshy: “You should also know you’re not alone. You’ve got a lot of company. And being stuck at home meant you had to find creative new ways to celebrate, which made #DearClassof2020 really blow up.”


  8. Stephen Colbert: “I have no doubt you will be the heroes of so many who have not yet been born. And years from now, if you have the good fortune to hold your own child’s face in your hands and tell them how proud you are of them, you’ll understand how we feel about you right now. And they’ll wonder how you did what you are about to go do.” 


  9. Malala Yousafzai: “Don’t be defined by what you’re losing during this crisis, but by how you respond to it.” 


  10. Sec. Condoleezza Rice: “You are the next generation of Americans who will fight for what is right, and one day make impossible seem inevitable.”


— The YouTube Team
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On Tuesday, May 19, we decided to break our fast together at 6:32 p.m. — sunset in Saudi Arabia. We played games, showed-off our cooking skills, and finally broke our fast along with thousands of people who joined us from across the country and beyond.

What’s incredible is that people all around the world have been trying to find innovative ways to create that sense of togetherness during the holy month while staying safe. Earlier this month, creators in Indonesia came together and hosted a virtual Iftar, bringing together people from all over the country. Also next week, on May 26 at 8 p.m. EEST, Arab popstar Nancy Ajram is going to host a special Eid celebration concert on her YouTube channel.

I am proud I got to be part of this incredible experience that showed the world the power of YouTube and the creator community. Bringing this many people together during this difficult time is truly rewarding.

From all of us, we wish you a Ramadan Kareem and a blessed Eid ahead.

Mohamed Moshaya, YouTube Creator based in Saudi Arabia
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And if you’re a podcast listener, you can visit this web page and transfer your subscriptions and episode progress to Google Podcasts with a single click. Google Podcasts is our dedicated podcast player available for free on Android and iOS, and accessible from Google Assistant, Google Search, Google Home and more.

We’re looking forward to Google Play Music users transferring their libraries, so they can begin listening and exploring on YouTube Music and Google Podcasts.

Your New Home For Music: YouTube Music


For listeners new to YouTube Music, the streaming service is your personal guide to the world of music, simply organized in an app and web player. A bit more on what YouTube Music has to offer:




We’ve listened to Google Play Music user feedback and recently introduced additional new features to YouTube Music for fans to enjoy. Some of the YouTube Music features we’re most excited to share include the following (with more updates on the way!):




Pricing


Existing pricing is the same between Google Play Music and YouTube Music. Fans can enjoy the ad-supported version of YouTube Music for free, or enjoy YouTube Music Premium, a paid membership that gives listeners background listening, downloads and an ad-free experience for $9.99 a month. Or you can try YouTube Premium to extend ad-free, background listening and offline playback across all of YouTube for $11.99 (USD).

Google Play Music Unlimited members will be automatically granted the equivalent tier of YouTube Music Premium or YouTube Premium based on the level of benefits with their current subscription, at the same price*.

We can’t wait for you to start exploring YouTube Music features and discovering new music favorites along the way. Have more questions or need help? Check out all of our support resources here.

*Some users may see a price difference upon transfer. Learn more here.
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The fact check feature expands upon the other ways we raise and connect people with authoritative sources. For example, our Breaking News and Top News shelves help our viewers find information from authoritative sources both on their YouTube homepage and when searching for news topics. In 2018, we introduced information panels that help surface a wide array of contextual information, from links to sources like Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia for topics prone to longstanding misinformation (e.g. "flat earth" theories), or more recently, linking to the WHO, CDC or local health authorities for videos and searches related to COVID-19. We're now using these panels to help address an additional challenge: Misinformation that comes up quickly as part of a fast-moving news cycle, where unfounded claims and uncertainty about facts are common. (For example, a false report that COVID-19 is a bio-weapon.) Our fact check information panels provide fresh context in these situations by highlighting relevant, third-party fact-checked articles above search results for relevant queries, so that our viewers can make their own informed decision about claims made in the news.

There are a few factors that determine whether a fact check information panel will appear for any given search. Most important, there must be a relevant fact check article available from an eligible publisher. And in order to match a viewer’s needs with the information we provide, fact checks will only show when people search for a specific claim. For example, if someone searches for "did a tornado hit Los Angeles," they might see a relevant fact check article, but if they search for a more general query like "tornado," they may not. All fact check articles must also comply with our Community Guidelines, and viewers can send feedback to our team.

Our fact check information panel relies on an open network of third-party publishers and leverages the ClaimReview tagging system. All U.S. publishers are welcome to participate as long as they follow the publicly-available ClaimReview standards and are either a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network’s (IFCN) Code of Principles or are an authoritative publisher. Over a dozen U.S. publishers are participating today, including The Dispatch, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact and The Washington Post Fact Checker, and we encourage more publishers and fact checkers to explore using ClaimReview. In addition to this roll out, YouTube will provide $1M through the Google News Initiative to the IFCN to bolster fact-checking and verification efforts across the world. This follows Google’s efforts to support the ecosystem in the midst of the challenging COVID-19 environment, and we'll be looking for more ways to support the fact check ecosystem in the future.

As always, it will take some time for our systems to fully ramp up. Our systems will become more accurate, and over time, we'll roll this feature out to more countries. We are committed to our responsibility to protect the YouTube community, and expanding our fact check information panels is one of the many steps we are taking to raise up authoritative sources, provide relevant and authoritative context to our users, and continue to reduce the spread of harmful misinformation on YouTube.
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