How YouTube creators are pitching brands on reaching Gen Z with long-term partnerships

Younger audiences are spending more time with YouTube creators than traditional TV, prompting advertisers to rethink where and how they show up. At Spotter’s inaugural Showcase last week, top creators including MrBeast, Dude Perfect, Kinigra Deon and Rebecca Zamolo laid out how they’re building appointment viewing for Gen Z—and why advertisers should treat them like the new networks. More than 150 brand and agency execs from Amazon, Disney, Nike, Verizon and more gathered at The Glasshouse in New York to hear creators pitch their upcoming slates of YouTube content—and, crucially, how brand partnerships can be baked into those narratives from the start. For instance, Matter—whose high-energy YouTube content revolves around him and his daughter Salish staging various challenges and stunts—highlighted her upcoming sixteenth birthday in late November and cheekily asked if any automakers in the audience were interested in partnering on the future video documenting her sweet sixteen. “There’s a lot of integrations you can do with a 16th birthday,” he added. He also pointed out Salish’s top placement on the list of the “most popular” creators and celebrities on the website Famous Birthdays, which he likened to “the Wikipedia of Gen Z.” Taylor Swift, meanwhile, currently ranks fourth on that list. Indeed, several creators throughout the event—which was essentially Spotter’s take on the TV upfronts—directly compared the reach and viewership of their YouTube content to traditional media. “Unlike traditional TV, we move fast,” said Deon, who runs a production company that employs 40 actors and puts out three episodes of scripted YouTube content each week. “We plan just two weeks ahead, allowing us to integrate into real-time cultural moments and branded stories without the red tape. This means brands don’t just sponsor content—they become part of our story.” Also read: Upfront ad strategy for MrBeast and others Creator duo Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry, who hosted and helped Spotter produce the Showcase, set the tone at the start of the event by revealing that U.S. consumers aged 18 to 49 collectively viewed over 50 billion minutes of video content from just the YouTubers presenting at the Showcase. “That means more time was spent last year watching these creators … than was spent watching the Oscars; the Grammys; the Golden Globes; every game of the NBA Finals; the World Series; the Stanley Cup; the men’s and women’s [March Madness] Final Four,” Rosenblum said, “along with all of the college football playoffs; the No. 1 new drama in all of streaming on Prime Video, [“Fallout”]; the number one new comedy in all streaming on Netflix, [“Nobody Wants This”]; and the Super Bowl combined.” Those metrics are not completely comparable, however: YouTube measures viewing time on the platform as the total amount of time viewers collectively spent watching a video, while traditional TV events such as the Super Bowl or the Oscars are typically measured by average viewership during the broadcast. But over half (56%) of Gen Z consumers agreed that social media content is “more relevant” to them than TV shows or films—25 points higher than the 31% of all surveyed consumers who agreed with that statement, according to Deloitte’s annual “Digital Media Trends” report released last week. The consulting firm’s survey also found that Gen Zers spend about 50 minutes more on social media per day and 44 minutes less watching TV shows or movies compared to the average consumer. YouTube also recently topped Nielsen’s February “Media Distributor Gauge” report, capturing a record-high 11.6% of all TV watch time for that month. Twenty-one percent of those YouTube viewers were adult Gen Zers and young millennials (ages 18 to 34). But older consumers are driving that shift toward YouTube, too—nearly 55% of YouTube viewers in February were above age 35, per Nielsen’s report. Creators call for sponsors The Spotter Showcase isn’t the first effort to translate the TV upfront model to the creator economy. But unlike Forbes and Walmart’s previous Creator Upfronts last October, the presenting creators were far more explicit about future sponsorship opportunities for the advertisers in the room rather than just offering brief overviews of who they are and the type of content they create. Sign up for our Influencer Marketing newsletter Chad Coleman, chief brand officer at Dude Perfect, shared a diagram outlining the YouTube group’s plans to forge partnerships with one brand in each of eight categories—outdoor, hydration, automotive, airlines, consumables, wireless, apparel and financial services. Dude Perfect has filled two of those categories thus far, striking an ongoing partnership with BodyArmor (which resulted in a limited-edition flavor collaboration, Perfect Pop, last summer) for the hydration category and working with Bass Pro Shops as their chosen outdoor brand partner. “We don’t love just plugging a brand in this week, and then, in two weeks from now, it’s another brand that we’re talking about,” Coleman said. Working with the same brand for a longer period allows Dude Perfect to plan opportunities to weave that brand throughout their YouTube videos, live shows and other content, rather than interrupting a video with a jarring, out-of-place ad read, he said. Zamolo, one of the presenting YouTubers, similarly emphasized the range of sponsorship opportunities for brands across her multiple YouTube channels, which include her main channel; her less-polished, more conversational second channel; and her vlog channel. “If you are a brand, you don’t have to choose between the high-energy production video or authentic vlog or a viral challenge. With us, you can have it all,” she said. Ahead of the creator presentations, several attendees told Ad Age they were primarily interested in learning more about the creators and their content, rather than going into the event actively looking to slot their brands into the creators’ upcoming content. Many of the attendees, who largely ranged from Gen Zers to Gen Xers, were also familiar with at least a few of the YouTubers who would be presenting and didn’t need to be convinced of their influence over young consumers. Only one audience member raised their hand when Matter, 58, asked if anyone in the room was older than him during his presentation. Visualizing the data Several of the presenting creators also offered exclusive data about their audience and viewership or the performance of their previous brand partnerships. MrBeast’s Global Head of Brand Partnerships, Melissa Drucker, played a video during the presentation showcasing the results of finance app MoneyLion’s sponsorship of the first season of “Beast Games,” the YouTuber’s reality competition series on Amazon Prime Video. The partnership with MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) propelled MoneyLion to the top of the Apple App Store charts as the No. 1 finance app in the U.S., driving a 135% increase in daily active users, according to the video. Matter, meanwhile, pointed to the fact that one-third of his YouTube channel’s 28.9 million subscribers watch more than one video per week, and 27% of them return to the channel daily, “even though we only post once a week.” Today, “audiences program their own prime time,” said Chaudry, one of the two hosts of the showcase. “They choose what to watch. They choose when to watch it, and more often than not, they’re choosing to turn on their TVs, click on YouTube and watch shows that are produced by the creators in this room.”

How YouTube creators are pitching brands on reaching Gen Z with long-term partnerships

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