YouTube may be the world’s largest video platform, but WARC Media’s latest Platform Insights: YouTube report suggests its next growth challenge is convincing marketers it deserves a bigger share of TV and performance budgets. With connected TV accelerating, Shorts reshaping commerce, and AI creating new discovery opportunities, Communicate spoke with Alex Brownsell, Head of Content at WARC Media and lead editor of the report, about what the findings mean for marketers across the GCC and MENA.
Everyone’s chasing TikTok right now. Is YouTube quietly becoming the smarter long-term bet for brands, especially in markets like the GCC?
Both platforms combine high levels of consumption with sophisticated audience targeting and AI-enhanced asset creation tools, so unsurprisingly have become a key part of brand media plans. Where TikTok has maybe outperformed YouTube is in its ability to link search and discovery with conversions, unlocking performance ad budgets. YouTube consumption differs: for a start, users are more likely to be watching professionally produced, long-form content on a connected TV device. This opens up opportunities for marketers looking to build brands through adjacency with lean-back viewing of high-quality content. However, as ever, optimal budget allocation depends on the individual brand’s circumstances and campaign KPIs.
TV is now YouTube’s fastest-growing screen. Is this the moment digital video finally starts eating into traditional TV budgets in our region?
YouTube has certainly set its sights on winning a greater share of TV budgets. It should be noted that linear TV ad investment in markets like the UAE has been in decline for much of the last decade, according to WARC Media data. Marketers in the region have been early and enthusiastic adopters of digital channels. Where YouTube must work hard is to persuade CMOs that it can replace TV as a consistent source of broad audience reach, as opposed to exposing their brands to a smaller cohort of heavy users and a long tail of occasional viewers.
YouTube Shorts is booming, but a lot of brands still treat it like an afterthought. What are marketers overlooking today?
Vertical video has become the default method for video viewing on mobile devices. When accessing popular apps like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, users have come to expect content in a 9:16 aspect ratio. Brands have steadily caught up: the days where advertisers repurposed TV ads for vertical video are gone, by and large. However, unlike TikTok and Instagram, as well as other social platforms such as Snapchat, YouTube’s heritage is in 16:9, and the majority of content on the platform continues to conform to that format. As such, marketers may lack a clarity of thinking when it comes to YouTube and the opportunities offered by Shorts.
The GCC has become a creator-first market. Does that make YouTube a bigger opportunity for brands than the data alone suggests?
YouTube still offers a vital audience for creators, even if most today will post across multiple platforms. Parent company Alphabet is focused on making it easier for brands to connect with relevant creators, and paid promotions of creator content are an important way to drive campaign effectiveness on YouTube. It’s certainly an important part of YouTube’s appeal to brands.
If you were advising a CMO in the Middle East today, what’s the one YouTube strategy you’d tell them to double down on before everyone else does?
It’s a tricky question, as YouTube is a mature platform by digital standards. Even Shorts, a relatively recent addition, has been around for half a decade. As such, hacks are not easy to uncover. That said, in the Platform Insights report we share data from a measurement company called Fospha, which shows that YouTube investments are more effective when paired with campaigns spanning the full Alphabet portfolio, including Google Demand Gen. That combination of upper-funnel, brand-building work and lower-funnel activation appears to pay significant dividends, and could be a good opportunity for CMOs in the Middle East.
What’s one YouTube trend you think marketers in MENA still aren’t paying enough attention to?
The role of YouTube as source material for LLMs and AI search is still emerging, but it’s one to watch for marketers in MENA. Everyone jumped on the early suggestions that Reddit is a key platform for boosting AI search visibility, but evidence we cite in the report suggests video content on YouTube may be more important than first thought. Long term, this may place a greater emphasis on creator content and earned media exposure on YouTube.
