YouTube VP Tara Walpert Levy on Super Bowl Sized Success

This is Fred Richani of TSC. We have right here on the line and via Skype a very special guest. She has been named one of Fast Company’s most creative people in business Ad Age’s a woman to watch and one of cranes 40 under 40. We’re talking to the vice president of YouTube herself Tara Walpert Levy here to talk about the aftermath of an epic Super Bowl Sunday Tara. How’s it going. It’s going great that’s quite the intro. Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming on now, I’m old enough to remember when there was no YouTube and then of course, went when YouTube, but blew up, it took some time for brands like the NFL to come on board.

Now, of course, we see YouTube TV sponsoring all kinds of sports events like the kickoff show we see that beautiful Google assistant commercial during the Super Bowl that brought tears to many people’s eyes looking back at your journey and the journey of YouTube and working with all these different brands. How night and day is it compared to just say five years ago, I mean, I think it’s radically different if you think about just where people are watching. They’re in media there’s just been a massive shift. I think from predominantly television to a really surround sound experience, which is TV and all sorts of digital and other platforms.

So we have like other people campaigns that really go across all of those trying to just be where people are in the moments that matter to them and at Google assistant ad is beautiful if you haven’t seen it. I’m not gonna spoil it for anybody, but it’s just it’s very sentimental. It’s a gentleman using Google assistants. You can preserve the memories of his wife and it’s notable because there were no celebrities in that commercial from I understand the gentleman that was in there is the grandfather of an actual Google employee I believe that’s correct. And I’m glad you liked the ad it meant a lot to all of us.

And so we’re thrilled that it seems to have touched a lot of other people too, it is great. Now, I believe you’re based in New York, but of course Google is based in Silicon Valley are there some people in the office now a little sad about the Niners not winning. Oh, no doubt ah, you know, I have it, I haven’t gotten the full wake up yet out in California to hear all the other lamenting, but I can only imagine there are a lot of fans out there? How is you benefited the Super Bowl coverage, obviously there’s a ton of content out there the NFL’s producing YouTube exclusive content.

There’s a ton of different trends. I think the main ones. Of course, Patrick, mahomes Jimmy Garoppolo Travis Kelce Tyreke L debo Samuel and of course their respective teams, but how have you seen firsthand YouTube being able to kind of put the word out there with commercials in the highlights. Well, I think it’s a great point. And again, one of the things that’s changed over the last five years is actually not everybody’s watching on TV a lot of folks are streaming or they’re only watching the highlights the clips and it’s we’ve seen that trend across sports that the category of content around big sporting events has just exploded on YouTube.

And interestingly, I relate to the Super Bowl that’s that not just a media opportunity. It’s also a huge ad opportunity. We basically put together a site that has all of the Super Bowl ads in one place because of how interested people are it’s youtube.com slash ad blitz and folks start marketing they’re usually just after the first of the year and then growing leading up to the game we see huge spikes game day and actually today the day after and then it usually sustains for about a week or so at those high volumes before going a little bit more back to normal. So the interest in these in this content and in these ads is clearly unchecked and it continues to grow.

It’s been over 50% growth year over year for many years now and this year. I think we’re showing over 30% growth even on top of that. So the interest that people have in viewing this content and viewing it on YouTube appears to be virtually unchecked, it’s also a YouTube TV subscriber a big YouTube TV advocate. Not just saying that because you’re here. So, I’m just curious, let’s just say an entity like the NFL comes to you and wants to work with you as far as not just creating exclusive content. But ads as well would that be a different conversation to be had with YouTube TV or do you try to integrate across the YouTube platform and YouTube TV.

We typically try to offer advertisers availability across the platform. There’s obviously slightly different rules based on the interaction with the network’s on YouTube TV, but typically it’s an integrated approach. I mean, people again are trying to find viewers wherever they are and, you know, we have meaningful viewership on under with YouTube TV and YouTube the core platform. In fact. So, the television in the living room are YouTube’s fastest-growing screen across everything that we do. That’s awesome. Now, I do recall listening to talk you did a while ago where you talked about how people are now looking at everything more in depth. They want to know everything about anything you were looking at you use the example of looking up a shower curtain and finding what was the shower curtain.

Is there any trend in the last 24 hours. 40 hours or so during Super Bowl weekend that popped out at you that you said, Wow, okay, this is different from the usual Pat mahomes or Jimmy G search trend well. And it’s interesting because if you go to google.com slash trends, I bet you could find a lot more sort of quirky and interesting things that pop at a smaller scale what I thought was fascinating about the largest-scale is that to your point, most of the most popular searches were things that you might expect around top players or who’s winning the game, but there are two two searches pop that I thought were particularly interesting one was there is a search for how many Super Bowls have the Chiefs won which you don’t often see when we compare a year-on-year and I think here.

It’s because this is the first time in 50 years. And so that’s sort of interesting on the other was the number of people who were asking who performed at halftime. And so you sort of think to yourself is that people who aren’t watching the game and you think the volume is so high it can’t just be that. So, it really speaks to the fact that even for Shakira and JLo there’s just always a chance to increase recognition awareness and engagement with your brand or personality. And I think that’s fascinating and I’m assuming too that over the years, especially around this time with the Super Bowl not everybody can get their ad on TV, but everybody can get their ad on YouTube.

Have you seen a greater increase of advertisers around this time, especially cater news sports fans saying? Hey, we want to throw our ad up there and run it during Super Bowl videos. We have I mean, we’ve seen a lot of brands want to take advantage of the trend that’s so much of the engagement around the Super Bowl now happens online. And so I would say gosh almost half. I think of the advertisers that participate in ad blitz are new to the game and new to the program. So we continue to see as the Super Bowl does on TV some new brands participating in general across platforms and a lot of new brands who are participating online.

Only it seems like the Super Bowl gets bigger every year. I remember last year thing goes down just a couple million people in people freaked because it’s always growing, it’s always the number one trend what kind of growth. Have you seen as far as search results and YouTube views over the years with the Super Bowl. We’ve seen tremendous growth in viewership and searches online and I think that’s you know, speaking to just the changing behavior of consumers as people are consuming media in more and more places by definition. If one platform is continuing to take on new growth, then it’s gonna be it’s gonna spread it more evenly across the other platforms that exist and you know, I think we’re just fortunate that the big game continues to be a major moment.

And so those moments are now, more spread out. I think again, starting really right after the first of the year and going a week or two after game day and in more places, but certainly no less of a moment overall what can we expect when it comes to sports content. Particularly NFL, and YouTube going forward for the next year. I think you’ll just continue to see more and more engagement and more platforms. I think sports are recognizing that the importance of these streaming platforms through the growth that they’re having and in particular the growth that they’re seeing on the television set and the explosive opportunities that are available to them from ripping off the content that they have.

So it’s more highlights more interviews more fan interaction. I think all of these things make the experience better for fans and our only win-win for the folks who are producing the events themselves and all of the businesses that are participating around that. Excellent era. I really appreciate the insider and especially look at the Super Bowl a lot of fans normally don’t get to see where can it people find you online and find you next? So, thank you so much for having me. I think check out the ads on youtube.com slash adlets. And if you’re interested in any of the other trends around searches. You can check those out at google.com slash trends.