YouTube & Hulu Exceptionally Well Positioned for TV Upfront

While the common pre-Upfront belief is that the Upfront marketplace will be among the most robust in recent history, and that it is being partially fueled by a slowing shift of ad dollars to digital video, it’s clear from a recent MyersBizNet survey that this does not apply to YouTube, Hulu, AOL, Vice and a handful of leading digital pure play video media. In fact, perceptions among advertiser and media agency video buying and planning decision-makers place these companies at the forefront of their consideration set, even ahead of leading broadcast and cable networks.

In fact, YouTube ranks first and Hulu third in overall value and sales organization performance among 75 national television and video media companies in the recent MyersBizNet survey of 613 advertiser and agency executives. (ESPN ranks second.) Full results from the study including custom reports are provided to MyersBizNet member companies. A report on overall results and top 20 sales organizations are available for download at no cost at MediaVillage.com.

YouTube is especially well positioned to succeed in this year’s Upfront marketplace based on perceptions tracked in the MyersBizNet survey. The executives, all of whom have television media buying and/or planning responsibility, rated those companies with which they have a relationship in seven performance categories (see data below). In late April, MyersBizNet will be fielding a comparable survey that will assess perceptions of additional digital media publishers including Facebook, which was not included in this network-focused survey.

Perceptions of the value proposition and sales organization performance vary among different respondent groups. The full MyersBizNet member report includes detailed insights for 75 organizations and 22 respondent categories, including responsibility, region, years-in-business, demographic targets, business category and gender. Especially notable is the positive perceptions of YouTube among brand executives in all categories except “quality of audience demos justifies premium pricing.” In interviews with brand executives, they confirmed the sales organization is especially supportive and responds quickly and thoroughly to a wide variety of requests. Again, these positive results are in comparison to the leading TV networks and reflect a surprisingly strong position heading into a robust Upfront when marketers and agency buyers will be seeking alternatives to hedge cost-per-thousand increases.

2016 MyersBizNet Survey of Advertising Executives on 75 National Television and Video Sales Organizations
Rank among 75 Organizations

SOURCE: 2016 SURVEY OF ADVERTISING EXECUTIVES ON NATIONAL TELEVISION AND LEADING DIGITAL VIDEO MEDIA. Full Methodology availabe

Jack Myers

Media Ecologist, Founder: MediaVillage and Advancing Diversity Hall of Honors Jack Myers is a media ecologist and founder of MediaVillage, the media and advertising community’s leading resource for market intelligence, education, business connection… read more