As YouTube’s Top Music Genre, Hip-Hop Presents Vast Ad Opportunity – Forbes

Following the launch of audio ads and music line-ups late last year, YouTube recently announced that in Q4 2020 hip-hop was the most viewed music genre on the platform. The video-sharing company also revealed that, for the same time period, hip-hop is the fastest growing of the top three music genres (hip-hop, pop and rock) in the U.S.

While hip-hop became a mainstream genre of music in the late 1970s, Nielsen’s 2017 U.S. Music Year-End Report found that for the first time ever R&B/Hip-Hop had overtaken rock music as the most dominant music genre in the U.S. The report also discovered that the genre had inspired seven of the top ten most-consumed albums with growth fueled by “a 72% increase in on-demand audio streaming.”

Now YouTube is proving hip-hop’s power and growing it with a massive advertising opportunity for brands to connect with consumers on the platform. 

“Hip-hop is getting more savvy to streaming services and mainstream outlets, it’s maturing,” says YouTube’s Director of Black Music and Culture, Tuma Basa. “The younger generation on YouTube, they are digital natives and the monetization generation–they’ve figured out how to monetize their music, and there’s going to be a cumulative effect.”

Basa says that hip-hop is a major driver of culture, and that culture is growing on YouTube where users meet from around the world. As engagement around hip-hop increases, so do the platform’s related advertising and monetization opportunities. Brands like Levi’s are already taking notice, he says. 

YouTube also announced this week that the company is making updates to its ad offerings in order to help advertisers on the platform more easily reach its fast-growing hip-hop fans–and support hip-hop music and artists in the process. 

More hip-hop artists, YouTube creators and channels were added to the YouTube Select music lineup, a series of content lineups built for advertisers that includes the most popular and relevant content across multiple categories such as fashion, music and sports on YouTube. This includes connected televisions, according to a YouTube spokesperson familiar with the matter, who says that as of December 2020, watch time of music content generally on television screens has grown more than 50% year over year in the U.S.

In addition, updates were also made to the platform’s dynamic hip-hop music lineups. The dedicated groups of music-focused channels span across popular moods, genres like hip-hop and interests like fitness to help reach music fans around the globe. Basa explains that brands can purchase the lineups to run ads against the music, reach hip-hop fans and support hip-hop artists and creators on YouTube where they are watching.

Google GOOG Vice President of Sales, Adam Stewart, who is responsible for bringing the music opportunity on YouTube to advertisers globally, says that the platform is enabling brands to show up in front of “the hottest, most culturally relevant hip-hop music moments.”

“Hip-hop is a major driver of global culture today, and YouTube is at the heart of that engagement between artists and fans,” Stewart says. “It’s exciting that brands are recognizing the powerful opportunity to support underrepresented artists and creators with inclusive media plans and marketing strategies.”

Early this year YouTube launched the #YouTubeBlack Voices Fund, a global, multi year commitment to “center and grow Black creators and artists” on the platform. The company also added artists including Rexx Life Raj, Myke Towers, Sho Madjozi and Tkay Maidza from the Black Voices Class of 2021 to existing dynamic music lineups for advertisers to buy.