Google’s Sean Downey on the YouTube TIFF Takeover, Oscars Ad Integration and Creators vs. Influencers

The Toronto International Film Festival is still obsessed with “Obsession.” The blockbuster horror indie sold out of the festival last year, launched digital creator Curry Barker as an auteur and has placed star Inde Navarrette in the awards conversation.

It’s also provided a victory lap for TIFF, who had Barker and Navarrette for a keynote conversation on the ground. The other beneficiary here is YouTube, Barker’s training ground, as the platform has now become an urgent space for legacy studios and streamers to find emerging talent.

Variety partnered with YouTube and TIFF to host a formal creators summit – which drew talent like the hilarious Ziwe and wilderness adventurer Mark Vins – and caught up with Sean Downey, Google’s ad sales and partnerships chief for the Americas. Here we discuss the “Obsession” effect, the line between creators and influencers, and the approaching advertising wave for YouTube’s first Academy Awards broadcast in 2029.

YouTube is having a breakthrough moment, in terms of legacy media opening its mind to what creators are capable of. How does that affect your strategy and positioning for ad sales?

Sean Downey: YouTube is a place that can house at any type of content, but it’s mostly a place for incredible creative content. Short or long form, it has meaning for people. It’s authentic in that it reaches audiences on interests they care most about. There’s trust, and that’s valuable. In the ad world it creates traction. Advertisers know they can expect a certain level of attentiveness and large audiences know they can come for fresh content. [For us], it’s about the communities that advertisers can reach.

Is the “Obsession” effect trickling down to Madison Avenue, in terms of YouTube’s influence?

One hundred percent. I think the advertising community has known for years that YouTube is the future of entertainment. I haven’t spent a single minute convincing them that YouTube is premium and the place where entertainment lives. It’s more about, “How do you effectively use a creator to further your brand message?” You can’t put a billboard on YouTube. It’s a place where brands could become deeply ingrained in the storytelling. More of the brands and the agencies are trying to get involved – sponsoring the content or becoming content themselves.

It’s interesting – there seems to be a distinct line between influencers and YouTube creators, but we at Variety are hearing increasingly that traditional brand deals for personalities are in decline. That seems like an opportunity for the creators.

Creators are different than influencers. YouTube is a different environment than other platforms [like Instagram]. We allow you to have engagement with a community, back-and-forth. Talk to any great creator, they’re going to tell you they get a lot of their content ideas and their programming through commentary with the audience. There’s a there’s a relationship there. They can tell a story over time, not just in a 30-second blurb that happens once. Brands understand that because they’re trying to build long-term relationships, and they recognize that this is a community that can do that. It’s less about having a spokesperson.

The Oscars are coming to YouTube. How are you thinking about meaningfully incorporating advertisers?

We love live events that have culture. We’ve obviously dabbled in the NFL, and that’s not just a game. It’s a 24/7 event. We hit a billion hours of watch time against the World Cup, because you get to tell stories [around it]. The same with Coachella, where we’ve been doing deep partnerships with brands, creators and musicians that drive a lot more relevance over time. The Oscars are no different. It’s obviously an awards show, but there’s a whole culture, community and stories to be told around the Oscars, which we’re really excited to unlock. You can go deeper behind the talent that’s there, the events around it, the prognosticators talking about what’s happening. That’s its own little industry. It can all live on YouTube.

How was the response from the brands when you announced the deal?

They’re excited because they look at YouTube as a surround sound investment. There are events that they like to sponsor, but they they’ve fallen in love with the storytelling aspect and the micro-cultures around different stories. When we start doing sponsorship packages for events like that, we think about ad space in the moment, creators around it that you could integrate your brand into and content you could put your brand next to. An advertiser could walk away with [a campaign] for a week or two around an event that also sits on the platform in perpetuity. It only accumulates views and brands get a lot of reach.