Brandcast 2025: YouTube's Upfronts highlights
May 14, 2025 – [[read-time]] minute read
At Brandcast, we brought together brands and creators to celebrate YouTube's 20th birthday and offered a front row view of how brands can make the most of YouTube. With the world's most influential creators, most passionate fans, and biggest moments, There's Only One YouTube.
Innovations for brands: Connecting in culture and driving action
Building on our leadership in culture and the living room, we announced Cultural Moments Sponsorships. This brings together a suite of solutions to put advertisers at the heart of moments they care about, like the PGA Championship or awards season with a high share of voice and brand integrations within content viewers love.
And there was more big news for live moments: NFL's Friday night game in Brazil during Kickoff Weekend — a first-of-its-kind experience that invites fans around the world to watch the game on YouTube, with no extra fees or subscriptions required.
We also announced Peak Points, a new product built with Gemini that identifies the most meaningful, or “peak,” moments within YouTube’s popular content to place your brand where audiences are the most engaged.
And finally, we’re bringing new opportunities to drive both awareness and action to the living room. With the immersive design for Masthead on CTV, we’re offering an edge-to-edge canvas for ads on the YouTube homepage. And with Shoppable CTV, viewers can browse and engage with products directly from the big screen.