What are the kids listening to these days? Asking for a friend advertiser…

YouTube’s latest ad offering, which will roll out later this summer, aims to answer that question, enabling brands to target Gen Zers based on the songs that are most popular with them at the moment, Nicky Rettke, VP of product management for YouTube ads, told Marketing Brew.

By leveraging AI, YouTube plans to create content packages centered around songs that are trending on YouTube among Gen Zers, Rettke said, enabling advertisers to target that demo based on their current music interests as YouTube continues to expand its audio ad offerings.

How it works: Using “audience signals” from its platform, YouTube is “able to identify the most popular music that’s resonating with Gen Z” across its content, Rettke explained. Those tracks will then be featured in packages, which YouTube calls “lineups,” for advertisers buying across YouTube, YouTube Music, and YouTube Shorts.

• The lineup for a group of trending songs could include music videos, other content like Shorts, or just pure audio on YouTube Music, according to Rettke. Shorts in particular are “seeing incredible growth right now,” with over 50 billion views daily, she added.
• “We have a lot of Gen Z viewers coming to the platform, and music is playing a really big part in that,” Rettke told us. “We have seen lots of recent examples of songs taking on a life of their own through Shorts, songs from artists like BLACKPINK, Taylor Swift, or Miley Cyrus, so we want to give advertisers a way to really lean into this and help connect with these Gen Z audiences.”

YouTube audio: YouTube is a popular platform among podcast and music listeners, several recent reports indicate, which could be part of why the company has pushed further into the audio advertising space recently.—AM

Brace yourself for unparalleled and unbridled excitement: The advertising industry is joining forces to collaborate on updating the standard terms and conditions (T&C) for internet advertising, or, good ol’ fashioned contracts.

Last week, the IAB announced that it, along with the 4A’s and the ANA, would work together to update the standard contract frameworks the advertising industry uses. These aren’t the same consumer-facing T&Cs many consumers scroll past and sign without reading, but rather the agreements made between ad buyers and sellers.

The current standard T&C frameworks, which were last meaningfully updated more than a decade ago and received an addendum for digital video in 2018, are only intended for buyers and sellers—meaning mostly media buyers, agencies, and publishers doing direct deals. New versions could include language relevant to social media platforms, adtech platforms like DSPs and SSPs, audio and verification vendors, as well as updated terminology around editorial adjacency and viewability standards, Angelina Eng, IAB’s VP of measurement, addressability, and data center, told Marketing Brew.

“Everything is on the table,” Eng said.

Dry as this may sound, the update is intended to help speed along negotiations and payment timelines between buyers, sellers, and platforms, Eng said. It may also help spell out compliance requirements for existing privacy regulations, like COPPA and HIPPA, and codify limitations and expectations for advertisers.

Though many companies have their own contracts and presumably their own lawyers, industrywide consistency “reduces friction,” Eng said. “This would make everyone’s job easier.”—RB

Last week, we asked marketers how they’re navigating the possibility of a TikTok ban. See what they told us below.

Responses have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Kim Pham, co-founder of Asian CPG brand Omsom: I think it would be devastating for us, mainly just to lose another platform that we can have more experimental, more fun, more informal storytelling on. Does it really change too much of our strategy? Not particularly. I think all of our content across the board is moving more toward TikTok-esque content.

We invest very heavily in [Instagram] Reels right now. We are definitely a video-first brand, so I think we will continue our investment there and take many of our learnings from TikTok onto that platform.

Tina Nguyen, founder of XXL & Co., maker of the XXL Scrunchie: If this was last year, I would feel way more stressed about it…Now we have other networks that we reach out to and post on. We always cross-post, and I find that those ones now do a little bit better. Just because I feel like TikTok has so many users and it’s hard to get consistent, big views compared to on our Instagram, where you can add longer captions, and it’s more personalized, as well as [on YouTube Shorts]. I find that you can still pivot to there, and we also have a YouTube channel where we post 30 [minute]- to hour-long weekly blogs that have grown at the same time as our TikTok. So you do have backups for our video content strategy.

Jeffrey Tousey, CEO and founder of Beekman Social: We are not of the philosophy of putting all our eggs in one basket. We’ve always got a diversified portfolio of channels and an omnichannel approach that we’re taking to make sure that if something like this happens, [our clients’] entire social footprint is not out the window. Because of the age of TikTok—it’s still kind of the youngest platform—almost literally every company we work with already had another social footprint before growing their TikTok footprint. It’s not like this was their only channel.

Click here to read what some marketers thought of the TikTok CEO’s testimony before Congress last week.—JS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Beep boop: The Drum highlighted what marketers “should bear in mind” about GPT-4, the newest version of the large language model behind ChatGPT.

Shopping spree: Read up on some new Pinterest capabilities that were announced at ShopTalk 2023.

Inspo: How three CPG brands have leveraged AR, shoppable video, and TikTok.

First time for everything: Are you a new manager who was never taught how to manage? We’re fixing that with our New Manager Bootcamp. Walk into your new position armed with what you need. Sign up here.

You have the power: To learn how to create joyful, data-backed customer experiences at Iterable’s virtual Activate Summit from April 18–19. Attendees have the chance to win a $1,000 Airbnb gift card. Register here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• TikTok’s marketing blitz seems to do little to win over lawmakers
• What Corporate Natalie looks for in a brand partner
• Lush Cosmetics slashes ad spend on Google as part of Big Tech cuts