Google lets Hollywood flex its advertising muscles while YouTube dominates: “Even though viewing habits have become more complex, reaching viewers doesn’t have to be the case.”

In a presentation Monday morning to kick off IAB's NewFronts week, the advertising giant shared the stage with executives from major media and entertainment companies, including NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount, and highlighted its focus on simplifying the ad buying process through its increasingly AI-driven based cross-media marketing platform Display and Video 360 (DV360).

Google is already working directly with Disney to offer advertisers a way to access Disney streaming inventory through DV360 through an integration with Disney's real-time ad exchange DRAX, Kristen O'Hara, Google's vice president of agency, platforms and customer solutions, said on Monday . Meanwhile, publishers like NBCUniversal are working with Google on the company's identity solution, PAIR (Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation), to enable advertisers to reconcile their first-party data with NBCUs for ad targeting purposes. Disney will soon add this capability through its DRAX partnership, O'Hara said.

“While viewing habits have become more complex, reaching audiences doesn't necessarily have to be that way – and it's all possible because we've built strong partnerships with major publishers across the board,” O'Hara said.

To illustrate the depth of these partnerships, Pete Chelala, vice president of programmatic ad sales at Paramount, and Jill Steinhauser, SVP of ad sales and revenue at Warner Bros. Discovery, joined O'Hara on stage to discuss content and reach to highlight their own platforms.

“We have the advertising rights for the culture,” Chelala said of Paramount’s library. “And we don’t chase fans to streaming – we drive them there. They come because our good stuff is actually here now.”

Television is in the foreground

During their presentation, Google executives repeatedly emphasized their large viewership on television screens – not mobile screens. According to Nielsen data, YouTube has consistently been the most-watched streamer on TV screens, and views of YouTube Shorts – heavily highlighted in NewFronts presentations last year – more than increased on U.S. viewers' connected TV screens from January to September 75%. Sean Downey, Google's president of the Americas and global partners, said.

This report was originally published by Marketing Brew.