Why Brands Should Take YouTube More Seriously

For a platform with over 2.7 billion monthly users and 20 years of existence, YouTube still feels oddly overlooked by brands. It’s either ignored entirely or used as a graveyard for old ad campaigns and bloated brand films. 

And that’s a shame because YouTube isn’t just another social channel. It’s a storytelling platform, a cultural engine, and arguably the best place on the internet to build meaningful, long-term attention.

YouTube is different. It’s not built for fleeting engagement or passive consumption. It’s intentional. People go there to watch something specific. They go to learn, to explore, to go deep. They don’t stumble across your content by accident; they choose it. That kind of focused, opted-in attention is rare. Even within the matured digital environs of the 21st century, brands aren’t making the most of it!

Most teams are still wired for campaigns. Quarterly KPIs, content calendars, a volume-over-value mindset. But YouTube doesn’t reward that approach. It rewards long-term thinking, consistency, and a clear point of view. It’s not about flooding the feed. Instead it relies upon creating formats people actually want to come back to.

This is where creators have a massive edge. They know how to build loyal audiences by showing up consistently and delivering something worth watching. In a recent episode of The Colin and Samir Show (which spurred me to write this blog), YouTube strategist Paddy Galloway summed it up perfectly:

Perhaps the scale of the opportunity was best captured by Samir Chaudry on LinkedIn:

The good news, though, is that the blueprint already exists.

Vogue’s 73 Questions. GQ’s Things I Can’t Live Without. Footasylum’s Does the Shoe Fit. LADbible’s Snack Wars. These aren’t one-offs, but structured, repeatable formats that build familiarity and loyalty. That’s exactly the kind of rhythm brands should be building into their channels.

There are, however, many nascent green shoots already beginning to sprout in the world of brands on YouTube. Amusingly, the quality of content produced by the brands that have adopted a more creator-led philosophy only serves to highlight the scale of the opportunity missed by other brands. 

You don’t have to be a media company to get this right. You just need to act like one. Notion balances slick, high-production explainers with lo-fi, community-first content that actually helps its users. Red Bull operates more like a sports network than a drinks brand, producing documentaries and creator-led stories that live far beyond the can. Canva quietly reinforces its value by teaching users how to design smarter, not harder. And then there’s The Tank Museum. Yes, a literal museum in Dorset has built a global fanbase by obsessing over military history with infectious passion and surprising consistency, building a channel of over 1.2million subscribers in the process and an entrepreneurial tiered membership offering too.

Whilst scrolling LinkedIn, I saw that Candy Kittens, Jamie Laing’s sweet brand, has just launched Candy Kittens TV, a dedicated YouTube channel built to bring their playful, plant-based vibe to life through video-first storytelling. This shouldn’t be a surprise for this highly disruptive brand and its entrepreneurial celebrity-founder. Others will undoubtedly follow. 

Taking a step back from reflecting upon the quality of the content that could be produced and the size of the opportunity, one has to pause and think where YouTube content might sit within a broader digital strategy. And, indeed, how this channel might aid profitability down the line.

The central issue with YouTube when thinking about its adoption by brands is that it’s difficult to immediately connect its value to the day-to-day bottom line figure. If the central premise is to build formats and a community that sells vibes rather than product, it’s undoubtedly both a risky and hefty financial investment. 

Again, the creator model provides an answer - though one that might sit uneasy. Invest upfront with value in the form of education or entertainment. Once you have a loyal and invested audience your chances of selling goes from zero to infinite. 

There’s no getting away from the fact that YouTube takes effort. A lot of effort... You need a story. A structure. A little bit of patience. But the upside is massive: community, credibility, and a platform that compounds over time.

You don’t need to go viral. You need to be valuable. You don’t need to be everywhere. You just need to be worth returning to.

So maybe the question isn’t “should we be on YouTube?”  It’s “what’s the show only our brand could make?”

Because YouTube doesn’t just reward attention. It rewards commitment. For brands willing to think like creators, the payoff isn’t just views. It’s longterm loyalty.