Insiders say new YouTube chief Neal Mohan is the right leader to battle TikTok and reverse revenue declines
Ryan Joe, Lara O'Reilly, Lauren Johnson, Amanda Perelli, and Geoff WeissFeb 17, 2023, 10:39 PM
Neal Mohan, new head of YouTube Google
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- Longtime YouTube exec Neal Mohan is taking over the top spot as Susan Wojicicki steps down.
- Mohan is so valuable to Google, the company once paid $100 million to keep him from leaving.
- Mohan is facing a stiff task ahead, as YouTube loses revenue and fights TikTok.
Longtime YouTube chief Susan Wojicicki is stepping down after nearly a decade, but the video platform has already found a capable, veteran successor. Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan will step into the top spot vacated by his boss.
Mohan is taking over at a particularly fraught time. YouTube, once a major growth engine for Google, has suffered two consecutive quarters of revenue decline.
Not only have marketers been pausing ad spend en masse, YouTube is also battling TikTok for audiences and content creators.
But advertising insiders who've worked with Mohan describe an executive who's quiet, competent, and determined.
"He was always unfailingly polite and decent, but I have no recollection of him ever giving an inch," said Rob Norman, former global chief digital officer at ad buying giant GroupM.
From the $100 million man to the godfather of YouTube's adtech
When Mohan arrived at YouTube to lead product in 2015, he was already a seasoned and respected executive at Google. He had helped architect Google's lucrative display ad business, and established himself as such a valuable employee that Google paid him $100 million back in 2013 so he wouldn't abscond to Twitter, TechCrunch reported at the time.
Industry insiders credit Mohan with building out the ad products that made YouTube Google's main growth engine for so many years.
Tal Chalozin, CTO and cofounder of the adtech company Innovid, said that Mohan's expertise stretches across all of YouTube's ad business, particularly adtech.
"He's the godfather of a lot of adtech," he said. "That's been a big component of YouTube's success."
Mohan also pushed YouTube beyond adtech tools.
"He was leading product for the launch of YouTube Premium and YouTube TV, and the growth of YouTube Music," said one former YouTube employee.
TV was particularly important for YouTube's growth. In its early days, YouTube's status as an online video platform limited it to catching digital ad dollars. All the while, it strived to reach into the deeper well of linear TV budgets. Well before the streaming TV explosion, Mohan had his sights on how YouTube could expand into that territory.
Dave Morgan, CEO of the TV adtech company Simulmedia, remembered the early discussions he had with Mohan about how YouTube would fit into the future of TV.
"Neal has had his eye on what happens with the digitization of the television industry," Morgan said. "He had his eye on that for a long, long, long time."
These conversations struck Morgan: "A lot of folks at Google and senior leaders tend to be pretty inwards-looking: 'How do we maintain and build the beast?'" Mohan, by contrast, was looking at the market and where it was headed.
That focus is starting to pay off. Insider Intelligence forecasts 143 million US viewers will watch YouTube on connected TV sets this year, up 5% from 2022. Last year, YouTube seemed to solidify its presence in the linear TV space by participating for the first time in the upfronts, an annual dog-and-pony show where traditional broadcasters like NBC and Disney try to entice brands to spend big in order to reserve ad space against their shows. Linear TV remains YouTube's North Star.
"Viewing on a rectangle in the living room is where they're getting their biggest growth that will be necessary to have a play in connected TV," said Terry Kawaja, CEO of the advisory firm Luma Partners, which focuses on the ad industry.
The ultimate TikTok challenge
But just as YouTube is a disruptor in TV, it's now being disrupted. The explosive popularity of short-form video thanks to TikTok is threatening to lure audiences, advertisers, and creators.
Mohan was overseeing YouTube's products when it came up with things like YouTube Shorts, its short-form TikTok competitor, to keep creators and audiences on the platform. It's already started to make a competitive pitch with products that help creators make money.
Some in the influencer community credit Wojcicki with spearheading the charge to make sure YouTube was attractive to content creators.
"Susan understood from the beginning the importance of content creators on YouTube," said Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and cofounder of The Influencer Marketing Factory. "Curious to see the next moves under the new CEO."
But those who've worked with Mohan feel he's well-equipped to face this challenge.
"It's now Neal and YouTube against TikTok, and that's the existential battle for short-form video monetization and creators," Norman said. "It's a big ask, a huge challenge, and a huge job. But I can't think of anyone I would rather have doing it if I were Google than him."
Source:https://www.businessinsider.com/new-youtube-chief-neal-mohan-best-person-for-job-insiders-2023-2
