Accountants, strategists, copywriters or art directors, we are all communication people. And one of the first things you realise when you enter the industry is that you need to understand the context in which you’re doing communications campaigns for your clients. Sure, some people tend to forget to take the pulse of society anymore, but we at Minio really believe that the most important thing is understanding: understanding consumers deeply, understanding the real business needs of clients, understanding the things that move people.

That’s why the Minio Studio team made the most of the 2023 conferences. Yes, we went to almost all of them. And now we invite you to read the impressions and highlights our colleagues learned.

1. Which conference did you attend and what was it about?

Mădă: Hi, there! This time I went to Youtube Days, to give myself an update on what’s trending. I found out what content is going to look like in the future on the platform, what the general audience is interested in, the content differences between generations and how visible brands are here.

MM: I had just returned from holiday and was happy to go to YouTube Days with Mădă, the next day. It was actually the first year we attended and I appreciated that we had the opportunity to get some hot insights and see what the trends are among the platform’s users.

2. What was the most interesting topic discussed there, from your point of view?

Mădă: Surprisingly, I really liked the data part. I found that YT still leads by a wide margin in reach compared to the other platforms, and TikTok is only in third place. But also the fact that the stream is still highly valued and even useful. Even though you can now do it on other apps or platforms, YouTube provides a much stronger base.

MM: I liked the part about the future of video content, as well as the part of the presentation about AI as a creative tool. We learned, for example, that YouTube is the video content platform that Gen Z users would miss the most (if it didn’t exist anymore) or that 85% of Romanian viewers think the platform helps them decide what to buy. As for the AI side, in the context of more and more discussions and questions about whether AI will take our jobs, even agency representatives were of the opinion that AI tools are, after all, products of human imagination and creativity, so human power.

3. Who was your favourite speaker and drew your attention you to them?

Mădă: I really liked Robert Bobosa, Analytical Consultant Google Romania, because he was the provider for all those cool statistics. He was funny in his speech and came up with very interesting insights. I always say that the presentation is backed by an entertaining speach, not necessarily the presentation. And I also liked the panel with the influencers, Maria Zvinca & Theo Zeciu.

MM: I also liked Robert as a speaker, which Mădălina also mentioned, for his relaxed style and how he presented all the insights and data from the presentation, but I also liked Aneta Pleșa @ Industry Manager at Google Romania – with her presentation about the power of Youtube Shorts & Michal Czyszkowski @ Creative & Brand Solutions Manager at Google Central & Eastern Europe – about personalising video content on YouTube, for how they presented the information, as well as their own presentation style. The event had speakers from both Romania and the region and was an interesting mix.

4. Tell us one super-awesome thing you learned at the conference, something that changed the way you do things.

Mădă: “The algorithm is the audience.” – so, so, true. Because if it wasn’t, House of Love wouldn’t be in the top searches. Fascinating, really, but not surprising. Also, although I knew, I found it very interesting to learn that a lot of people do haul, but not the usual ones, but “from supermarkets haul”.

MM: One of the super interesting things I found out is that we have quite a large number of Romanian users of YouTube Shorts, more precisely 10 million users per week (YouTube Romania, September 2023), and I think it’s a content format we can consider in campaigns with content creators who are active on YouTube.5. Tell us one thing that simply amazed you, something you first learned there.

5. Tell us one thing that simply amazed you, something you first learned there.

Mădă: People still watch YT, even in extremely large numbers. I’ve never been too attracted to the platform, but to find that, together with Facebook, they’re above TikTok in reach in 2023 – gave me a bit of brain freeze.

MM: I don’t know if it necessarily surprised me, but I can say that I was surprised to learn that, in terms of content about festivals in Romania, Beach Please is the most watched on YouTube and also that 10 million hours of content about reality TV shows are watched every month.

6. Conclusions: closing thoughts about your experience at Youtube Days or at conferences in general.

Mădă: I really enjoyed this conference and I recommend anyone who has the opportunity to go to it. Because you learn old things, new things and how the process has changed in between. And it confirmed to me once again that if you have some imagination and AI you can give the coolest twists in campaigns, visuals and so on.

MM: First of all, I liked that it was a YouTube-only event, because there are other Social Media conferences or conferences with a digital profile, but not just about YouTube. What I also appreciated is that there was structured content: from insights, relevant data about the performance of the platform, interests of Romanian users, about YouTube Shorts, but also about content created by influencers.