TikTok, YouTube, and Snap were also called to testify before Congress regarding their initiatives to protect children. TikTok released a report on teen safety in an attempt to preempt further regulator scrutiny; despite that, a UK High Court judge has allowed a class-action case against TikTok over its handling of children's private data to proceed.

Why it matters: US streaming giants are making bold moves to garner more subscribers: YouTube renewed its deal with Major League Baseball to stream live sports, Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed it plans to merge Discovery Plus and HBO Max into one streaming service, and Amazon acquired filmmaker MGM.

The UK digital ad market is thriving. It will grow 11.9% this year, reaching £25.84 billion ($35.54 billion). Video will be a big contributor to this growth, as will social network spending, which is being disrupted by the likes of TikTok.

Younger consumers in the UK continue to drive the digital conversation, but older age groups did some catching up during the pandemic. And these older consumers are attractive to marketers and brands by dint of their disposable income.

Also relevant is that YouTube was included in the survey’s video category for the first time this year; that can only have boosted overall penetration. Respondents estimated that they spent 55 minutes per day on average streaming TV and other video content.

In September 2020 polling by Takumi of internet users ages 16 and older in Germany, the UK, and the US, YouTube ranked as the top destination for engaging with influencers, cited by 47.3% of respondents. That was nearly 10 points ahead of Instagram and more than 30 points ahead of Snapchat and TikTok.

In the UK, for example, one in four internet users owned at least one smart home product in H1 2021. In the US, that share was 20.5%. In many countries, digital video has overtaken broadcast TV. As in prior years, TV still reaches more consumers worldwide than any other content-based medium.

Together, Google and Meta will continue to attract over two-thirds of digital ad spending in Western Europe’s five leading markets—France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK—formerly referred to as the EU-5. Google’s net ad revenues across the former EU-5 will rise 11.6% in 2022, due to high engagement with search and YouTube.

Next year in the UK, digital video ads will make gains, Brexit will continue to complicate ecommerce and data privacy rules, and retailers will reimagine the in-store experience.

As of now, YouTube and Instagram continue to have a strong lead in the battle for creators. In a September 2020 survey by influencer marketing agency Takumi, 47.3% of teens and adults ages 16 and over in Germany, the UK, and the US said they engaged with influencers on YouTube.

In the UK, the number is 62.5%. We expect the duopoly to lose about a single percentage point of market share in Canada each year through 2024. Google is the No. 1 platform for digital ad spending in Canada. This includes two areas where it dominates—search advertising and digital video advertising (via YouTube).

The pandemic led to many upward revisions of our UK digital user forecasts. Some changes (podcast listeners) will be permanent, while others will be temporary (digital gamers). Our social network user numbers, meanwhile, didn’t change much at all.

With UK adults having so much time on their hands, it’s perhaps surprising to see audio struggling to hit the same, or at least similar, heights as video. However, with commuting (a key listening environment) essentially nixed, maybe this was to be expected after all.

In the 18-to-34 age bracket, for example, the rate of social buying was 33% in the UK and 25% in the US. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are by far the most commonly used platforms for social commerce in Canada. According to a Bazaarvoice survey in December 2020, 24.5% of adults said they were most likely to use Facebook to make purchases, while 17.1% cited Instagram and 16.5% pointed to YouTube.

Lockdowns in the UK drove up video consumption, and multiperson households made good use of their multiple screens. Advertisers now need to adapt to an audience that is more device-agnostic and content-hungry than ever.