Marketing on YouTube on the Platform’s 20th Anniversary
In 2025, the world celebrates YouTube’s 20th anniversary. Join us for an exploration of the platform’s past and present through a marketing lens.
Key facts about YouTube’s 20th anniversary
How did it all start? Just how big is YouTube? What makes the platform so successful and so attractive to users, creators and brands? We answer these questions and more in our guide to marketing on YouTube to mark the video platform’s 20th anniversary. Even though we’re all familiar with YouTube, it’s worth taking a closer look at the factors that are actually responsible for its enormous success. And who knows – maybe it’ll be you who creates the next YouTube!
The foundation of the platform’s success: the YouTube Partner Program
The strong communities on YouTube play a key role in its success. In turn, they benefit from the Partner Program, through which they enjoy a financial reward for their part in the platform’s success. Find out how the program works and what impact it has had in our YouTube marketing guide.
An inseparable connection: YouTube and VideoDays
YouTube has been shaping digital pop culture in Germany and around the world for two decades. Tim Endres acknowledges its importance and highlights the role of the annual VideoDays Festival, where creators and communities come together IRL. Tim Endres, the Director of gamescom, thinks back to the early days of the event series:
“The first VideoDay showed that gamescom isn’t just a platform for games, but rather for creativity in all its digital dimensions. It was fascinating to see how YouTube and VideoDay gave rise to a completely new form of digital pop culture at gamescom – immediate, interactive, without boundaries. To begin with, YouTube was almost an insiders’ secret at gamescom. Just a few years later, thousands of fans were lining up to see their favorite YouTubers.”
