YouTube’s new inclusive ad initiative lets creators tell brands who they are

YouTube‘s new ad program will let creators choose to disclose things like their race, gender, sexuality, and disabilities to advertisers.

Before now, advertisers who wanted to reach audiences of creators who are, for example, Black, or trans, or Deaf, would have to try to find these creators on their own, or rely on third-party services like multi-channel networks to collate a list of creators for them, because there was no way for creators to self-identify directly to brands.

The Inclusive Media Initiative, a partnership between YouTube, creator commerce company Whalar, and video ad company Pixability, solves that problem with a sort of marketplace where creators sign up and select which identity labels apply to them, and then are able to be searched and seen by brands.

(To be clear, YouTube does let creators give it information about their race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, but it doesn’t forward those self-IDs to brands. This is the first time it’s offering a path for creators to tell brands who they are–on a purely voluntary basis.)

The initiative also lets creators tell brands about aspects of themselves that are often overlooked. Beauty, art, and music creator Bri Hall

, who’s been participating in a pilot of the initiative, told Ad Age the MCNs she’s worked with have historically only labeled her as Black to brands, leaving out the fact that she’s queer and disabled, too.

“I have a friend who’s a huge creator, and we, visually, are both Black women,” she told Ad Age. “But when we ran an analysis on both of our channels, we only had a little over 1% audience overlap. I feel like some brands might look at us and say, ‘Oh, these are two Black women. They probably have similar audiences.’ … [But] with my background in art, I’ve attracted quite an artsy, diverse audience that’s more than just Black women. And my friend is in comedy and entertainment, so their audience is a reflection of that, too.”

She added, “It gives me a sense of hope about being seen as a full creator and a full person, rather than this glimpse that sometimes people get to see of you in passing online.”

Creators interested in the initiative can join it through Pixability here.