YouTube Launches Open Call to Connect Brands With Creators

YouTube announced an easier way to connect brands with creators, called Open Call, on Tuesday at the Cannes Lions festival.

The feature allows brands to place broad requests for sponsored content to any creators in the YouTube Partner Program. The tool is powered via Brand Connect, inside YouTube’s creator partnership hub.

“With the thriving creator economy, we’re greatly investing in ways to help brands tap into the influence of YouTube creators,” said Melissa Hsieh Nikolic, director of product management at YouTube, in a blog post. “With our new Open Call feature, we are making it even easier for brands to identify and partner with the right creators that resonate with their audiences at scale.”

Open Call allows brands to post a creative brief detailing a campaign, and creators can submit a custom video pitch for review. The brand can then decide whether or not to use the video in its campaign. If a brand accepts a video, then it can promote the video as part of a partnership ad and monitor its performance.

Open Call aims to streamline creator hiring at scale. It taps into the 3 million creators in the YouTube Partner Program, where ad revenue can be shared with creators.

Open Call follows YouTube’s May launch of the creator partnership hub at NewFronts. Through the hub, brands can find sponsored videos and see insights about the performance of linked videos. The tool builds on the partnership hub’s mission to streamline brand–creator deals.

According to YouTube, Open Call is currently available for “select advertisers” with a broader launch in the coming months.

The announcement arrives as YouTube continues to grow in importance for advertisers. The platform boasts 2.53 billion active users, and Google reported $8.93 billion in ad revenue from YouTube in the first quarter of 2025.