YouTube stars the secret to brand success

By Richard Chapman, managing director, The Story Lab

By the time you’ve finished reading this sentence, 33 new hours of content have been uploaded onto YouTube. At a rate of 400 hours per minute, creators share video footage covering anything and everything from animal narration, animation and comedy to news and lifestyle commentary, cooking and gaming.  It’s touted as the second largest search engine globally, and people from all over the world are anchoring their livelihoods off the platform.  

Perth filmmakers Henry Inglis and Aaron McCann launched their career off the site, achieving attention from Hollywood and eventually starting their own production company.  Natalie Tran is a Sydney-based YouTuber with 1.8 Million subscribers world-wide and 562 million video views.  Her stream of consciousness commentary has landed her sponsorship deals with Lonely Planet and Samsung.

With the plethora of YouTube content and stars though, comes an increasingly overwhelming sense for brands and advertisers who are at a loss when seeking content that fits for them. They know their audience is there, but how can they ensure a well-aligned, high quality environment?

In an attempt to answer that question, Googlers and agency executives from all over the world gathered last month to collaborate in a world-first partnership for YouTube creators and advertisers through The Story Lab and Dentsu Aegis Network.  

The partnership, dubbed “Hypernova”, will create a new frontier of authentic branded content delivered to engaged audiences in a seamless and highly relevant way.  For advertisers it provides exclusive access to a one-stop-shop for content creation, distribution and analytics.  

Speaking at the partnership launch, Mary Healy, Global Lead of the YouTube Brand Partner Program, empathised with the audience that the sheer size and scale of YouTube can seem daunting, particularly for those who have yet to try to tame the social giant. But in comparing the site to the early days of MTV, Healy was able to demonstrate the cultural and commercial opportunity that YouTube offers the content hungry audience.  “It felt really weird and scary at the time,” she said.  

We know now that what started as a platform for music videos transformed into a cultural phenomenon that can be credited as the birthplace of modern reality television.

While MTV shifted from “weird and scary” to the cultural symbol of a generation, advertising has undergone a similar transformation.  We’ve moved from the age of broadcast (think Mad Men style, one lined media plan and ‘let’s drink!”), through the ‘information age’ of the 1990’s (banner ads and microsites), into what Healy refers to as ‘the participation age’.  

In the ‘participation age’, consumers engage with brands, celebrities and content creators on social media where they interact, ask questions and more importantly – expect answers. While brands struggle to keep up in this evergreen and demanding environment, opportunity exists to create and align with great, brand-enhancing content.  

YouTubers that have gotten it right have the relationship with their communities that advertisers dream of.  Avid fans are subscribing by the millions, sharing with their friends and regularly returning for more, often without any paid media amplification.  YouTubers have become trusted friends and advisors, and from a brand perspective, being paired with the appropriate YouTube creator is effectively word of mouth on steroids.

Leveraging the power of YouTube creators will enable brands to develop more engaging content that their audiences will want to watch, with the ultimate end goal to deliver joint fame for the brand and their creator.

YouTube creators are increasingly becoming the most influential voices, particularly for teenagers.  Ad-blockers and video-on-demand streaming means viewers of all ages are increasingly tuning out of ads entirely, while those that do watch commercials are likely to be doing something else (second-screening on Facebook or Instagram) on their smartphone.  

As the power of influence migrates beyond brands to people, and platforms like YouTube create scale for conversations, brands need to explore and leverage this ever evolving space.

Ultimately, people build brands. And superstars can build super brands.