Tubular shared insights at the ARF Shopper 2022 event about the three social video tactics every marketer should understand when engaging shoppers.

Social video + lockdowns drive ecommerce

Over the past year, creator monetization tools evolved, social commerce integrations put in place, and more video shopping technologies emerged. Ecommerce was propelled by social video and fully accepted by younger audiences throughout the pandemic, and has fueled the growth of the creator economy.

Videos with the hashtag #shopping steadily increased over lockdown, but what’s really interesting is the rate of engagement ranked increased far more than the number of uploads. Meaning, there’s a lot of room for growth in this category. 

No, it’s not oversaturated. Not even close.

Sometimes what social video audiences purchase online is very obvious, and other times it’s completely unexpected. We find that many creators driving conversions in a specific product category aren’t the typical choice companies make for partnerships. 

Understanding what social video audiences are purchasing online helps companies meet consumers where they already are. This information also allows partnership directors to discover up-and-coming creators who might have smaller audiences but higher conversions and engagement rates.

1. Creators have major impact on conversions

Looking at the percentage of the market share social video audiences make up in these major consumer categories helps us understand the magnitude of sales and commerce social video is driving today. Of course, this number will continue to skyrocket. Individual brands, media companies, and marketers can look even closer at these insights to be applicable to their own accounts, competitors, and niches. Tubular links over 10,000 Amazon product categories to our countless video content categories and creator profiles.

Impact and improvements for marketers

Both publishers and brands use the shopping insights to prove the value of an audience, whether it’s their own, their partners, or their competition. In this instance, it’s evident that Dr. Dray drives a huge portion of her audience to purchase skincare products online — roughly 40%. That’s a direct video to shopping cart conversion. Of her 1.2M monthly viewers, that’s an estimated 500k individuals actively shopping online for skincare products.

2. Viral trends matter

To get a holistic view of viewers, we look at viral trends to see what kind of sales they’re driving.

Shopping insights tell us about product categories as well as specific brands. 

Slugging is a viral skincare trend that originated from niche Korean beauty content. Insights show the significant impact leading influencers have on sales on the key ingredient to this trend: Vaseline. A key driver in this trend, James Walch, has an audience is far more likely to purchase Vaseline online than the average viewer. These insights help brands like Vaseline validate the impact of a viral trend the creators igniting them. Without these insights, it is difficult for marketers to quantifiably measure the impact influencers or content have on sales. While the industry has historically used different “media math” equations to project impact, there’s nothing that can get you quite as close to accuracy.

3. Branded content influences purchases

Here, we see a partnership between Pillsbury and a Food & Recipe channel. In this case, Tubular’s Consumer Insights data can be used to prove the success of a campaign. Pillsbury shoppers in this audience increased by 7x. Campaign impact is clear, accessible, and proven.

Insights to actions: 

So, how does Tubular produce shopper behavior intelligence you can trust with Consumer Insights?

We provide a true mirror of culture so our clients can understand where they can thrive.

1. Data: Tubular’s intelligence analyzes billions of videos and compares content, viewership, engagement, and more against exclusive panels, platforms, and partners. This high level of cross-platform ratings ensures that the insights you’re getting are not only trustworthy but constantly improving.
2. Categorization: Then, we systematically categorize these videos into an unparalleled number of niche categories. Our thousands of sub-genre video categories are able to be linked to over 10,000 Amazon product categories.
3. AI machine learning models: this technology has the ability to learn and predict connections, content trends, and consumer behavior.
4. Discovery: Lastly, Tubular users are able to access their own relevant Consumer Insights and that of their competitors and potential partners.

For the short 10-minute recording of Tubular’s ARF Shopper presentation, click here.

If you want to provide inspiration to your team, access the full panel recording here.

The post 3 Ways Audiences Convert to Shoppers appeared first on Tubular Labs.

Tubular sat down with a trifecta of industry leaders to discuss their unique perspectives to navigating the rapid expansion of social commerce, related measurements, and future innovations.

Toto Haba from Benefit Cosmetics represented the brand perspective, Gaz Alushi from Whalar brought insights on measurement and Peter Shields spoke about what Instagram is doing to connect creators, commerce, and measurement.

Keep reading to learn how:

• Creators bridge ‘the trust gap’ for companies to drive more conversions.
• Social commerce continues to integrate into video while measurement tools follow.
• Brands and media companies are diving into the metaverse — today. 

The Rise of the Creator Economy

When we asked our three panelists about their earliest indications that social media would give rise to a creator economy, they shared experiences from decades past. Gaz Alushi shared his insight when a new regulation required content creators to put “#ad” on their sponsored content. “For me, that was a signal. This has scaled enough to a point where regulation (which tends to move slowly) is now recognizing this is something that needs to be acknowledged and we need to start figuring out guardrails.”

Today, we see that creators have bridged a gap that pre-creator advertisers always struggled to fill — Trust. Creators have an immense amount of influence over their loyal, niche audiences. This is often much more effective than the big-spend advertising that intrudes on viewing experiences. Referencing a point earlier in his career, Peter Shields shared how he came to realize the true power of influence early on: “We would pay Justin Bieber $10,000 for a tweet, and then we’d pay Lilly Singh a hundred bucks. The conversion rate on the creators was so much more impactful because they’d train their audiences to click and to do things. I realized at that point, these creators had so much more power.” 

We see how powerful creators can be, but how has that created an ‘economy’ of sorts? Gaz Alushi gave us a masterful definition that is too good not to share:

Creator Economy: “An evolution of the media landscape. I think we keep perceiving it as something that’s brand new, but if you look at media holistically, we had TV images broadcasting into the home, then with digital, you could selectively choose what you were consuming. Then, feed-based algorithms allowed people to see content that was really making them feel great. Now, you just push that envelope further to the Creator Economy. It introduces this lexicon of authenticity, accountability, relevancy, and trust. And that’s what the creator economy is. It’s having a real conversation with consumers in a way that’s really accessible to them and something that just hasn’t existed for quite some time”.

Takeaway: The Creator Economy offers marketers and brands accessibility and leverage like they’ve never had before. The panelists agreed it’s not about choosing one or two creators to get the job done. It’s about measuring business KPI’s and finding a unique portfolio of influencers who can fulfill the richer media plan.

Social Commerce in the Coming Year

In-App Integrations

By the end of 2021, every major app had begun to run demos for in-app shopping capabilities. While the majority of online shopping still occurs by creators directing commerce to either individual sites or Amazon, social platforms are working hard to continue to push this forward. These important integrations will drive higher conversion rates by offering users more convenience, allowing closer tracking on partnership success rates.  

Toto Haba told us that over 50% of Benefit Cosmetic sales in China are coming from social shopping, a lot of which happens over live streaming. He shared “If you get a creator like Austin Lee to promote your product on those big selling days, you’re minting money. He is literally selling $200 million of merchandise on a single day” from these types of livestream shopping integrations. This brings us to an interesting piece about video content being a key competent of driving conversions.

Video Incentives

The ultimate goal this year is to incentivize creators to embrace video formats (with higher conversions) than static images. We know that videos provide more authentic viewing experiences which increases trust. We also know that formats like live streams foster a sense of urgency, while also allowing viewers to ask questions and communicate with their favorite creators.

“There’s an all-out shift toward formats of video as an industry. Thinking about Instagram content that’s shoppable right now, a large portion of it is static and that is not doing us any favors. Video is much more engaging for consumers, so we will continue to build ways to reward people for making videos.”

We saw this trend happen in late 2021 when YouTube created a $100M fund to incentivize creators to make #shorts. Historically, most influencers have been paid through brand sponsorships, but we’re likely to see more platforms opening up those avenues to guide creators. Shields also noted that Instagram will likely offer better measurements and tracking tools for video content to encourage growth in this area. 

Takeaway: Sales Commerce is only just beginning. Platforms and brands alike, are driving video-shopping integrations more than ever. Static images are quickly fading into background noise while live-stream sales continue to emerge as a powerful selling tool. 

Brands Enter the Metaverse — Today

The metaverse isn’t a future woe, it’s here right now and innovative brands are diving in. 

Meta’s huge roll-out video had many people talking about the future of 3-D digital worlds and avatars, but many thought of it as a long-term vision. However, our panelists had a different take on the matter. 

In fact, the metaverse has actually been here for a long time, and it’s not hard for brands to lean into it. Toto Haba shared how Benefit Cosmetics has already taken the (virtual) reigns:

“For many people, metaverse is a new term, but for gamers, it’s existed forever. If you play any video games — you’re in the metaverse, because you’re doing it with someone else with a 3D avatar in another space. So it’s really an extension of our gaming strategy. We’ve been trying to connect beauty and gaming together because we know there’s a ton of women that are into gaming that aren’t being spoken to. Benefit has hosted gaming tournaments and we’ve been partnering with game developers to create branded experiences. When you think about the metaverse, don’t immediately jump to the fancy Ready Player One vision of it. The metaverse is already happening right now. It’s through gaming, and if you want to participate, that’s your route.”

The fact that a beauty brand is on the leading edge of embracing the metaverse is iconic. Companies that lean in first will be rewarded with expanding younger audiences and early insight. But how will the metaverse change the Creator Economy as we see it today?

The metaverse and 3D interactive environment will further evolve the Creator Economy and the way audiences function. Today, we see that it’s creator-to-audience, but when audiences can share an experience with each other, marketing will happen many-to-many. Peter Shields shared his thoughts on how community dynamics will shift: “My hope is that we see more community-based interactivity where people are sharing experiences with each other, as opposed to the one-to-many broadcasting. While I think that will exist and persist in the metaverse, the change will be this shared sense of togetherness that enables new types of creators who are building worlds and experiences that we don’t currently accommodate in the 2D creator economy we have today.”

Takeaway: Start now. While many still think the Metaverse far off, it exists now and it will grow at astronomical rates. Not only does it allow new ways for users to interact with your brand, but it also allows them to interact with each other. These factors created a deeper sense of loyalty and community. We’ve already seen brands acting as creators, but eventually, they will also be foundations of highly interactive and connected communities.

If you want to provide inspiration to your team, access the full panel recording here.

The post Industry Leaders Discuss the Future of Social Video & the Creator Economy appeared first on Tubular Labs.

This year’s additional week of NFL games meant an additional week for franchisees to engage with fans. Admittedly, the field narrows as winning teams advance and others fall through the cracks, but looking at the top teams shows that even losing teams scored big on social video. 

On Facebook, these were the top teams by views over through the regular season: 

1. Atlanta Falcons | 166.0 million views | 288 uploads
2. Baltimore Ravens | 126.0 million views | 347 uploads
3. Dallas Cowboys | 57.5 million views | 610 uploads
4. Green Bay Packers | 54.3 million views | 860 uploads
5. Miami Dolphins | 52.2 million views | 284 uploads

Get this — out of the top 5 social video winners, only 2 made the NFL playoffs. Let’s find out how the teams made up for their losses! 

Atlanta Falcons: Homemakers Cheer on The Rudest Team 

The biggest draw for Falcons’ views was a fan video posted in March. Fried rice art of Julio Jones’s face regularly generated over 2 million views per day. Despite the fact that Jones was traded to Tennessee in June 2021, the unique video remained a favorite and a welcome break from game highlights. 

Aside from game highlights, Atlanta also celebrated the anniversary of “The Rudest Team”  from their 1991 season with a three-part docuseries on YouTube that attracted viewers commemorating the team’s history. 

When it comes to what Falcons fans are purchasing online, one might be surprised to find that Pantry Supplies, Kitchen Accessories, and Household Items are all within their top ten Amazon purchase categories. Sounds like these football fans have been hosting watch parties in their homes. We found that this year’s Publix partnership with the Falcons was right on par with the team’s viewership! 

While not in their top 10 consumer categories, 20.16% of the Falcons audience shops online for consumer electronics. Microsoft made a great decision to sponsor with their Microsoft Tablet. 

Baltimore Ravens: Athletic Consumers and Their Favorite Players

Microsoft Tablet was also their #1 sponsor, but only 4.79% of the Ravens’ audience shops for laptops online. What else are they scrolling for, you ask? Eight of their top 10 purchase categories revolved around sports, activewear, and video games which is one reason why EA Sports Madden FL was a great partnership decision for the team. 

Baltimore’s top videos revolved around a couple of Ravens players. Kicker Justin Tucker was featured in six of the top 25 Facebook videos, mainly for his record 61-yard field goal vs. the Lions. But quarterback Lamar Jackson also appeared in six of the top 25, particularly for his jersey retirement ceremony at his alma mater, Louisville.

In large part, current moments drove the interest for Ravens fans to tune in, using positive emotions to connect fans to both past and present success.

Miami Dolphins: Short-Form Content for Their Techy Audience

Miami’s approach to connecting with fans was geared toward player reactions. Nine of the Dolphins’ 15 most-watched Facebook videos revolved around “mic’d up” moments of team members.

The Dolphins also dedicated resources to game-specific highlights both in advance of games and in the immediate aftermath. Most popular among those was this “Elevator Content” clip in advance of Miami’s game against the Giants. Notably, 83% of the Dolphins’ video uploads this season were less than a minute long, as the content strategy leaned into shorter content to quickly grab fans’ attention.

As for Dolphins fans, three of the top 10 purchase categories revolve around home security and personal safety. 8.23% of their audience shops for computers and tablets on Amazon, while 6.85 shops for computer accessories. 8.23% of their November 2021 audience of 11.4M means that over 939k Dolphins viewers were shopping online in this category. 

Interestingly, Microsoft Tablet wasn’t a partner for this NFL team whose audience has a higher purchase affinity for electronics than the teams mentioned above. Utilizing tools like Consumer Insights from Tubular helps refine advertising strategies and gives marketers the ability to more accurately project campaign ROI.

Insights to Actions: 

• Tap into Nostalgia by memorializing past seasons and celebrating a team’s cultural evolution. This allows advertisers to leverage star power in their campaigns to grab attention from loyal audiences of all ages. 

• Break the Fourth Wall and allow audiences to get closer to your athletes or on-screen celebrities. Audiences are craving less intrusive ad experiences while streaming. Using key players from content can help integrate ads with entertainment.

• Don’t Stop at Content Data when it comes to refining your strategy. Using Audience Demographics & Content Intelligence to empower decisions is necessary. What’s even more important to marketers is that audiences are highly likely to purchase their products. Using Consumer Insights helps the sell-side benchmark the value of their audience and helps the buy-side target the best-suited broadcasters for their products. 

If your company is interested in learning about Tubular can help you refine your content strategy, contact us here.

The post The NFL Expands Massive Audiences: But What Are They Shopping For? appeared first on Tubular Labs.

That’s all changed with Tubular Audience Ratings, which provides de-duplicated, cross-platform measurement for metrics like audience demographics, unique viewers, watch time, and more.

In our recent product webinar about these Ratings, we showed how advertisers can finally partner with media companies to reach the right audiences, and how media companies can position against competitors and prove the value of their audiences.

Here’s a quick rundown of the key points! 

How Advertisers Can Discover the Right Media Companies to Work With

As an advertiser, one of your primary goals is to partner with media companies who boast the right audience for your advertising and brand awareness needs. 

Tubular Audience Ratings helps you pinpoint these exact companies. With these metrics, advertisers can now search for and partner with the most engaging creators in their industry by demographic and minutes watched. 

Example: You’re an advertiser at Toyota. You’re tasked with reaching more young women in the U.S. with your next ad campaign to build brand awareness before these drivers get their first cars.

You need to find the best match across media creators in the auto and racing spaces who have high engagement and watch times. 

Using Creator Audience Ratings, you narrow down your top choice to Donut Media, which boasts the highest minutes watched per unique U.S. female viewer aged 13-24 at almost 40 minutes per viewer.

Donut Media’s channel has also increased its overall minutes watched by unique viewers fairly consistently, showing a more engaged female audience.

How Media Companies Can Prove Audience Value and Reach to Advertisers

As a media company, it’s vital you prove your audience’s value to advertisers. When you can prove a large audience reach or even a strong presence in a particular demographic, you can make stronger claims and win more RFPs.

Highlighting your top metrics can also help you position yourself against competitors and land more deals.

The more you can prove you efficiently reach key demographics, earn high views and engagement, and continue to grow your channel(s), the more likely you are to convince advertisers to work with you instead of a competitor.

Example: You’re a media seller at Group Nine Media. You need to convince advertisers at your next meeting that you’re the right company to partner with to help them reach new audiences.

Using Property Audience Ratings, you can select audience regions and categories you know you’re strong in.

The resulting data shows that your property The Dodo is #1 by minutes watched for the pets category, is steadily growing by unique viewers, and has a low cross-platform audience overlap between your Facebook and YouTube audiences. These are powerful sales claims you can now make.

How Advertisers and Media Companies Can Find the Right Influencers to Partner With

Finally, both advertisers and media companies who want to improve their influencer marketing strategy in 2021 will need to find the best, most relevant, and most cost-effective fit for their brands. Tubular Audience Ratings help you evaluate influencers in this way.

For starters, you’ll be able to go beyond subscribers counts to determine which influencers are most relevant to your brand based on your target audience, a certain topic, and overall reach and time spent.

You’ll also see true de-duplicated reach and audience overlap between key influencers so you only pay for the actual, targeted audience you want.

Example: You work with influencer partners at Activision, and you’re looking for influencers to help your gaming company reach new audiences in 2021.

When you start searching for influencers with millions of followers, you can now also see whether or not those viewers actually spend time with the content. 

You can also narrow down your search to something like “French gaming influencers” with the most minutes watched in the previous month, and you could also find top creators by unique viewers on YouTube for the topic “Call of Duty.“

Want to make your buying or selling more efficient?

The post How Social Video Measurement Helps You Buy and Sell Media Efficiently appeared first on Tubular Labs.

Having such a massive audience is one thing, but convincing partners of the value of that audience is a different challenge. So how does Group Nine prove this reach to potential advertisers and brands?

Tubular talked to Bobby LaCivita, VP of Research and Measurement at Group Nine Media, about the company’s content and measurement strategy, as well as its participation in the Global Video Measurement Alliance. 

Here were his key thoughts:

Successful Content Comes from Meaningful Measurement 

Group Nine Media takes data and insights very seriously. According to LaCivita, the company has always used data and custom research to determine its content strategy.

For example, Group Nine has two research panels it uses to have in-depth conversations with its audiences. Additionally, LaCivita said important metrics like watch time, people coming back to content, and even recall/purchase intent are used to guide content decisions. These metrics prove Group Nine has a lasting connection with audiences.

“We’re asking people what types of content they like, what they like seeing from us in particular, and where our voice is most trusted, so that we can lean into what we get from meaningful conversations with our audiences,” LaCivita said.

“It’s incredibly important because a lot of the things that we thought we knew about our industry and our partners’ industries have changed significantly.”

Qualified Audience Reach Is Key to Proving Value 

Within the video industry, “reach” can be defined by any number of methods. It could be when a video starts playing, or a single impression, or a view-through rate mark (which varies by providers and platforms). But that’s not qualified or standardized, LaCivita noted.

That’s why LaCivita loves the 30-second view qualifier from Tubular Audience Ratings. It makes cross-platform comparisons equitable, which helps Group Nine determine the validity and intentionality of viewers. The company can then take this watch time and present it to advertisers and brands, which produces better results overall.

“It puts things back into human terms of how long did somebody actually watch this piece of content or this creator for over the course of a month?” LaCivita explained.

“We’ve looked at results between viewers who watch things for three seconds versus 10 seconds. And for longer attention times with specific pieces of content, we’ve consistently seen that will also correlate with higher brand impact.”

Consistently Delivering on Expectations Builds Trust

Finally, LaCivita said that it’s always important to listen to advertising partners about what’s valuable to them, what types of audiences they like, and what they view as successful. For example, one advertiser may want to work to retain viewership and interest, while another may be interested in acquiring attention from new audiences. 

Once such KPIs are set, it’s important to provide content that consistently meets expectations not just of the partner, but also of the audience. They, too, have expectations about what they’ll be given, especially if a relationship has been established with them.

“What is valuable about our audience is a combination of scale, diversity, and trust, and the long-standing relationships that we have with each of our individual users, the conversations that we have with them through custom research and through our social channels,” LaCivita said.

As such, Group Nine must be “consistently delivering against those expectations that [the audience] developed for us over the years.”

Curious how you can prove your audience reach like Group Nine?

The post Group Nine Reaches 80% of U.S. Millennials; Here’s How It Proves That Audience Reach appeared first on Tubular Labs.

And while social video can be a great destination for discovering new talent, you still have to find the cream of the crop out of thousands of musicians trying to make a name for themselves.

How are you supposed to find artists who have a proven track record of success on social video which can translate to revenue and growth for your label?

Our new report reveals exactly how your label’s A&R team can find and sign these rising stars on YouTube! We looked at the growth of music on that platform over the last year, and found that: 

1. Unsigned artists and those signed to independent labels claim a large portion of YouTube views: The vast amount of independent musicians on YouTube means your label has a clear opportunity to scout new talent not yet snagged by your main competitors.
   
   
2. Indie rock and soul music are growing genres across music influencers: If you can find artists who are growing in popularity within these genres, you’re more likely to be the first to work with them.

Here’s some more details to help you make the best choice when discovering and signing new talent:

Increase Your Music Label’s Share of Voice by Signing Independent Artists

Music creators continue to grow in popularity on YouTube, with views increasing 4% vs. last year as of September 1, 2020. This increase includes plenty of up-and-coming musicians hoping to make it big.

For example, when we looked at the overall share of voice across the top 100 videos uploaded by music influencers so far in 2020, 38% of total views stemmed from independent artists and labels. This is 2% higher than the share of voice earned by Universal Music Group in this same time frame across these 100 videos! 

The dominant presence of indie artists and unsigned musicians on YouTube provides a unique opportunity for your music label to find and add talent to your roster knowing they’re already primed for success on social video.

Takeaway: Increase your views and share of voice across platforms like YouTube by finding unsigned artists who are clearly making an impact on social video and therefore have a higher likely potential for long-term success. 

Focus on Growing Genres to Scout New Talent

While it’s easy to say you should find up-and-coming talent on YouTube, it’s harder to figure out exactly where to look. That’s why you should pay attention to genres growing in popularity on the platform. 

In our report, we discovered that from September 2019 to August 2020, some of the fastest-growing categories on YouTube uploaded by music creators were indie rock (which grew 55% with 1.2B views) and soul music (which grew 47% with 6.9B views).

Clearly, over the last year audiences have been eager to watch and listen to artists in these specific genres on YouTube. So once you understand which genres are trending upwards, you can scout out top talent and artists who are leading the pack in that area of music.

Takeaway: Look to growing genres and sub-categories of music to understand what’s popular among audiences and fans. Then, seek out the most-watched or fastest-growing musicians within these genres and sign them so you can be the first to work with them.

Want to see how else you can uncover your next big music star?

The post How Music Labels Can Use Social Video to Scout New Talent appeared first on Tubular Labs.

How are you supposed to differentiate your properties, audience, and more to win more deals?

The good news is you can craft the story you want to tell – you just need the proof points!

Below are some best practices and inspiration for highlighting your brands’ best wins, differentiators, and proof points to advertisers.

Here’s what you can do to best position your pitch:

Differentiate Your Property from Competitors or by Genre

What are some of your key accomplishments? What kind of impact do your channels/properties have regionally or globally, and why? How are your individual brand channels performing? 

Determining and presenting your key strengths not only looks good for potential advertisers and brand partnerships, but can help you stand out from your competitors.

Example: You know you were 98th out of hundreds of global media companies on May’s most-viewed leaderboard, so include that in your pitch deck.

Highlight How Your Audience Resonates with Your Brand Advertiser

Your audience may be one of the strongest pieces of fodder you have when creating a pitch deck. Lots of brands want to “buy an audience,” and it’s the way most advertisers think.

By pitching your strengths in this area you’ll become a must-buy and can better connect with brands looking to reach the audience you’ve cultivated.

Example: Tell your audience’s story in your pitch deck. If a brand is looking for males 25-34 and you reach that audience, for example, include that, especially if you reach this audience more consistently than a competitor.

Use White Space and Rising Trends to Offer Ad and Brand Partnerships Something New

Lots of brands and advertisers want to do something that’s never been done before so they stand apart from their competition, just as you want to do yours. 

This is why you should look to rising trends so suggest novel content opportunities for your ad and brand partnerships. Look for a category with high demand and views but low supply.

Example: Home & DIY content might have a small amount of videos uploaded last month, but it has incredibly high view counts, so that’s a high-performing area you should pitch to advertisers and branded content partners. 

Want to learn more about how to land bigger, better deals?

The post 3 Steps to Building Successful Pitches for Brand Partnerships appeared first on Tubular Labs.

In a recent webinar, we chatted with EVP, Marketing Jonathan Hunt and VP of Business Intelligence and SEO Aaron Braxton about Complex’s secret (hot) sauce for successful content and monetization.

Here’s what you need to know:

1. Start with Deep Audience Understanding

Before investing or creating new IP, it’s essential to understand who your audience is, what they like and dislike, and how they consume/interact with your content.

Hunt and Braxton suggest you conduct deep audience analysis using solutions, tools, and resources best catered for where your audience spends their attention.

“If you’re not doing psychographic profiling at an entity level, meaning audiences are different for every series, and then overall within the primary platform that those series are deployed, then you don’t know who’s watching your show.”

– Aaron Braxton

2. Let Data and Creative Work Symbiotically

When vetting new content ideas, take data-backed guidance from your business intelligence or data teams to your creative team. Then, lean on holistic data sources to determine where this new content should live before investing and deploying.

Always benchmark new ideas and talent against previous content performance to ensure it appeals to your current audience while also unlocking new viewers. 

“Aaron and his [business intelligence] team have done a great job in positioning BI as being a really fundamental resource to help unlock new ways of thinking and new ideas for things that maybe creative teams haven’t been thinking about, but could actually engage audiences at larger scales and maybe even drive more revenue as a result. I think it’s that dynamic that’s so crucial for any kind of BI team to have with their content team.”

– Jonathan Hunt

3. Think of All Videos as Potential IP for Monetization

Any integrated sponsorships, merchandising, and licensing that fit with the subject of your content are all valid monetization options. In fact, any series could become a new revenue stream! 

For example, Complex grew its Hot Ones fan base from an online audience that has now purchased more than 8 figures’ worth of products from its hot sauce line, as well as licensed the series to TruTV (which ended up being the network’s biggest premiere in 5 years).

“We had been so successful in actually proving out that IP, it made a conversation with Turner and TruTV very easy to have. [It] also allowed us to then extend [Hot Ones] into a new format, to new audiences, and then to engage our existing Hot Ones and First We Feast audiences into becoming people that tuned into that series.”

– Jonathan Hunt

Curious how Complex’s other growth strategies could work for you?

The post Here’s the Secret (Hot) Sauce to Complex’s Content Strategy appeared first on Tubular Labs.

“It’s impossible,” said Ilana Levin, Executive Director for Sales Strategy and Development at USA TODAY, in a recent Tubular webinar. Therein lies the struggle for so many media sellers today.

“Advertisers want metrics that we can’t necessarily deliver and guaranteed views that we cannot necessarily promise.”

To overcome this, publishers must build confidence amongst potential advertisers. Gannett & Co.’s USA TODAY video property is approaching this with gusto.

The media arm is leading video growth across the premium ad business, thanks to a bold brand identity and a sophisticated video narrative they deliver to media buyers.

It’s about identifying “what is valuable to our readers and intersecting that with what brands and advertisers find valuable and creating this really great marriage,” added Russ Torres, VP of Digital Video Content and Strategy at USA TODAY.

To achieve this, USA TODAY routinely harnesses Tubular data to meet the needs of their bread-and-butter audiences and, importantly, to differentiate themselves to advertisers.

Tubular hosted a webinar with Levin and Torres to unpack USA TODAY’s successful digital video strategy. We’ve consolidated these into five actionable tips on how to boost your media selling:

• Identify your wow factor 
• Ask yourself tough questions
• Solidify your KPI strategy
• Uncover white space you can enter with brand partners 
• Adapt quickly to evolving audience preferences

Read on as we unpack them.

1. Identify Your Wow Factor

Digital publishing today is overwhelming. There is an oversaturation of content to compete with. And there are endless ways viewers can consume videos, from platform (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook), to mobile versus desktop, to CTV (Roku, Fire, Apple TV) and OTT (Netflix, Amazon, iTunes).

One month’s worth of social video data alone is truly an ocean: 2 trillion views. 40 billion engagements. Almost 100 million videos uploaded.

To stand out, media publishers must differentiate themselves to potential advertisers by producing engaging content verticals that draw consistent audiences.

“Identifying those strengths and those differentiating factors is paramount in order to survive and thrive today,” Levin said. It starts by “capitalizing on our franchise that performs well.”

One such franchise is USA TODAY’s successful Humankind brands. Launched in 2015, it includes “Humankind,” “Militarykind,” and “Animalkind.” And in 2019, “we launched ‘KidKind’ thanks to Tubular’s insights about a good area to expand into,” Levin said.

These verticals tell stories about extraordinary ordinaries, people and animals engaging in acts of compassion and social uplift. These are stories that throttle your heart, from soldiers reuniting with their young children to kangaroo rescues during the recent Australia wildfire.

The Humankind franchise garners about 5B cross-platform views in a year, and a consistent 35-40M views on Facebook in a single month, according to Tubular data.

USA TODAY also has live news video offerings and video franchises based after the newspaper’s iconic sections (from the green-collared money section to the purple-tinted life section).

When it comes to populating these feeds with quality content, USA TODAY’s parent company Gannett & Co., which recently merged with Gatehouse Media, has more than 260 U.S. news operations, ranging from small players like the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio, to the Detroit Free Press and the aforementioned USA Today. All of them are “thinking as one newsroom,” explained Levin.

Finally, the media entity has a studio structure called Bluepoint Originals, which is “premium, high-quality, serial, custom-content around passion points,” explained Levin. This is also the focal point for the company’s branded creative content team, which offers a direct in-house revenue portal.

2. Ask Tough Questions

To best drive revenue, Torres routinely grapples with big questions when green-lighting video campaigns.

• Is a video commercial enough for a particular sponsor or brand?
• What does that look like in a consistent, scalable, and repeatable way?
• What is the ideal frequency of a video campaign?
• What platform do you focus on?
• Do you publish certain loss leaders even though the platform doesn’t offer relative compensation, but may offer marketing and reach?

“There are just these strands of unknowns and it certainly does take a little bit of crystal ball reading,” said Torres.

But asking these questions to then set individual KPIs for your different properties can help you gauge success.

3. Solidify Your Strategy and Benchmarks

Before approaching media buyers, it’s important to clarify your sales strategy and individual KPIs. “Are you revenue-based, are you content consumption-based?” Levin said. In the case of USA TODAY, “we want people to consume our content and we want to make money from it.”

The USA TODAY team consists of thousands of media sellers. The majority of those are on the local team representing more than 100 local properties. They also have a 20-person national sales team that focuses on monetizing national campaigns.

USA TODAY’s goal is to keep viewers on the page. When it comes to internal video metrics, the sales and content teams look to video completion rates as a key metric of success.

The team watches “to see if the user gets past the first video into what we’re calling continuous play,” Levin said. Entering continuous play means more ad starts and thereby greater monetization.

Externally, Levin said she gets a lot of questions from media buyers about “which video lengths get more views. I’ll just rationalize that these metrics are not truly indicative of our performance and our success.”

“Video views are vanity,” added Torres. The real focus is time spent. “We use not only the duration (audiences) watched but where they dropped off. That just helps you tighten up the creative and make the content more meaningful to users.”

For those who don’t have fresh metrics when promoting a new venture, another tact is to focus on brand affinity. “When I don’t have the numbers, I just talk about the value of the USA Today Brand. We’re a household name. We reach one in two Americans. That stands for something,” Levin said.

4. Uncover White Space

Explore High-Performing Video Categories

Almost 100 million videos are uploaded to social video platforms each month. These videos range from user-generated content (think: a dog chasing a cat up a tree) to publishers who are creating dynamic lifestyle content at scale.

With such scope and variety, how do digital media publishers keep tabs on new trends and expansion opportunities?

“One of the tools we use is Tubular to really help us identify white space. Particularly in social, where there are so many publishers,” Torres said.

“Tubular helps us to understand who the leaders are in particular categories and that is the way we get at the type of videos that we think our readers will want to watch and consume.”

Consider travel. After seeing great traction in its text-based travel content, USA TODAY is developing a video franchise. They came to this path by “leveraging the data” to see what they were strong at and “comparing that to what’s not being represented well in our channel,” Levin said.

“We went to Tubular and said now that we’ve identified travel as our white space, what specifically about travel? Is it food, is it travel hacks and tips, is it fashion in other countries, is it sports in other countries? What element of travel is going to work best?” Levin said.

Taking on Levin’s process, let’s drill down on Tubular’s Travel & Destinations category. It’s clearly hot. In 2019 the genre earned 15.8B views and 225M engagements on YouTube for 89K videos, and 20.9B views and 559M engagements on Facebook for 99.8K videos.

Among these, experiential travel videos are clearly winning out. We’re talking bucket-list, daredevil travel content. Extra points if they incorporate aerial beauty shots!

The top five most-viewed travel videos in 2019 include going up a narrow set of stairs in Sri Lanka (in freaking flip flops), turning yourself into a human slingshot in New Zealand (ouch), and losing your lunch on the mindblowing 2019 Coachella Ferris Wheel.

Approach Advertisers With Early, Actionable Insights

For USA TODAY, uncovering white space helps better cement their relationship with advertisers.

For example, the media brand’s internal reporting discovered a boost in home renovation interest and spending.

The video sellers took this info and stratevideogized how to communicate this to advertisers so that they “get ahead of what they-don’t-know-they-don’t-know,” said Torres. “That there is this expenditure coming and actually we can get you in front of people who have a curiosity about buying their first home.”

They then follow-up with a strong case for video. “Video is really helpful for that because it is a demonstrative medium. It shows you the hit of the hammer on the nail. It debriefs with construction and carpentry experts,” said Torres.

Methods like this allow USA TODAY to take advantage of a rising trend as well as give advertisers an early buy-in.

5. Adapt Quickly to Evolving Audience Preferences

Audiences are fickle. It’s important to adapt to changing preferences swiftly. Torres has a mantra to this end: Fail fast. Iterate. If something isn’t working, stop.

“You iterate, you study the insights, you make changes based on insights provided and if it’s still a clunker, it’s time to move on.”

Advertisers build trust in your brand if they know you are fearlessly adapting to better meet your audiences’ needs. Torres cites Brighthouse Financial’s recent sponsorship of their World Series Coverage.

“We’re two pieces in and our programming team, which operates with real-time analysis, noticed we weren’t given the expected completion rate.” His team used on-the-ground insights and adjusted their content right away to hook audiences longer.

Ensuring high content performance, and a willingness to switch things up midstream, is a big part of long-term client relationships.

“It’s helpful that Brighthouse wrote a check to help us sponsor that content, but if people are not watching it, shame on us,” Torres said. “We want to make sure Brighthouse will come back because they know when they come to us, we convert people.”

Activating USA TODAY’s Video Playbook

USA TODAY’s approach to media selling is seeing repeatable success. Media sellers, if you’re struggling to make headway with buyers, you should keep USA TODAY’s data-informed approach in mind.

USA TODAY’s final takeaway: The data is clear. “If your story can offer elements of inspiration, you got it,” Torres said. This method resonates with both viewers and advertisers (who have aspirational messaging in their DNA).

Acting on this advice is simple:

• Use video to tell people something they don’t know.
• Offer elements of inspiration, followed by practical tips on how to become better.

Want to learn even more ways to match USA TODAY’s success through data?

The post USA TODAY’s Top 5 Tips for Media Sellers appeared first on Tubular Labs.

UK’s Social Chain Media is working creatively to meet this challenge by leveraging the power of data. In a recent Tubular webinar, Christian Grobel, Managing Director of Social Chain Media, discussed just what it takes to prove ROI with confidence.

Founded in 2014, Social Chain has secured partnerships with the world’s most cutting-edge brands from Skybet and Amazon, to Apple Music, Logitech, and Coca-Cola. Their growth continues to balloon this year, having just acquired five more revenue-charged social media brands.

Social Chain boasts a multi-pronged monetization and sponsored content strategy that focuses on:

• thinking beyond video – optimizing the link between video and e-commerce
• trumpeting their audience profiles – delivering brands niche Millenial and Gen Z audiences across their 43 targeted content channels
• going where the growth is – exploring long-form content, technology, and expansion into non-English speaking markets

Want to rake in more ad dollars? Read on for more on the Social Chain way.

The 411 on Social Chain Media

Social Chain Media “connects people by their passions,” said Grobel. Each of the company’s videos sparks comedy or outrage, perfectly primed to catch fire on social with young audiences.

The performance data speaks for itself.

• Social Chain garnered 132 million unique video viewers last July on social (a record!).
• The publisher has 80 million followers on social and recently surpassed 1 million subscribers on TikTok.
• Social Chain has 43 dedicated content channels in sports, gaming, food, and fitness that reach millions of Millennial and Gen Z audiences monthly.
• Its channels, including Student Problems, GameByte, Music Life, and Girl Life, tallied a combined 1.4 billion total video views and 33M engagements across platforms in the last 90 days.

Social Chain has multiple divisions, including an agency and a media publishing house. The agency is where the social strategies for brands emerge. The team partners with and develops influencers to create stellar branded content.

There’s also a large publishing arm with 43 channels. This content is often sponsored and monetized by brands as well. This leaves two routes for fruitful brand partnerships.

“The power of video has been extreme. Products have sold out. Brands have been very happy creating video content in a very trusted and authentic environment,” said Grobel.

Yet they, and anyone operating in this space, must make constant plays to prove their worth. The online video ad market remains slim as buyers throw more ad spends at time-tested linear TV.

About 52% of advertisers report they are buying both digital and TV ads, according to a FreeWheel Video Marketing Report. So full convergence isn’t yet widespread. After all, that leaves 48% waiting to make the full leap.

However, the young audiences that advertisers covet most are crazy for online video. Gen Z alone spends almost the same amount of time per day watching content online as they are offline content, according to a GlobalWebIndex report.

So, what we’re seeing now is an inflection point. Digital is overtaking linear in terms of viewership, audience, and reach, but there’s an imbalance when it comes to the dollars behind it.

With branded or sponsored content, the stakes rise. Media teams are charged with both: delivering thunderclap content and demonstrating to brand partners some tangible return on their investment.

That said, branded and sponsored videos are just the icing in the Social Chain universe. The company identifies as an “integrated entertainment company with social at its heart,” said Grobel. “Video sits at the heart of the awareness portion of our work as we strive to build communities.”

The digital arm executes experiences from food festivals to original video series pegged to major gaming events like the Sky Bet tournament. They also stage activations, like their recent parade of plus-sized influencers in lingerie on New York City streets to promote womenswear brand Simply Bee.

Media sellers looking to stay competitive long-term may need to reframe their video content as a communications arm rather than the main money generator. Developing brand pitches that go beyond video to incorporate a live element from a pop-up shop to a festival activation is a start. This adds another point of connection between brands and audiences.

If You Build It, Brands Will Come

“Optimizing the link between video and e-commerce is big in brand relationships,” said Grobel.

Social Chain Media is essentially creating its own way to deliver ROI to brands. How? By building the video-commerce infrastructure itself!

This past month, Social Chain launched a proprietary livestream Facebook shopping software. Soon, U.S. video audiences will be able to buy products seamlessly during a live video activation. This model has seen great success in China’s online commerce space.

In this case, Social Chain saw an opening in the Western market and dove right in. The takeaway here is if you need something, maybe it’s best to build it yourself.

Media companies need not start this big. The opportunities to combine editorial opportunities with licensing opportunities in the commerce space are endless. PopSugar (recently acquired by Group Nine Media) developed its own beauty product line, from face scrub to lip balm. What better way to show brands that your videos can sell products than by sharing your own sales numbers?

And consider BuzzFeed’s Tasty. The cooking platform recently partnered with Walmart to make more than 4,000 Tasty videos shoppable. Read more on Tasty’s monetization efforts here.

The key here is to a) not rely solely on video revenue to keep your business afloat and b) clarify the specific pathways between your video and point of purchase.

How To Promise Brands the Audiences They Want

Fifty percent of content consumed by Gen Z on YouTube and Facebook is on influencer channels, 48% is on media companies, like Social Chain, and only 2% are on brand channels for minutes watched, according to Tubular data.

Clearly, if brands want to reach younger audiences, it is essential to activate with media companies and influencers, or by buying branded content in these places.

Grobel explained this is all too clear with gamers, who are highly intolerant of ads. Over 60% of gamers use an ad blocker, according to internal Social Chain research reported on by Tubular Insights. “So that makes social video a very key way to reach them online,” Grobel said.

Social Chain Media has a direct access point to 6M highly-engaged gamer audiences via its GameByte channel, which consistently tops Tubular’s leaderboards. The channel is flooded with gems like this cow completing a skyscraper parkour course. Moo-smerizing.

Brands that partner with Social Chain are able to embed ads into content that audiences can relate to. This content matches the trusted aesthetic on the social channel, thereby getting past a gamer’s infamous blinders. One such example is Frontier Developments’ Planet Zoo overview/teaser video with GameByte.

Media sellers hook ad dollars when they can present their social content or channel as a true access point to a specific demographic. The more niche you can get the better.

To assess their demographic and audience footprint, Social Chain Media uses Tubular Labs, which shows GameByte has a 91% male audience, the vast majority of which are 18-24. This particular audience also has a high affinity for such channels as College Humor and UNILAD Tech, which showcases tech innovations and hacks. In moments, we’ve constructed a simple audience profile.

GameByte viewers are a great fit, for example, for tech brands looking to market a hip new gadget to young male viewers. And those same tech brands may fare well with a satirical trial video or comedic use case to truly appeal to this audience.

Media sellers savvy to their data can confidently approach buyers. They are armed with insights that really differentiate their content. All it takes is a little data digging to get an edge over everyone else.

Brands Want To Build Trust, Can You Deliver?

Brands working with Social Chain Media come with different requests, ranging from awareness to performance measurements like downloads.

But one unifying ask prevails. Brands come “for our trusted, authentic voice,” said Grobel. “It’s that authenticity and trust that sets (video) apart from more generic forms of advertising like paid and programmatic.”

Digital publishers deliver this via the strong communities, and super fans, they magnetize to their social feeds.

“Having a social video that lives in a trusted community should be a key part of advertising campaigns that live on digital,” Grobel said. “The key is to create an environment where your media company’s affiliation with the brand counts for something. That said, choose your advertisers and brand collaborators wisely.”

So, how do you actually prove you’ve done your job? How do you tell if a brand’s voice is more trusted amongst your viewership?

Social Chain has an in-house data division that looks at audience likes, trends, and reactions to advertising. “We survey our own audiences to find the effectiveness of advertising,” said Grobel. That’s the kind of data media sellers can provide to Social Chain’s clients.

The use of surveys to understand digital audiences is ripe for excavation this year, especially amid reports of Chrome’s intention to do away with third-party cookies. In short: get on this.

We Need a Single Currency Across Social Media Dealers

“Millennials and Gen Z are 55% more likely to be on social media for up to 3-4 hours a day. And 1 million 18-34 year olds in the UK use social media more than 10 hours a day, far more than television,” said Grobel.

Still these stats aren’t enough for brands and advertisers to go all-in on online video. “To have some kind of currency across social media videos would be invaluable,” said Grobel.

The video data is there. The trick is agreeing on what metrics best demonstrate ROI.

Social Chain Media has joined Tubular Labs’s Global Video Measurement Alliance (GVMA), with a mission to create a modern measurement standard that a whole industry can confidently transact on. Other members include Discovery, Buzzfeed, Mattel, Viacom, and Vice.

This measurement standard will help advertisers gauge if spending a lot of money on a platform will ensure they reach their intended audiences. This can give a better sense of reach (much like GRPs in TV media buys). And if all brands and companies can get on board and develop a trusted currency, that’s going to help everybody.

Social Chain Media’s Next Steps

Keeping up on the latest industry moves is critical. Still, in this everchanging online video space, most of us are running and staying in the same place. Social Chain, however, has hopped off the treadmill, thanks to improvisation and willingness to try new things.

In 2019, Social Chain saw a 64% rise in the number of video views for its long-form content, said Grobel. This has inspired more investment efforts into high-quality content across platforms.

Another trend that isn’t going anywhere is the pivot to international video markets, specifically in the LATAM and APAC region. For those taking this course, here are some insights to maximize your efforts.

Social Chain Media sellers, in particular, are exploring non-English speaking markets across Europe (Spain, etc.) and Asia. The company needs to make sure “the economics are there to create content that audiences will love,” Grobel said.

Tubular Labs’s data wholeheartedly vindicates a move to non-English markets. Spanish language content alone is a great growth market. Whether it be Spain or LATAM, which is home to the third-biggest increase in viewership of YouTube videos from the first half of 2018 to the first half of 2019.

Read more here: Latin America Is the Next Video Frontier

Takeaway: Differentiate Yourself with Data, The Rest Will Follow

Video performance data can help your company confidently answer these critical questions:

• Who is my primary audience?
• What else are they watching?
• What type of products or pastimes do they like?
• What is the specific buying power of this demographic?
• What brands are eager to target this demographic?

These insights not only help you boost engagements and audience affinity, but they can also help you create a customized data story for brands. Unlocking the power in your data can help your company develop, from transforming your business practices and bolstering your pitching, to giving your business that much-desired edge.

Want more nuggets of wisdom you can use for branded deals?

The post How Social Chain Media Hooks Video Partnerships with Top Brands appeared first on Tubular Labs.

So, how does Levi Strauss & Co stay on top in a crowded and ever-changing apparel market? It goes where the growth is.

The 166-year-old denim brand’s focus: creating killer social video content for international markets, like India and China, and converting these new audiences into loyal consumers.

No easy task. Legacy brands looking to connect with new consumers in the age of video are up against so many smaller indie publishers that make it look easy. Brand content teams, as a whole, are tasked with both competing for views against native publishers and proving their online video efforts are worth it in the first place.

Levi’s manages this dilemma by creating issue-based content that is targeted to a specific demographic, like India-based youth, or sales target.

So, instead of competing for every single eyeball, they are competing for a very specific viewership. The denim brand consistently scores among the top 10 apparel brands on Tubular’s monthly global leaderboards when it comes to cross-platform video performance.

Whether you run a small or big video arm, working to find a foothold in the apparel video space is worth it. After all, apparel and accessories content is a hot growth area.

In this category, cross-platform views have increased by 13% and engagements by a whopping 19% in 2019, compared to the year prior, according to Tubular data. And the audience is huge all around. Fashion and style content creators reached 830M unique viewers worldwide in a single month last December.

Read on for a look at how expanding into APAC is done, Levi’s style.

Levi’s Draws on Core Brand Identity To Electrify Content

Apparel companies aren’t just selling clothes, they’re selling a lifestyle. The winners in the consumer-fashion space are using video as a vehicle to amplify the human element.

People and lifestyle-themed apparel brand content that runs at least a minute long scored higher average 30-day views (V30) in the last year than content about fashion alone.

(Note, these categories are not mutually exclusive, so one video could be in both). If we drill down further, it’s content about women’s culture that truly dominates.

To inspire its lifestyle content, Levi’s has a long history to draw from. A pair of Levi’s has long represented more than jeans itself.

During the Cold War, the jeans were worn by young people as an act of protest. And according to the company’s CEO Chip Bergh, it was even a form of currency behind Iron Curtain. As Levi’s reaches new audiences with this year’s campaigns, it’s drawing on what it’s always stood for: self-expression against all odds.

“Levi’s brand and product are rooted in authenticity and originality. The brand is a celebration of democratic and inclusive ideals,” said Jennifer Sey, Levi’s SVP and Chief Marketing Officer, in Retail Dive.

“We have always been a brand that connects people. Cool city kids, hipsters, people from the heartland, moms in the suburbs. They all wear Levi’s and they all wear them their own way.”

As brands expand into APAC and LATAM, content strategists and creators must trumpet themes that resonate in these regions, all the while staying true to their brand’s core principles. This calls for that perfect balance between broadness and specificity.

And when it comes to converting views into sales, content teams benefit from innovation. It serves as a type of wind at their back, whether it be full-scale product development or even a new twist on a beloved product (churro-flavored Oreos, anyone?).

In recent years, Levi’s has focused on developing both strong content and products, a symbiosis of impactful video campaigns and denim innovation. (Speaking of, ever worn a pair of temperature controlled-jeans? Pretty groovy.)

Read on for how this has played out in specific Levi’s campaigns.

Levi’s Call for Inclusivity and Equality

In 1990, being sexy in an advertisement was a political gesture. Case in point: Brad Pitt’s 1990 Levi’s ad appearance (before he was famous). Brad Pitt may still look the same, but when it comes to social issues, times have definitely changed.

Today, Levi’s campaigns are diverse; they’re in multiple languages and they call for inclusivity and equality. Many link to a specific action you can take or advice you can follow to better your life.

This strategy boomed in 2017 when the brand released “Circles,” an ad that celebrates a world connected by music. The ad is among the brand’s most-viewed and engaged content ever, with all versions on YouTube pulling in 82.3M views and 48.8K engagements and 29.5M views and 380K engagements on Facebook.

The ad resonated specifically well on Levi’s India creator channel. Why? Because it serves as a unifier in a politically-divisive time. “Rich, poor, straight, let’s live how we dance,” the ad said.

In this case, data indicated that featuring a diverse cross-section of faces and voices resonated with audiences. This steered Levi’s way towards the larger, highly-successful global campaigns to come.

Go for Growth: The Future of Denim Is Global and Female

The future of the jean industry is female and centered in China and India. As the overall U.S. denim market contracts, Asia saw a 6% growth rate in jeans sales over the past decade according to Bernstein, a research and brokerage firm.

Levi’s is actively engaging these demographics on social. In the past year, it’s pumped out documentary-style video content that stars global influencers and celebrities, covers political and personal themes, empowers women, and conveys the brand’s evergreen principles:

Go beyond labels. Make the world a better place by living a life that is true to you. 

Let’s dive into some of the iconic brand’s recent APAC campaigns.

“I Shape My World” 2019 Campaign Inspires Women

Last International Women’s Day, Levi’s launched the “I Shape My World” campaign, a series of stories from successful female influencers across the globe who are taking risks and speaking up for women’s rights.

The overall effort drew 20M views and 17.2K engagements on YouTubeand 2.8M views and 74.1K engagements on Facebook as of this writing.

The content was positioned as personal telegrams to the 110 countries the company sells to, often presented in regional languages. The voices hail from India, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, and more. The campaign video alone, which drew 2.8M YouTube views, gives me chills!

The most-viewed documentary shorts include:

• Saudi Arabian comedian Hatoon Kadi who riffs on the confidence it takes to be a female comic in the Middle East (2.1M views on YouTube)
• Şahika Ercümen in Turkey who tells her story of how she conquered asthma to become a world-class diver (2.6M views on YouTube)
• Maria Osado in Mexico who, when fed up with the stereotypes in the modeling world, created her own agency to encourage more diversity (1.1M views on YouTube)
• Seventeen-year-old activist Zulaikha Patel who talks about her fight against racism in South Africa (88K views on YouTube)

“Proud to be More” Campaign Gives Indians a Voice

In November of 2019, Levi’s launched its “Proud to be More” campaign, a collection of vertically-shot mini-docs. Think: cinematic vitamin C shot.

In this age of identity politics, Levi’s takes a step back and shows how we are much more than one thing. The videos feature inspiring Indians from the LGBTQ+ community who refuse to be reduced to stereotypes: “You decide the worth of my mouth by who I choose to kiss with it. Not what I choose to shout with it.”

The stories are all the more poignant in a country where homosexuality was illegal until very recently. In 2018, the Supreme Court of India repealed Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to finally decriminalize homosexuality.

The campaign garnered 9.3M views and 557 engagements on YouTube and 3.3M views and 263K engagements on Facebook (as of 03/05/20). This helped push Levis’ into the top 3 apparel and accessories brands worldwide in November 2019. (Source: Tubular Labs Leaderboards, Most-viewed Apparel & Accessories Brand Properties, Nov 2019)

Using exclusive audience measurement tools, Tubular data is able to measure the viewers behind the views for Levi’s. In November 2019, Levi’s reached 9.1M unique viewers worldwide and the audience watched 12.3M minutes of Levi’s content. That’s more than 23 years of watch time!*

The most-engaged videos include:

• Filmmaker Onir who refuses to live in the shadows. “I’m gay and I refuse to be invisible.” (64.5K engagements on Facebook)
• Drag performing artist Sushant Divgikr on the power of recognizing your male and female energy. “Your character and personality is way more than your orientation. It’s your jokes. It’s your flaws.” (50.4K engagements on Facebook)
• And artist Priyanka Paul who says, “I like cheesecake and I like girls. I like the color and I like glitter. And only one of these things I like separates me from the rest and puts me into a box.” (55.8K engagements on Facebook)

India, the biggest democracy in the world, is clearly hungry for this type of content. And Levi’s is delivering. In addition to Levi’s dedicated India creator channel, Levi’s U.S. creator has a 5.9% viewership in the subcontinent.

This focus has arguably had an impact on sales in the region. Levi’s India had a decade high sales growth of 25% in its 2018-19 financial year. The brand saw the most growth in women’s jeans in the region.

Levi’s Honors Chinese New Year

China comprises 3% of Levi’s sales, reports CNBC. And though the brand expects a financial hit this Chinese New Year season amid recent coronavirus concerns, the country remains a focus area of growth.

For the past several years, Levi’s has reached out to Chinese audiences with an annual Chinese New Year’s resolution, featuring such beloved stars as William Chan (2.2M YouTube views) and Qi Xing-hua.

The past two years, Malaysian-Singaporean actor Lawrence Wong took the driver’s seat, drawing millions of Levi’s fans. The video formula is simple and effective: Wong opens up and takes an honest self-inventory of how he fared the year prior.

This annual-check in becomes an opening for group reflection. At the end of the video, Wong has a resolution to share. For 2019, Wong told viewers “this year, follow your heart” (1.1M YouTube views).

For 2020, Wong said, “This year win your way.” This year’s campaign saw the strongest results yet, earning 3.6M YouTube views, 3.3M of which transpired in the first 30 days (V30). This compares to a V30 of 332KYouTube views for William Chan’s 2017 Chinese New Year’s video.

This is precisely the type of data that can inform future campaigns. In addition, Wong’s resolutions surface at the end, presented as a type of Easter egg. This means a longer watch time, as viewers wait for the words of wisdom.

Extended time with a brand matters in this video climate. Is Levi’s the mailman or the guest you invite in for tea? In the case of this ad, it’s the latter.

The Way Forward: The Audience is Your Compass

For brands looking to follow Levi’s lead, here are some closing thoughts.

Firstly, if you haven’t activated Indian audiences yet, now is the time to develop localized content. Tubular Labs has seen record growth in the region.

On YouTube, there was a 53% increase in total views in India in the first half of 2019 as compared to the year prior. That’s much faster than in the United States and elsewhere in the world. We also see growth on Facebook.

Want More Insights like This?

Secondly, what you say matters. An iconic brand helps inform who we are as an individual or a country. People use apparel brands to tell their story. They wear it as an extension of their identity. Are they a skater, a burnout, an intellectual?

A brand must have a fresh social-video life that matches the zeitgeist. When the product is static and the video feeds aren’t taking on the major issues or pastimes of the day, the brand loses relevance.

When taking a stand, established brands need to be wary of the limitations of legacy. Look to your past brand messaging for openings and possibilities rather than limits. Build on brand authenticity, draw on nostalgia.

And when (not if) you take a stand on a contemporary issue, connect it to your past track record. Show how you’ve always championed this issue.

Your support of a more global perspective doesn’t have to be so explicit. Even broadcasting from the country you are looking to reach can leave a large impression. Levi’s Skateboarding arm, for example, takes audiences to the streets of Tbilisi, Georgia, where skateboarders jump over Soviet structures and dirt hill bombs and to Taipei, Taiwan as they pop ollies on brick-paved arteries.

When your brand’s longevity depends on growth in specific markets, audience data becomes more important than ever. It’s a way, beyond sales numbers, to see how your target groups are engaging with your brand, or responding to your messaging and innovations.

Make sure you have a clear sense of which demographic your brand is targeting on social video channels. Is it a specific age or gender or region? Then look to Tubular’s data to see if your audience is aligned with your target market.

Look at performance insights for specific videos and campaigns to further see if you’ve increased audiences in your target area. Look at what your audience is also watching, a feature built into Tubular’s platform. The insights may revitalize your approach.

Interestingly, Levi’s creators draw more unique views from females than males on their cross-platform video feeds. It’s data like this that can help provide a brand with clues on how to further refine content.

Finally, many brands see themselves on a pulpit, delivering messages to their audience. But it’s actually the opposite. A new audience is your compass, your teacher, guide. Social video and engagement data provides a portal through which brands can determine what these viewers really want, building on successes and scrapping the rest.

Curious about how you can up your video game in the apparel industry?

* Source: Tubular Labs standardized audience metrics (Beta) | Cross-Platform (YouTube, Facebook)

The post Want to Engage APAC Audiences? Levi’s Is the Brand to Watch appeared first on Tubular Labs.

Now that anyone can be a video creator, there’s more variety in content, more ways to distribute it, and more people willing to watch.

Consider this: a recent GlobalWebIndex report found that around the world, Gen Z is spending almost the same amount of time per day watching content online as they are offline content!

Despite this massive growth, there’s currently a $13B annual gap in the digital video advertising market today.

According to a new study by Vorhaus Advisors in collaboration with Tubular, publishers could potentially earn $21.6B annually across YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, but are only pulling in around $8.2B.

That’s 2.5x more than they currently earn from video advertising on these three platforms!

How did Vorhaus come to this conclusion? Along with Tubular, the research incorporated Tubular’s vast video data and a newly developed analysis system called the Digital Video Realizable Advertising Revenue (DVRAR) model.

DVRAR aims to characterize the current and potential revenue for digital video publishers by estimating the full video advertising revenue potential across both branded content and advertising revenue shares.

Curious to learn more about the DVRAR findings?

The DVRAR model draws on Tubular data across YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. The firm also independently talked with industry experts, who agreed that at least 80% of monetizable video in the U.S. is found on those three platforms.

Vorhaus believes the DVRAR model and its estimated $13B gap is conservative at best. The firm and the independent industry experts posit publishers could, in reality, be earning much more than this figure every year.

So what’s holding the market back? Simply put, it’s a lack of transparency in the video ecosystem and the inability to measure the true impact of video content and advertising.

Because of this dilemma, advertisers aren’t willing to invest in video advertising, even though publishers have the vast digital audiences necessary to support more advertising than they currently have.

Here’s just one member from the Global Video Measurement Alliance about tackling this challenge in the ecosystem:

“(Media buyers) know how to evaluate TV. Social video and branded content (has been) challenging for media buyers. We want to help the buyers spend less time on the justification, so that we can unlock more of the budget.”

– Alana Calderone Polcsa, Senior Vice President, Brand Content and Partnerships,
The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Ellen Digital Network

Unless these issues are recognized and rectified by industry professionals, the video ecosystem risks missing out on this $13B (or more!) based on the true reach and value of publishers’ digital audiences.

Want to learn more about how you can claim some of this $13B?

The post How Publishers Are Missing $13B in Video Advertising Revenue appeared first on Tubular Labs.