Branding David

Jordan Hoffner - Director of Content Partnerships - YouTube

The introduction by an executive from CBC wasn’t interesting, and it was rather long winded, but it was nice to hear that CBC wants to find a way to do better in online video beyond just their YouTube channels.

They are concerned about copyrighted content and control over it.

Jordan Hoffner took the stage with a fairly strong presence and comes from the Google side of the YouTube/Google merger.

“You have to partner with the media companies.” - Jordan Hoffner

They provide fingerprints to YouTube and then if there is uploaded content that matches the video fingerprint, the content producer then gets to choose: leave it, get advertisements around it, or take it down?

With more and more content going up online, it creates a great revenue footprint for producers, and content owners. They were able to switch from being in a defensive mode, to being able to be proactive and give creators money while still keeping the videos available. Ninety percent of flagged videos are marked as “advertise on”, rather than being taken down or left alone.

They have added YouTube Insight which is like Google Analytics for YouTube that gives great data stats on the type of viewers that are using their videos.

The advertising opportunities for YouTube videos include video overlays, a “video within a video”, as well as display advertisements around videos. A new opportunity has grown as well in the click to buy market. Where you can sell DVD’s, songs, and other products as that industry and need grows.

YouTube is also creating new co-branded initiatives going forward. Like the People Magazine, Be a Red Carpet Reporter Contest where they can grow their brand more than just taking in revenue.

The latest thing YouTube is doing is the full length content. Higher quality player, 16×9 aspect ratio, and secure streaming. They have added in mid-rolls and pre-rolls to the longer format videos. They hope this is a big section of their business going forward.

Can multiple types of content, both random short videos, and full length television shows and movies, survive and co-exist in a profitable way on any single site? YouTube isn’t sure of that yet, but is trying to create a market in where it can.

Great question at the end about YouTube creating content for their site, and the answer was a simple: no. YouTube will not commission content as they would rather focus on search algorithms or promote intellectual property, rather than trying to create successful content themselves. It would also put them in an issue regarding the neutrality of the results on YouTube. They would rather just be a distribution platform.