YouTube turns 10: An Airbnb marketing officer reflects on its impact and future:
YouTube is 10 this month. What started as an obscure platform for early adopter UGC has become a media phenomenon, encompassing music, film, TV, journalism, vlogging, advertising, branded content and cat videos. Marketing asked an array of senior brand and agency people how they thought YouTube has shaped marketing.
Jonathan Mildenhall, chief marketing officer, Airbnb
How has YouTube shaped marketing in the last 10 years?
Just 10 years old? It’s crazy. I can’t imagine a world without YouTube.
First the platform was all about individual expression a way to broadcast yourself to anyone who was interested. Small scale moments and ideas but self expression none the less.
Then came the music industry who, as record sales slumped would focus on video views and their YouTube launches became of greater strategic importance that MTV or radio of old.
Then came the marketers and brands – chasing the millennial target audience because we had all learnt to fish where the fish are and there are plenty of millennial fish in the YouTube sea.
Now YouTube has become an undisputed dominant force in the entertainment industry. The biggest driver of which has been its incredible investment in facilities and top millennial entertainment talent.
I have spent a lot of time at the YouTube Space in LA working with their young talent including YouTube stars like Kirk Hugo Schneider and his posse of incredible music talent.
The creativity of YouTube’s talent is among the very best in the world and this is driven by the fact that YouTube invest massively in nurturing and supporting such talent.
For young emerging talent in the entertainment industry YouTube has become like the 21st Century manifestation of the Italian Medici family.
More so than any other media company I know YouTube manages that elusive sweet spot between audience, advertiser and talent perfectly. And what makes the YouTube elixir taste even sweeter is that absolutely anyone can join in the party. Pure media gold.
Nicolas Roope, co-founder and creative partner, Poke
How has YouTube shaped marketing in the last 10 years?
YouTube has performed a number of miracles in its short tenure as the world’s most dominant video platform.
First it turned the aimless viral video into ‘content’, then it flipped rubbishy UGC bile into vibrant and compelling content created and consumed by passionate communities across the world.
Then it figured out that hitherto closed videos could connect to anything the Internet could touch (although this is the bit most marketers still don’t really bother with).
Finally it stopped being telly’s low-res, spotty underling and has become hyper-targeted and contextual, hi-res and a stronger culture-creating force than the handful of commissioning editors out there deciding what we get to watch on our tellies.
10 years isn’t a long time to usurp the old-guard. YouTube has achieved this, even though most are still in denial.
How do you think it will evolve in the next 10 years?
When I look forward to the next 10 years I would caution even using the term ‘video’ because it asserts too many familiar references and limits how far you can see it going. Everything in the whole chain, from the original equipment to the editing, effects, publishing, interactive authoring, as well as the distribution, formatting and, last but not least, prevailing standards and expectations of the receiving audiences, devouring experiences on their plethora of devices.
Think back to 2005. What phone did you have? What did it do? And then think about your phone today. It shoots HD to a quality level a decent director could shoot a decent movie. You’ve probably got a multitude of ways to treat, publish, share and manage every video you shoot. You don’t consider for a second how mad that would have sounded 10 years ago.
So in ten years from now? Amazing quality video with deep interactive potential, incredibly sophisticated but natural sharing and meritocratic networks to recognise and promote quality and interest, nuanced to every taste and desire, enabled by what will be a highly evolved, data-harmonised platform keeping every viewer transfixed.
In 10 years, perhaps advertisers will have finally abandoned getting in the way and will be producing some of the very best content and experiences on offer. There’s a lot to look forward to.
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