Rob Ciampa, the CMO of Pixability, knows all about the success of YouTube branding, as well as the challenges that come with it. We recently sat down with him at the [a]list daily Video Summit to get her perspective on many topics, including if Facebook video could be a worthwhile competitor.
What do you think is the most effective factor when it comes to YouTube marketing?
When we look at YouTube advertising, there s actually two sides to the equation. There s going to be the creator s side, which in the old days are known as the publishers, and then there s the advertiser s, which are going to be brands and agencies usually involved. The challenge on the creator side is that they have to get discovered, they have to do stuff on their own before they can have any meaning to the advertisers. So, obvious that means video, SEO, community interaction, all that stuff that s near and dear. And doing content that s actually real and genuine. Over the years, we ve analyzed hundreds of millions of videos and we ve looked at channels, and it s always the genuine content that matters.
Now, from the advertiser s side, they need to also care about what s going on on the creator s side, but they also have to know who s trending. A lot of advertisers would turn around and basically say, Lemme get the channel that has the most views that s good on the advertising side. What we re doing at Pixability, we came up with a series of metrics that really talk about creators that are below the radar, that are trained as, maybe, great advertising targets. So we try to link them both together. With video advertising marketing, there are both sides to the equation.
For those who don t know what your V3 program is, kindly break it down for us?
What we did at Pixability, when we introduced V3 last year, it was really there were two elements to effective operation on YouTube and our focus on advertising. One was just a massive data set we have a five year data set. Not only YouTube, but Facebook information, and some social information really looking at the use of video. So making that whole database and predictability analysis and all those geeky terms that are important, making that data actionable so you could really do effective targeting. That became a very big deal. But that was only half of what we re trying to do.
The other half of V3 is that we actually built a really great workflow, enterprise and infrastructure, to really sell the campaigns. Because with YouTube, everybody thinks, Well, I can start a YouTube campaign that must be relevantly easy. But YouTube is actually rather sophisticated. What we found through trial and error, and we ve been at this a long time is a lot of stuff we were doing internally moved into our work flow to really set up sophisticated campaigns, do A/B testing, do A/B/C/D testing. But at the same time, we also set up well, you have floors, and you have ceilings benchmarks for a lot of advertising. Because, again, when you look at advertising, what we often times see brought into campaigns that other people have run that haven t performed, and we see mistargeting, we see bids that are way out of whack, and it s no surprise that it doesn t go wrong. What we do with V3, Pixability has put in all the controls so we tend to know what a campaign will be, before we even run it.
Do you think companies are using YouTube more effectively when creating video content, or do you think there may be things that they re missing, on both the creator and the brand side?
On the brand side, creators tend to have a lot of credence. They re genuine, they re authentic, and they get listened to, and that s important from a brand perspective. But, on the brand side, the challenge for many years is that they weren t necessarily thinking like creators. A couple of years back, we saw a lot of repurposed commercials that do abysmal on YouTube and now what we re starting to see is brands and agencies that are starting to think more like creators. While that won t make them creators per se, we re seeing more from a program perspective. They re thinking authenticity, and more importantly, they re thinking of using YouTube in particular as a way to really engage with their audience, and that s a very, very important point that was only touched upon this morning.
A lot of people have to realize that brand decisions are now being made on YouTube. It s the authority, especially with the younger generations. It s not so much, if you re looking at 55 or over, they re gonna stick with what they learned on television. But younger people are looking to YouTube to make decisions, specifically on brands.
YouTube still plays a major factor when it comes to video, but Facebook is trying to establish their own video network. Do you see any positives from that, or do you believe YouTube will still be dominant?
That s a fabulous question. It s always YouTube or Facebook, and each plays a different role. One of the speakers this morning spoke about intent versus awareness, but both intent and awareness play very specific roles overall in the marketing life cycle. So, the effective thing is seeing where each one plays, and they play very different roles. So that s the long-term for YouTube and Facebook.
Just to add, it may not be the same content.
Where do you see trends emerging on YouTube and Facebook in the future?
I think people looking at different parts funnel the customer experience. Overall, quality has gotten much better. Not that quality mattered, it s authenticity matters, but quality has improved greatly. We see that happening, but we also see a lot of we saw this earlier on with the auto manufacturers but we re starting to see videos playing a role in customer service. So what happens afterward Is my engagement with the company, say I have a specific product at home that I want to learn how to use. I don t want to fumble through a manual, I m gonna go right to their website and see it. So that s a great opportunity for not only companies to teach their customers what to do, but possibly to turn around and show them something they re offering within their portfolio.
