MarketingDojo #35: A Double-Edged Victory⚔️
YouTube Short's success has the senior management worried, Hyundai's sweet influencer content, Vans is winning over its young customers and more.
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In today’s newsletter, we will cover:
🚘Creative Excellence: Hyundai’s mouth-watering influencer campaign
📉 YouTube may have shorted itself
🤐Keeping mouth shut gets a whole new meaning for YouTubers
👟Vans has Gen Alpha fans
& lots more.
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The Short Story: YouTube's Shifting Balance.
Is YouTube Shorts too successful for its good?
A recent FT article revealed that the senior management at YouTube is concerned that YouTube Shorts might be cannibalizing its core business: long-form videos.
YouTube introduced Shorts to challenge TikTok's rising popularity, and Shorts seems to be doing reasonably well.
YouTube Shorts had 50 billion daily views as of February 2022. More than 1.5 billion logged-in accounts watch Shorts every month. Shorts has also amassed more than 2bn users since its launch in 2021.
But here's the catch: Long-form videos generate more opportunities to serve ads and thus lead to higher revenue generation.
Three significant factors are driving this cannibalization of YouTube's long-form video business.
Customers prefer short-form videos: According to a study by Wyzowl, 73% of consumers prefer to watch a short-form video to learn about a product or service. Short-form videos are 2.5 times more engaging than long-form videos.
Brands find short-form videos value-for-money: Short-form videos are ideal for social media and extending brand reach because they have a higher shareability factor. Creating short-form videos is also much more affordable than long ones for brands.
YouTube has one of the most generous creator revenue-sharing models. However, over 82% of a creator's revenue is generated via brand-sponsored content.
Creating shorter videos is easier: Only a few creators can create an engaging 30-minute video. Under 60-second videos are easier to develop and test, thus reducing the barrier to entry.
Overall, YT is in a dilemma. Long-form videos are its bread & butter, but they are falling out of favour with consumers, brands and creators. It's quite a predicament they find themselves in, don't you think?
Zip it for more views: Mr. Beast’s lessons for creators.
The most popular YouTuber, Mr. Beast, is a bit of an expert when it comes to YouTube thumbnails.
MrBeast's team reportedly spends up to $10,000 on the design of each of his video thumbnails. The team creates roughly 25 thumbnails for each piece of content. Often, these thumbnails are created before content shoots & some ideas are dropped if the thumbnails are not exciting enough!
Here's a cool tip from Mr. Beast's team: thumbnails where he closes his mouth perform better than the ones where he keeps it open. It may sound strange and straightforward, but it has produced results across videos.
Sometimes, simple A/B tests like this make a huge difference. Don't you think?
Memetime: Marketers Should Start Visiting More Customers.
“Idealized advertising images” is one of the most frequently occurring phenomena in advertising. Using images of perfect models or celebrities to promote a product or service has positive and negative impacts.
It increases the aspirational value of products but risks alienating the real customers. I have experienced this first-hand at Audi & Porsche. The customers in the ads looked nothing like those who walked through our doors. It's a bit like this Justin & Hailey Beiber meme.
Creative Excellence: This influencer marketing campaign slaps.
When it comes to influencer marketing, most car companies play it safe (and boring) by having influencers drive around in their new car and share a favourable opinion. But Hyundai's approach for their new Ioniq 6 is refreshingly different and fun!
Whether you follow the Swiss-French pastry chef Amaury Guichnon or not, you will have come across his YouTube or TikTok content, where he designs incredibly intricate structures made of chocolate.
He's made a chocolate telescope, a 90kg elephant, a motorcycle, and even an eagle made from 22kg of chocolate - it's like the Mr Beast of chocolate content!
Hyundai let Amaury showcase his exceptional skills by designing the new Hyundai Ioniq 6 out of chocolate. The intricately designed Hyundai Ioniq 6 left me mesmerized enough to re-watch the TikTok several times.
And that wasn't all! They also teamed up with ChefReactions, the extra salty chef known for entertaining TikTok videos, to create reaction and official collaboration videos.
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Three videos that got over 2 million likes, 25.1k shares, and 19k comments!
Kudos to Hyundai's marketing team for understanding the strengths of these influencers and creating fresh, exciting content that stands out from the usual car content.
Vans World: Skating into Gen Alpha's Hearts
In the ever-changing world of social media, there is one prediction I can make with confidence - Roblox is going to be the go-to platform for engaging with Gen Alpha.
And if there's one brand that has a headstart with this generation, it is the footwear brand - Vans.
Vans World is a virtual skatepark and shop launched on the Roblox platform in 2021. It's been a huge hit, with over 100 million visits and 8 million hours logged by visitors. In the Vans World experience on Roblox, users can practice their skateboarding skills & acquire the latest Vans collection virtually.
While the dreams of a Metaverse are on the back burner for most brands, Vans has cracked the formula for digital and physical ownership of its products.
Short Stuff:
Snapchat is poised to dethrone TikTok to become the fastest-growing social media platform. (2023’s best comeback story).
TikTok is introducing more social features, such as messaging. (TikTok’s social turn).
Facebook to offer an ad-free, subscription-based option for EU users. (EU’s new privacy rules have big tech worried).
That’s a wrap on all things marketing for the week. Thank you for your time and attention. If you learned something new today or liked the newsletter, leave me a like. It is a no-cost way to support this newsletter.
Thanks again & see you in your inbox next Wednesday!
Regards,
G
P.S.: I finally caught up with the Vincent Van Gogh Immersive Art Experience in Singapore. I know little about art, yet Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings are far too recognizable.
The immersive experience felt so bittersweet. The artist became famous after death and battled demons inside his head all his life. He was blessed; he was cursed.
I left the experience a tad bit smarter - about Vincent Van Gogh’s art, the Japanese influence on his works and his tragic backstory. 100% Recommend the experience.
