Weird dance routines and the power of YouTube

Gangnam Style, which has just surpassed the 1.3 billion views milestone on YouTube has an equally weird follower: the Harlem Shake. With over 17 million views in just two weeks, it’s quickly shaping up as a worthy successor – so as it continues to trend, Matt Breen, Head of Video for Havas Media, looks at the power of YouTube and the increasing impact of video consumerism.

There’s been quite a bit of talk in our office recently about whether we should do a Havas (Harlam) Shake and whack it up on YouTube. The meme is certainly picking up some pace at the moment from such humble beginnings.

What the Harlem Shake (let’s call it a movement) movement is, in case anyone needed it, is another example of the power of the medium of YouTube – a company that expects to make $5 billion this year and attracts 800 million visitors globally a month.

As you might have seen, the channel recently decided that it was going to enter the burgeoning premium video marketing by charging a subscription for specific channels.

This would not only put it in direct competition with the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Hulu but it also demonstrates YouTube’s continued commitment to increase quality content available on the site.

While watching people in Power Rangers suits dancing around is fun, it’s hardly going to keep up with Kevin Spacey’s masterly performance in the Netflix original drama House of Cards.

And this isn’t the first time they have moved in this direction.

In 2012 it increased its commitment to professionally produced content when it invested £47 million in Vevo, the music video channel. It has also launched a number of new premium content channels – including Jamie Oliver.

But this isn’t just about increasing revenue and profit. YouTube has seen the opportunity to become the new content giant and the move to subscription is another demonstration of YouTube’s intent to challenge the traditional broadcasters.

In order to provide a genuine alternative, YouTube are betting on the increasing behaviour of consuming video content online and the proliferation of content discovery in this environment. This behaviour will be aided by the availability of ever improving 3 and 4G connections and the increasing penetration of devices which allow users to consume this content, i.e. tablets and smartphones.

This new model also clearly indicates that it is gearing up for the growth in the number of CTV sets in the home as well as looking to expand its presence of Google TV – two ways in which the consumption of quality content online can truly go head to head with traditional broadcast, but importantly at scale.

The recent Red Bull Stratos event was a brilliant example of this and demonstrated YouTube’s ability to reach audiences at scale in an appointment to view manner. This was a huge milestone as it had never really been able to achieve this reach and engagement in any convincing way before.

But, as you’d expect, it’s not all sunshine and roses. There are significant challenges that YouTube must overcome.

The first is content.

With so much free content available to view on the web, and competition in the subscription market, YouTube must offer quality and exclusive content which motivates viewers to part with money. Again, the Harlem Shake doesn’t really match up to this.

It also has to do this while maintaining its massive global reach – which has its own inherent problems, language, scattered demographics, huge age ranges etc.

So, in order to do this at scale, the most obvious route is acquisition of existing titles and channels.

Relying on new original content will not immediately draw huge numbers – so I would expect a significant percentage of that expected $5 billion to be ploughed into acquisitions, such as the aforementioned VEVO.

The second major challenge is changing viewers’ perceptions.

YouTube is the largest video site in the UK. It reaches 3/4 of the UK population every month. Yet this model has always been about free content sharing.

Asking this user base to start paying for content will be a significant obstacle to ensuring this model becomes a success – again pointing to the need for top class premium content.

With the business yet to actually start charging, all of this is obviously up in the air, but it is a definite statement of intent that it wants to move beyond its UGC routes and start taking on the established broadcasters.