Satya Raghavan, Head of Entertainment Content at YouTube India, talks to Samarpita Banerjee about the importance of providing a platform to young content creators, linking them up with brands, meteoric rise of uploads from India and YouTube’s future plans
What is the one thing common between Lilly Singh, Kenny Sebastian, Abish Mathew, Sanam and Kanan Gill? They are all names we were unaware of until a few years back, but today, have sky-rocketed to fame. Not only are these youngsters inspiring thousands of young YouTubers to follow a similar path to come up with creative content to put out online, many are also getting opportunities to showcase their talent on mainstream media, be it in movies, ads or TV shows. Many of these YouTube sensations were seen in Mumbai recently at the third edition of the YouTube Fanfest, where they performed for a crowd of over 5,000 people.
YouTube as a platform has seen a meteoric rise in India in the last few years. As per data shared by Satya Raghavan, Head of Entertainment Content at YouTube India, the overall watchtime in India has grown by 80% YoY (with 55% of that watchtime on mobile) and the hours of video uploaded from India has gone up by 90%. Content uploaded by India’s independent creators has seen an exponential rise. For instance, watchtime of independent musicians grew by over 92% and comedy and entertainment grew almost 100%. Another growing trend is that of beauty and fashion videos, that have grown over 138% YoY. Even regional watchtime has seen growth, coming primarily from the South, with Tamil and Telugu content seeing a 75% spike.
Cashing in on the encouraging growth numbers, YouTube is trying to encourage more content creators to come forward and become a part of the wave. Raghavan says YouTube Fanfest is just one way of doing that. “All these creators are the ones who have the subscribers and the fan base on social media. They interact with their fans on YouTube. A lot of outreach of the content is happening through word-of-mouth. YouTube is not just about the videos that play, but also about the thousands of fan-interactions that are happening simultaneously. All of it is intermeshed. Word-of-mouth, fans and communities is what drives the tremendous growth we have been seeing at YouTube.”
Elaborating on how original content drove growth for the company in 2015, Raghavan adds, “India has undergone a content creator revolution and this is a good time to be a creator. Over the last few years, Indian YouTube creators have gained millions of new subscribers and have taken over the imagination of the youth in India. In our view, 2015 was a breakout year for the young industry and the ecosystem has really evolved in India, with mobile driving massive growth for online video consumption. Now, we’re seeing online creators break open the gates for a whole new kind of entertainment for Indians online, with advertisers looking to tap into this space in a meaningful way.”
And it is true. A lot of advertisers have been advertising with the help of these content creators. Recently, the All India Bakchod (AIB) came out with an ad for Quikr and a quirky qawwali for the dating app TrulyMadly. The Viral Fever (TVF) also came up with a hilarious video titled ‘Tech Conversations With Dad’ advertising one of Flipkart’s sales and its app. TVF has also been doing extensive brand integrations through both its web series and shorter videos.
Nidhi Bisht, a TVF member, said that integrating brands with their content seemed like a natural progression for them. “We figured on the go that doing a traditional ad where you make characters talk about particular brands can put off viewers. We came up with the idea of integrating brands with our stories, but through subtle branding. Like in the first season of our series, The Permanent Room-mates, we tied up with Commonfloor.com. And a large part of the story was about the protagonists trying to look for a house for themselves. So, the branding became a part of the story. We realized with time that such integrations work way better than traditional ads and also made the audience much more responsive.”
So how do brands go about choosing content creators for endorsing their brands out of such a vast pool of talent on YouTube? Talking about the process, Raghavan says that YouTube receives lots of queries from different companies. “Many companies come to us with specific queries saying they want to work with particular content creators. There are companies that want to do something with food creators or beauty and make-up creators. Our role then becomes that of a match-maker. Additionally, today’s creators are also very savvy marketers. They themselves reach out to a whole lot of people.” Meanwhile, YouTube is also working with organized aggregators, multi-channel networks, companies that represent more than one creator who are also actively pitching for many of the creators. “Right now, we are at a good place where anybody who wants to reach out to a content creator can do so with minimal problems unlike in other places where it’s very difficult to approach a star or an influencer.”
With so many brands approaching both YouTube and the creators, we asked Raghavan whether this could possibly lead to any conflict of interest between the platform and the content creators, considering many brands are also choosing to advertise through the content creators. However, clearing the air, Raghavan says that all branded content revenues belong completely to creators. “If for example, a particular brand is doing integration in a web series, we also go to the brand and say that they can advertise not only on a particular channel but around the channel to make it bigger. This helps everyone to benefit from such integrations,” he adds.
Owing to the success of such brand integrations over the past few years, Raghavan says that YouTube has realized the importance of the right kind of partnerships. Raghavan adds, “The fundamental unit of the way in which we work with creators is through partnerships. We partner with big TV stations and movie studios on one hand and also with smaller content creators. Our partnerships are basically to help them create better and more content. We are constantly giving them simple tips and traits to good practices. We are putting together platforms where experienced creators can talk to aspiring creators. That’s our partnership model.”
YouTube also recently launched its offline feature, introduced first in India and then in other countries. Going by the positive response it received, we ask Raghavan about the other services we could expect in the near future. To which Raghavan replies, “YouTube has already launched YouTube Red, a monthly-paid subscription service, in the US. Since it has been doing very well there, we plan to expand to other countries soon. While I don’t have a timeline for when it will come to India, I am sure it will happen soon. For now, our eyes are on how to grow the creator base and the consumer base. We are also working on how to deliver the best product experience for consumers. We believe that when you put these three things together, magic is bound to happen.”
@ FEEDBACK
samarpita.banerjee@exchange4media.com
