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"Think about Twitter. If all a brand ever did on Twitter was buy
Promoted Tweets, they would fail. They have to also tweet
themselves. Think about YouTube in the same light," said Fullscreen
CEO and founder George Strompolos.
Mr. Strompolos acknowledged that YouTube's work with brands on
the content side via the YouTube BrandLab,
Video Creation Marketplace and upcoming pilot program sparked
the thinking about marketers as content creators. However "we've
found that over the long term to build something sustainable
creators and brands need a long-term partner. That's where we come
in. A lot of heavy lifting goes into building a real content
presence on YouTube," he said.
Agencies traditionally carry much of that load, but Fullscreen's
service could lead their clients to work Fullscreen's creators
directly and leave the agencies in a lurch (though brands could
elect to involve their agencies). Tasked with keeping up with
YouTube's growing partner ecosystem and at times lacking the
infrastructure to do so, "agencies are already being squeezed out
of the equation," said Digitas SVP-partnerships, content and social
John McCarus. "If you want to lead clients, you need to figure out
how to be at the tip of the spear with all new offerings."
Fullscreen also wants a piece of the advertising side of
YouTube. The company keeps an eye on roughly 2 million of the most
active YouTube channels and approximately 1 million new videos
uploaded each day in order to report performance metrics such as
views, shares, comments and which sites those videos are embedded
on most frequently. Brands can apply those insights to determining
which channels or videos to advertise against when placing their
media buys through Fullscreen.
For non-brand YouTube creators, Fullscreen's new tool set seeks
to improve on the Fullscreen Dashboard that has been around for two
years, helping to manage their content and monitor how it performs.
Creators can use it to access earnings reports on how much revenue
they've received from sponsorships, merchandise sales or through
ads sold by Fullscreen and taking into account any revenue-share or
financing deals those creators may have in place with
Fullscreen.
Fullscreen creators can also connect with one another through a
new social service that builds on the company's pre-existing forums
and adds a Match.com element to identify which creators might be
interested in meeting and potentially collaborating. Mr. Strompolos
envisioned this social layer evolving to resemble a more communal
Craigslist for filmmakers to lend, rent or sell equipment and
services.