What started with a pilot with a dedicated channel for the Whitehouse in June 2009 now forms an integral part of SlideShare’s offering for brands. According to CEO Rashmi Sinha from SlideShare: “We have been thinking about channels for a while, and spent almost 6 months building it.”

Today it’s here – alive and kicking. SlideShare branded channels now form an integral part of their offering to advertisers (see slide 18/20). SlideShare co-operated with Federated Media, Universal McCann and Microsoft to build the branded channel dubbed the Microsoft Office Parent Toolbox: “work, play and everything in between” the channel’s tag-line reads. It features presentations and documents centered around home and family usage of Microsoft Office products. The channel can be reached externally with a brand-name friendly URL-structure. Simply add the name to SlideShare’s URL: http://www.slideshare.net/MicrosoftOffice. Please note the use of capitalization in the brand name – this makes it easier for users to recognize branded content from Microsoft Office in SlideShare’s (and Google’s) search results.

However, the branded channel is more than an environment within an external medium for showing off branded content. SlideShare deliberately chose to stay true to its original course. SlideShare branded channels are seamlessly integrated with the community’s core features: allow users to upload and share presentations with one another.

Through integration with a branded channel on a social network, brand owners can benefit from the community as oppossed to building traffic to their own website from scratch.

With the use of branded channels, SlideShare advises its advertisers to also work with channel curators and bloggers. The Parent Toolbox channel is moderated by Asha Dornfest (Parent Hacks), an authority in the parenting space. Dornfest, however, shares blogging responsibilities of the channel with some of the Web’s most talented parenting bloggers: Danny Evans, Ree Drummond and Maggie Mason, among others. They are swapping tips and documents that make family and home life easier and actively engage in conversations with users. Users based in the USA, in turn, are motivated to contribute content as well – everytime they upload, they enroll in a sweepstake in which Microsoft gives out 50 Microsoft Office licenses.

The vibrant community of SlideShare offers brand owners the opportunity to benefit from the virality aspects, as opposed to building traffic from scratch. Aside from integrating blog content on the channel, SlideShare also allows for inclusion of video content on the channel – both real life stories of users and product tips and tricks from Microsoft. For example, see this video of the Cheese Guy that uses Office to keep track of his scientific approach to producing cheese: “I especially like Roquefort [...] which is like smelling old soccer shoes. Cheese is molding bacteria, with controlled delay.” Love it or hate it, this is fun content to watch. What surprised me, however, is that Microsoft decided to host their videos on SlideShare, instead of YouTube and then embedding it within the branded channel on SlideShare. Single-source video really helps in terms of video SEO.

Expect more advertisers to follow Microsoft’s lead: “This offering is open to other advertisers, this is just the first one,” said Rashmi Sinha. SlideShare, however, declined to give specific details on the investment involved, other than that it involved a media buy requirement, comparable to what Google uses for YouTube. “Right now, we are negotiating one at a time,” SlideShare’s CEO said. “We are talking to more advertisers and expect to see more channel announcements in the future.”

Until this time, Richard works for QNH Interactive. Managing director Bart Termorshuizen from QNH Interactive: “In the past year, Richard has specialised in this relatively new field of expertise. In his role as communications manager at Rabobank Nederland, he was responsible for project content sharing. This involved syndication of video content from Rabo SportTV on external platforms, with an objective to broaden reach for the video content. With QNH Interactive, we have developed the first branded channel in the Netherlands on YouTube. This has generated more than a million video views for Rabobank.”

“Branded channels means thinking outside-the-site”, says Richard van den Boogaard. “The strategy is straightforward: bring content to platforms that attract many users, rather than using display advertising to drive traffic to a brand site.” Aside from a branded channel on YouTube, QNH Interactive was also closely involved in realisation of a commercial hyve and hyves gadget, as well as a pilot with Brabants Dagblad (part of Mecom).

Richard van den Boogaard will offer this expertise to other brands and media owners but remains available for QNH Interactive on a project basis.

Well-renowned brands are already featured with their own channels on YouTube: Warner Bros. Records was the first, followed by CBS, NBA and the BBC. Director of Strategy David Moody of BBC Worldwide motivates the Beeb’s presence as follows:

“Our digital strategy is to make our content as widely distributed as possible – and there is an audience of millions on YouTube.”

In other words, complementary reach as key argument. However, advertising reach can also be realized through banners and buttons on other portals and platforms.  The key difference is that YouTube cannot only be used to drive traffic to your own site, but bring the content to where your target audience is. In hopes that they will look at it, discuss it, embed it, forward it, or, even better, respond to it with original video responses.

The Dutch Public Broadcasters (PO) had their own reasons to use YouTube as an additional platform for their missed TV programs product,  Uitzendinggemist. PO does not use its YouTube channel for one-on-one syndication with the source site: only a selection of the offering is used. Furthermore, the videos show fragments, not the full programs. PO uses YouTube predominantly as a content snacking & teaser channel – whoever wants to see the full program, has to visit www.uitzendinggemist.nl or is directed to the full show on www.omroep.nl. Each individual video features a direct deeplink from the video description, as shown on YouTube’s watchpage. An interesting example is the teaser below for the award for the worst TV commercial, the Loden Leeuw. Just before the ‘winner’ is announced (a true cliffhanger moment) the video stops – the full version can be seen on TROS Radar’s website. An exellent example of a versioning strategy.

As a result of the number of videos featured on the channel (more than 500, nearly a million channel views and millions of video views) Uitzendinggemist strongly dominates the Dutch version of YouTube. Other Dutch media brands with a channel on YouTube include VPRO, BeeldenGeluid, AjaxTV and PSV.

Partners versus Sponsors
The attentive reader will have noticed that all of the previous examples concern media brands with unique video content. Correct. In fact, these examples are all partner channels, not branded channels. In order to add value to their site, back in August 2006, YouTube decided to set up a partner programme. Initially, the key difference between a partner and branded channel was not as clear as it is today: “YouTube’s first Brand Channel partner is Warner Bros. Records for Paris Hilton around her debut album, Paris, released globally today”, the press release stated. In exchange for attractive content, YouTube offers partner channel owners a shared revenue deal, combined with additional features to adjust the design of a channel, a small banner and an expanded screen showing more clips from the channel on the YouTube watchpage.

Being a user-centric video platform, well-known media brands don’t exclusively ‘own’ YouTube. In contrast, these brands have to compete for attention with a never-ending torrent of UGC which dominate the most viewed charts: Evolution of Dance (uncontested number 1), OKGo (recorded in a single (!) take, also see this funny video response), LonelyGirl15 (admit, directed), Numa Numa (‘everybody loves Numa’), Human Tetris (stop-motion galore), A Few Good Creative Men (‘we write ads – or people die’), etcetera. One by one,  all creative pearls.

In short, YouTube is the UGC video platform by popular choice: it offers users a possibility to share video without the hassle. Anyone can start their own user channel. Millions have done so and share there interests with a worldwide audience or a select group of friends (maximum of 25 per video). This includes the full spectrum of the long-tail: varying from a girl showing her horse without attracting too much attention (at least, until now), to an unknown Dutch teen who ended up in Oprah eighteen months later and is featured 15 times in the Dutch Top 100 of most popular YouTube videos, with a total of more than 50 million video views. Repeat out-loud: more than 50.000.000.

Following deals with media companies, YouTube started the partner programme, which includes a revenue share on all advertising displayed on the watchpage and inside the videos. Active users who create extremily popular content get awarded by YouTube through an invitation to join. “YouTube currently has more than 1,000 partners with whom we share revenue, including major media companies like the BBC and CBS,” said Jaime Byrne (YouTube’s Head of Product Marketing) in an interview on SearchEngineWatch. “The user partner program is simply an extension of the way we share revenue with any of our partners who provide content that we sell ads against.”

Not everyone can enjoy the benefits of the partner programme. Again Byrne:

“Members were invited to participate based on their past performance on the platform. The user partners announced are all popular content creators known by the YouTube community and we believe they will be attractive for advertisers. The new user partners are creating series that attract a persistent audience and have a large numbers of subscribers. We feel it’s important to reward those who are creating more than just viral one-off hits.”

The happy few includes the popular channel from Nalts, who was ecstatic with the announcement and made a special video for the ocassion:

Branded Channels
Not everyone is eligible for a partner channel status. The criteria for a partner channel have been tightened by Google while advertisers have been given the option to start a so-called branded channel. Brand name owners who may have ambitions in this direction, should be wise enough to register their own channel name  in advance (that is, set up a user account). Amsterdam Bed & Breakfast was smart enough to register the account www.youtube.nl/amsterdam. Not bad when attracting backpackers and other visitors. The account names are available on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis, although trademark owners may be respected by Google. However, Pepsi, Coca-cola, Albert-Heijn and many others did not pay attention and probably will need to get their legal staff to write some letters, if they have any ambitions for YouTube. Prevention is always better than the cure, the saying goes in Dutch.

In many ways a branded channel resembles the design of a partner channel. Both have extra design features, on the  channel page as well as the YouTube watch page:

Channel page

• Banner on top
  Can be used to upload a single image, your own animated gif or an image map (transparant banner) with multiple external links. If the latter option is chosen, the underlying background image may be used to convey a branding message, as with the channel of NBA or Rabo SportTV.
• Autoplay selected video
  A specific video selected by the channel owner or the latest video has an autoplay feature when users visit the channel page.
• Extra content box
  Extra space which the advertiser can use to describe the objectives of the channel. This may also feature external URLs.

Watch page

• Small banner
  A non-animating banner which links to the channel and is automatically displayed for all videos featured on the channel.
• Fold-out section ‘More from …’
  A function that generates a substantial number of video views on the content, since it is positioned above the related videos section. Related videos are based on titles and tags, not channel origin.

The key distinction between a branded channel and a partner channel lies in the combined design/AdWords deal. Advertisers with a branded channel are required to commit a given sum in display advertising on YouTube and other sites within the Google content network, which supports display ads. Furthermore, all links may only exclusively link back to the branded channel, not an external URL. In other words, you don’t pay for the branded channel, but for the display advertising that drives traffic to it.

Given this, is a branded channel the next big thing for advertisers? It all depends on the objectives and available content. Brand owners with a continuous flow of appealing video content are well-positioned to use YouTube to reach a broader audience than with their own site and advertising alone. A branded channel may also be used to support marketing campaigns. Examples include the CMONS campaign by GM’s Vauxhall brand, which is featured in multiple markets (UK and Spain).

That’s two in one blow for advertisers: a designed channel on a complete video platform in combination with a display advertising campaign to drive attention and traffic to it. So is it all good news? No, there is still room for improvement:

• Ping-Pong effect

Brand owners love channel stickiness. YouTube makes this difficult because a ping-pong effect exists between the channel page and the watch page. As stated above, the selected or latest video has an autoplay feature on the channel (if selected). Nearly all other videos are played back on the watch page, not the channel page. The only exception are the two videos who are placed as a video log (vlog) on the channel page. These videos, however, have a click-to-play feature and do not play in the large video player at the top of the page (see image below).

Users which end up on the channel page (for example, through a banner on YouTube/Google Content Network), are not likely to return to the channel page after they have been redirected to YouTube’s watch page upon clicking any other video than the autoplay feature. Returning to the channel only means that they will see the same video again. This is a bug and hopefully YouTube will address this problem some time in the future. Advertisers expect all there channel videos to play back inside there channel. Users are invited to experience what the brand owner has created to convey a certain branding message. More channel stickiness, please.

• (No) gadgets & YouTube Contests

Klik voor vergroting

Outside the Dutch market some advertisers have begun using a YouTube gadget in the position of the channel’s player. Mainly in the USA YouTube Contests are common and these special gadgets are increasingly deployed on channel pages from well-known brand including Swiffer Breakup, Chrysler300 or SamsungJuke. These gadgets mainly feature video content from participants, not content originating from the brand owner. YouTube contests are expected to be available in the Dutch market soon.

• Only manual statistics

For the time being, statistics on YouTube can only be gathered manually – and are therefore both cumbersome and time-consuming. An integration with Google Analytics appears to be a logic service to advertisers who want to accurately track the effects of their videos and branded channel. To all critics: this only concerns aggregated statistics, not privacy-sensitive information from individual users.

• No automatic upload

New videos can only be manually uploaded by the channel owner (for now). A recent feature includes the possibility to upload multiple videos at once. Branded channel and partner channel owners would be helped if they are enabled to upload their content via an automated process (XML/SOAP).

These issues are no reason for advertisers to ignore YouTube. The benefits of branded and partner channels outweigh these disadvantages. They only require (some) more time for channel management. Media brands are able to attract more attention and traffic to their own sites (and earn a buck or two in the process). Commercial brand owners should embrace the combination of a fully fledged online video platform with a traffic generating campaign in a single package.