- Hello insiders.
This is Todd and we're back
with some more information for creators.
Today we're gonna be talking about branded content,
and I've invited Henry here.
Henry, you wanna introduce yourself?
- Hey, how's it going?
I'm Henry, I'm a product manager here on FameBit
which is YouTube's in-house branded content platform.
- So, what's been going on
with branded content on YouTube?
- Cool, so firstly I think branded content
on YouTube is, y'know, it's huge.
So, what we're trying to do in the branded content industry
is kind of facilitate those connections.
And it's really important for creators.
Y'know, drives a lot of revenue into the ecosystem,
so the creators can fund their content.
And it's really important for brands,
so they can find an audience for their products.
It's not without some challenges.
It's tough if you're a creator.
It can be hard to find deals.
Now once you've found a deal,
it's hard to know how to price yourself.
It's hard to know how much creative freedom you can have
with your content.
And as an advertiser it's hard to measure the impact
of your campaign.
Beyond reviews there's not a lot of data available.
So, what we're trying to do
on FameBit is trying to solve a few of those problems.
- So, how is FameBit helping creators
and advertisers solve these problems?
- Yeah sure, so, I think we think about it
in a couple of different ways.
So, what we're really trying to do is bring the best
of Google and YouTube technology
to the branded content industry.
We think of this in products in three different groups.
So, you've got things for creators,
the advertisers, and obviously for viewers.
So, as we're on Creator Insider,
let's jump into the creator side.
So, a lot of companies in this space have small rosters
of creators.
And we're really proud of what we're trying to do
in democratizing access to branded content.
So, we'll actually pitch any creator
in the whole ecosystem.
If we think they're a great fit for a brand's campaign,
we can pitch them.
And so, when a brand comes to us
and they want to run a campaign,
we're not just looking,
"okay is this channel a good fit for the brand?"
and obviously that's important.
We're actually trying to look through
to the audience of that channel.
And we wanna line it up so that the group
that the brand is trying to sell to is the same group
that's watching the audience of these creators.
And, that gives us the power to curate any creator
who's on YouTube rather than having to stick
to a smaller roster.
It also means that the content is gonna land better
with the audience who are actually interested
in the product that's being talked about.
We're also moving towards trying to broaden access
to as many creators as possible.
We launched something recently from onboarding flow
so if you go to New Studio,
you'll see a FameBit tab in the monetization hub,
and if you're an eligible creator
in a few clicks you can get signed up.
You can become a FameBit creator.
So, there are a couple things we've been doing for creators.
- Now how about for brands?
What's new for brands with FameBit?
And why would a brand even want to use FameBit
as opposed to just going directly to creators?
- So, the biggest reason that we see is
that historically in branded content,
there's been very little measurement available.
So, if you're a brand and you work with some creators
through an agency, directly, an MCM or whatever,
there's often not a lot of data available
to know how did that video perform?
And, that really can trans with other digital ad formats.
If you buy pretty much any other digital ad format,
you're gonna know how it performed,
how many people clicked it,
how many people went and purchased.
In branded content, it's just not the case.
So, what we're doing on FameBit is trying
to bring all of the ad measurement tools
that Google and YouTube have made
over the last 10, 15 years,
and apply them to branded content for the first time.
And, this will let brands measure the ROI
of their campaigns, so they know actually
how did it impact the audience.
And, often these videos perform really well.
And so, it's very powerful to show brands
this positive performance
that they haven't been able to see before,
and it makes them wanna come back,
spend more money in the ecosystem,
drive more revenue to creators.
So, how we're specifically doing that
is a couple of tools.
One is what we call brand influence lift
which measures increased searches from people
who watched the videos.
Another uses the surveys you often see across YouTube,
and so that's what we call influencer lift.
So, if you watch the video
and you answer those surveys with higher awareness
or perception of the brand
it's again another positive signal.
And, we have organic view-through conversions as well.
And so, that lets you, as an advertiser,
see how many people actually checked out your website
or even bought your product.
And they're all really important,
so that you know what was the performance of this campaign
and did it change people's behavior or not.
- So, you mentioned that viewers were also a key aspect
of branded content.
So, could you tell us a little bit about
what viewers might notice about what you're doing?
- I think the biggest thing is we're trying
to build new formats so the viewing experience
of this branded content is kind of as powerful as it can be.
So, what you might've seen
in the wild is branded content videos from FameBit
that have a shelf below the player,
and that shelf will feature products
the creator is talking about.
So, you'll be there
and the creator's talking about some product.
On the shelf you'll be able to see the product
with a price and a retailer,
and it's easy to click through and check it out.
The same thing for apps.
And my favorite is
this augmented reality beauty try on shelf.
So, this is where if you're watching a beauty video
you can click a try-on button.
And with permission, it'll open your front facing camera
and you can try on the lipstick or the mascara
or whatever it is
and check out the color and see if it's a good fit
for your face or not.
- So, tell me about the different service models
that FameBit uses.
- So, FameBit has two service models that we run.
So, we have the self-service platform
which is what came through the acquisition
of FameBit several years ago.
That's at famebit.com and that's where brands
and creators work directly with each other
without much involvement from YouTube.
We also have FameBit full service.
So, that's a fully managed experience
where brands and creators, y'know,
we do the project management,
we coordinate everything, find the creators,
and this is where all those technologies
that I mentioned are kind of coming to life.
At the moment the total payout to each creator
from full service is about 30 times the size
of the self-service business.
So, the self-service platform is not performing so well.
And that's because FameBit self-service came through
this acquisition, so it's built
on a different technical stack,
and that means all of these technologies
and tools that we've made,
they can't integrate with it.
It's kind of on its own, doesn't connect to YouTube.
So, without a lot of these technologies
and just kind of with a different model,
it hasn't performed as well over the years.
And creators have flocked over to full service,
and brands have flocked over to full service,
while self-service hasn't flourished much.
And at the moment only 4% of FameBit payouts come
from the self-service platform,
so 96% of creator earnings come from full service.
And so, for that reason this week we're announcing
that we're gonna be deprecating
the FameBit self-serve platform
and shutting it down,
so we can focus our efforts on making full service
as successful as it can be.
- Can you tell us a little bit about,
like, what this means for creators?
- Yeah, of course!
So, I think the first thing to mention is
that we're gonna be fazing the shutdown over several months,
so that we reduce any impact on going campaigns.
So, how this is gonna work is
that now as we announced just a couple of days ago,
we've already blocked new sign-ups,
so it's only existing users both brands and creators
who can log in.
So, in a couple of weeks we're gonna be blocking brands
from posting new campaigns,
and a couple of weeks after that
we're gonna be blocking creators
from submitting proposals to those campaigns.
So, at that point it's only existing campaigns,
only pre-hired creators.
And then, we're gonna wait two months
for all those campaigns to finish and close out,
and at that point we'll fully block login to the platform.
If you wanna see the full timeline for this
with the specific details and dates,
you can click the help center article
which is gonna be in the description.
We wanna help make this, y'know,
have as little impact on creators as possible.
And so, to reduce that impact
we're gonna be making a one-time payment
to every creator who's earned any money on the platform
in the three months prior to this sun-setting announcement.
So, if you completed one campaign for $100
in that three month window,
we're gonna match that $100 with another $100 payment.
If you completed three campaigns each for $200 let's say,
you already earned $600 and we're gonna be making a payment
for another $600,
and try and reduce some of this impact to you.
- So, if I'm a creator
who's only ever used the self-service option
and I've never used the full service,
am I gonna be eligible to use the full service?
Is there any special criteria for that?
- Yeah, so that's a great question.
So, there are different eligibility requirements.
The easiest way to find out is
to go search new YouTube Studio,
look at FameBit as a tab on the monetization hub,
and if it's there and you can sign up
then that means you're eligible.
The biggest change is probably
the sub requirement is 25,000 subscribers
for full service business.
So, it is a little bit higher
than the self-service platform.
There's also people could use the self-service platform
without having YouTube accounts,
and now we're using full service,
everyone needs to have a YouTube account
'cause we primarily go through YouTube.
So, there are a couple of changes,
and we understand that's challenging for some creators,
and that's why we wanna reduce the impact
by having these payments.
So, anyone who made any revenue
in the last three months is gonna be getting
this additional payment to try
and reduce some of that impact.
- Got it, so can you tell us some stories,
maybe, about some creators that are really having success
through using the platform these days?
- Yeah, of course!
So, some creators who've had a lot of success
on our full service business,
I guess a couple of my favorites,
one was the Hershey's Hot Cocoa Kisses campaign.
And, I think it really nicely highlighted the power
of creative freedom that you can give to a creator.
So, this was a campaign specifically with Hershey's,
and the creator's The Icing Artist.
She did a baking challenge
and made the most incredible cake I've ever seen,
so would definitely check that one out.
Another was a Calvin Klein campaign.
And it was created by Shellon Black and Terra Kelli.
And, they spoke about really personal,
really powerful issues.
I think they won a Streamy award for the videos.
I think it really shows the power
that branded content can have.
- If I'm a creator and I wanna learn more about FameBit,
maybe get started with it, what should we do?
- Yeah, so the biggest thing is go to YouTube Studio,
check out that FameBit tab and get yourself signed up.
It's a really light wait on boarding flow,
and it gets you contracted,
and it makes it really easy for us to include you
in FameBit campaigns in the future.
That's definitely the biggest thing.
I'd also suggest you check
out the FameBit help center article
if you wanna understand anymore
about the self-service platform and the sun-setting
and what that means for you and your channel.
And finally, there's a lot more to to come,
so please watch the space.
Work on a lot of new stuff
and hope to be back on Insider soon.
- Great!
Well, thanks for all that information.
So, if you're interested in FameBit,
check out the links below, and we'll catch you next time.
Until then, keep it real!
- Thank you!