‘If brands create videos that Gen C loves to share, they will’

Google conducted an online survey of more than 2,000 Indian YouTube users, resulting in categorisation of a new type of consumer which the company terms ‘Generation C’ - based on the viewership traits of ‘Creation, Community, Curation and Connection’.

The findings revealed that more than 70 per cent of YouTube’s viewers in India are under the age of 35, while 72 per cent have a college degree or higher. According to the findings, three quarters of Indian YouTube users go on to visit a site mentioned in a YouTube video. Around three out of five Indians posted a comment about the video, while seven in 10 scroll down to read comments others have written, the survey revealed.

Danielle Tiedt, vice president of marketing, YouTube said, “If brands create videos that Gen C loves to share, they will. If you create communities around your brand, Gen C will join and participate. And with two in three Indian users visiting websites mentioned in the videos they watch directly, that’s a major opportunity.”

The survey also revealed that Gen C switches between devices 27 times a day, and Indian users watch nearly 30 per cent of their YouTube videos on mobile. Smartphone owners spend one quarter of their YouTube time on mobile, while tablet owners spend about 20 per cent.

Campaign India caught up with Shishir Mehrotra vice president of product, YouTube.

  

How have live events broadcast worked for YouTube?

It has been working quite well for us, especially after we re-launched the live player before Olympics with additional features like snapshots. During Olympics, we had around 5,00,000 to 6,00,000 concurrent views. After that, we rolled out the same features to our other channel partners who are benefitting from it now. Interestingly, Red Bull Stratos pilot Felix Baumgartner’s jump generated more traction, by registering around eight million concurrent viewers. Moreover, it is a great example for advertisers evolving to be content creators.

How significant is social media sharing for YouTube’s growth?

From early on itself, at YouTube, we were clear that our video player should be embeddable on any site around the web. Around that time, it was a very risky decision because most video properties thought it was a crazy idea to consume the content in other places. However, this feature allowed us to be part of many conversations. With that in place, YouTube traffic was consumed and initiated places like e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and so on. We have tie ups with Facebook and Twitter which allows syndication of content across social networks and thus are well plugged into social conversations. One way I like to look at, is that YouTube is like the table piece at a conversation. It’s the object that we talk about and the most important thing is that we need to allow the object to move around, which is making our player work wonderfully everywhere.

Will you be able to share any statistics about the viability of banner ads on videos as compared to video ads played before the video content?

Our priority has been moving towards TrueView video ads. It is probably a good indication of what viewers and marketers think. It is also the case of different screens like mobile and television. We are trying to focus on formats that scale well across platforms. Another important advantage of TrueView is that it is very easy to scale it. The mobile and television experience is uniform, which is not the case with banner ads.