Digital media professionals gathered at the fancy Roosevelt Hotel in New York City yesterday to talk online video and what to make of it. Ad metrics, video buying, content creation — all of these topics were hashed out in an all-day no-holds-barred series of panels focusing on “Mining for Gold in Online Video” hosted by Digiday.
The big topic of the day: What defines “Premium Video?”
We have heard the phrase “Premium Video” repeatedly over the past few months because all of the major video sites have decided to focus on it now that all of the brands want their ads on it. But what does it mean? Is Premium Video merely “premium” because it was expensive to make? Is Premium Video “premium” because it’s exclusively available on Yahoo!, AOL, Netflix, Hulu or YouTube? Is Premium Video “premium” because it’s professionally made and not user-generated? Or is Premium Video “premium” because it’s just plain good?…
Also, firstly keep in mind: it’s all about mobile video right now. That is how most online video is currently watched.
The day began with a rather depressing consensus of the room by Digiday’s Director of Content Corey Kronengold as to who had seen online shows like The Confession with Keifer Sutherland. A few hands were raised. The rest of the room (90% of which were in suits) went, “what’s that?” This motivated Kronengold on a moribund theme for the day: “Why is nobody watching online video?” This was negated left and right by the panelists — people ARE watching online video (which is why all of these people showed up), but they may not necessarily be watching the BEST online video (which is also why all of these people showed up). They kinda want to fix that. We were there to “mine for gold” after all. Here is the first episode of Machinima’s scifi drama series RCVR, which to date, has been viewed almost 1.3 million times and also happens to be quite good.
Of course, if you are judging online video off of what TV/film does well, then you are misjudging. Whereas Keifer Sutherland may be highly successful on TV and film, he may not work in online video, because online video is a personal experience, which Machinima, a YouTube mega-success, knows very well. Also, for a balanced perspective on the topic, you probably needed to direct this question to people who actually watch online video as well, since most of the people in the room were there to be educated on where to throw their dough in the next quarter and not because they are writing fan letters to Anyone But Me… (As an aside, I spent the evening after this event watching the drama submissions to the IAWTV Awards and there is no dearth of what I consider to be good “premium” online series. In fact, there are at least 20 shows which are just as “addicting” as any of the top television series.) As of last month, the dramatic series Anyone But Me had been viewed 11 million times and also won the Writers Guild Award last year for Original New Media.
This brings me to the next topic: “Discovery is still an issue in online video.”
Pardon me, but duh! Online video is a niche industry still. The average person does not go to YouTube, Yahoo!, or AOL looking for good series yet. And if they do, and a lifestyle or personality-driven show pops up, they quite frankly think that is all there is because they are trusting the influencers to aggregate for them. When you show them a trailer for a good scripted show (as was the case with Tina Cesa Ward’s trailer for her new mini-series Good People In Love which was shown later in the day, the response is almost universally, “Why have I never seen this before?”)
Average people watch scripted shows more and more on Hulu and Netflix, but as of yet, they are generally watching their television shows crossing platforms and not discovering online originals. The average person does not know HOW to watch online original scripted series. Period. In fact, the first question that was asked of me when my neighbor at the table discovered I created the economic dramedy Downsized was, “how do I find series like yours?”
So, if media buyers are desperate for “premium content”… if ad companies are desperate to run ads on “premium content”… if major platforms are desperate to produce “premium content”, then why do we see SO MANY “premium” lifestyle shows? Well, lifestyle shows are cheap and regular but they are also not particularly addicting, whereas a good narrative series can be. If you miss the latest episode of OMG!now, you can probably sleep at night, whereas fans of Mark Gardner’s dramatic series Cell are still asking when they can see a second season after its big cliffhanger Season 1 Finale. But how do you afford to make a good narrative series?
That brings me to the other topic of the day pertaining to one of the ways to finance a scripted series: “Why does branded online video still suck overall?”
I’ll answer that briefly: it’s new. The event had some of the best creators of branded video in the business: Wilson Cleveland whose company CJP Communications creates story-driven PR-based shows for brands (like Suite 7 below) and Alloy, which is not necessarily a branded video production company but whose latest series Wendy found a way to incorporate Macy’s into a contemporarization of Peter Pan. (Clever.) Also, the valuation of online shows keeps shifting from “how many views do you get?” to “how much clickthru do you get” to “do viewers stick around until the end” to “how many people share the video.” A “viral” video is not necessarily as valuable as a video that actually gets people to click on an ad. Now that ad companies have started to figure this out, ad spending will start to increase again, and the types of storytelling they invest in will likely change.
Keep in mind: web viewing habits are absolutely quantifiable whereas television viewing habits are only estimated.
The afternoon keynote Erin McPherson of Yahoo! Originals (now Yahoo! Studios) addressed some of her thoughts on these issues. The “bread and butter” of Yahoo! is news, and they have no desire to abandon that brand. In fact, your Yahoo! homepage is personalized for you in over 40,000 possible variations off of what you search (weird but cool.) Their first slate of Yahoo! Studios “premium” content (already announced) is entirely geared towards women, all of which are, you guessed it, lifestyle shows with intended social components. Incidentally, per McPherson, they produce the Top 12 most popular web series per ComScore.
When I asked McPherson about Yahoo!’s direction with scripted content, she said they were still early in their testing phase with premium content, but she was concerned that scripted shows don’t have a regular tune-in rate. This point was somewhat validated by Kronengold’s pessimistic (although interesting) view of the state of scripted online series, which was a bummer.
All in all, the question still remains: how is “Premium Video” different from other online video? In terms of what is being pitched so far from YouTube, Yahoo!, and AOL, the distinction is mostly that it’s not user-generated content. But in my opinion, the key to cracking this industry is to connect ad dollars to good video that keeps viewers engaged, and you need a mix of lifestyle and scripted to do that. Sometimes, you want to watch some celeb gossip or teach yourself how to fix your own bathroom or find deals on home goods and fashion. Other times you want to go into another world and follow characters. Premium Video should make you want to come back.
It was Dina Kaplan of BlipTV who had my favorite quote of the day. When asked why a female-centric show on BlipTV had a pre-roll for a Mexican restaurant and a banner ad for a car company, she replied, without a beat, “I don’t think women only buy tampons. They buy everything.” And since the female audience is the holy grail right now in online video, here’s a tip: if you’re targeting us, you better have some damn good, smart series. We women deal with a lot nowadays. We’re complicated, and we want complicated shows.
DARYN
EXCELLENT article and I especially love the last quote. It’s about time that women are referred to as the holy grail!! We are!
Great recap. I know at least one person was paying attention.
Thanks for coming to the show and writing such a thorough review. And I agree, Dina had me with the tampon quote. She’s invited back any time she likes.
-Corey @ Digiday
Just wanted to add that I thought it was a great event. Having been at or on many panels, I appreciated that buttons were being pushed in terms of how to handle scripted online video. Lots of great discussion on ad value and the definition of “premium”.