Last week some of YouTube’s most famous names flooded into Toronto’s Hyatt Regency for Buffer Festival, a Google-sponsored event that puts web content on the big screen.
As an introduction to homegrown stars, the festival also invited marketers and agencies to discuss how brands can work with YouTubers. Several Canadian YouTubers were also on hand to talk about the brand deals they’ve brokered, and to explain their content and audience to potential advertisers.
At the event, Marketing sat down with Kathryn Friedrich, head of global content commercialization at YouTube and David Brown, country lead for YouTube Canada, to talk about some of the most popular YouTubers in Canada and how brands can work with them.
AsapScience
Stats: Over 3 million subscribers, 290 million channel views
Demo: Wide ranging, both men and women, 18-54. Think of it as the PBS of YouTube
Good fit for: Also wide ranging — from brands that have a direct link to science (think electronics, automotive) to ones that don’t (packaged goods, travel).
AsapScience has the scientific answers to seemingly silly questions like, “Are Silent Farts Worse?” and “What If You Stopped Drinking Water?” In the example above, the channel busts myths in collaboration with its sponsor, General Electric. GE linked the video to its neuroscience reports, using the 3.5 million views to promote the project. It also used the video as content, publishing it, for example, to its Tumblr page.
Friedrich said many types of brands could do similar deals with AsapScience, listing the CBC as another example. For the Olympics, CBC partnered with AsapScience on a video about how Olympians bodies have changed over the years.
An added bonus: the videos are kid-friendly. “It’s almost education masked as fun. I can watch it with my children, it’s brand safe; I never worry about what they’re going to show,” said Friedrich.
Superwoman
Stats: Over 4.1 million subscribers, 433 million channel views
Demo: Younger women, 18-39, but also a mass crossover appeal thanks to her collaborations with other popular YouTubers
Good fit for: A wide range of brands, from food and beverage to fashion, beauty and electronics
The daily vlogs posted by IISuperwomanII are almost like Buzzfeed articles come to life. There’s the “25 Things I Learned While I Was 25,” “What Girls Sound Like,” and this recent topical example, “5 Stupid Things I Do On Halloween” (above).
“She has such an appealing way of presenting content,” Friedrich said. “It’s easy, snackable information and it’s very fluid between watching it on your desktop as a coffee break or on your mobile phone as you’re standing in line.”
Daniela Andrade
Stats: Over 360,000 subscribers, nearly 34 million channel views
Demo: Skews young
Good fit for: Artistic and artisanal brands, retailers and packaged goods
A singer songwriter by trade, Daniela Andrade’s channel is a collection of both original songs and cover songs. She covers current hits including Sam Smith and Disclosure’s Latch, to older songs from Radiohead and Emmylou Harris. She also produces videos for original songs.
While she’s a musician, she takes the YouTuber approach to content, publishing frequent videos for her subscribers. That caught the attention of Google Canada, which tapped her as the entertainment for a fashion and beauty event the company hosted during its Think Brand week for marketers in the spring.
“She’s got one of those amazing, haunting voices,” Brown said. “The room fell into complete silence. You could hear a pin drop.”
Matthew Santoro
Stats: Over 2.7 million subscribers, about 205 million channel views
Demo: Wide ranging
Good fit for: Also wide ranging, inclusive of packaged goods, automotive
Matthew Santoro’s channel is full of top 10 lists on the kind of topics you’d expect the Discovery Channel to cover, like “The 10 Most Brilliant Criminals In History” or 10 “Inventors Killed By Their Own Inventions.”
“He does a really good job of research. He finds things that aren’t the run-of-the-mill fun facts,” said Brown. “He’s also an engaging personality and people are tuning in, which is why if you look at subscriber numbers, he’s one of the fastest growing channels.”
Brown said a brand could easily fit into the Top 10 list format. For example, a soap brand could sponsor a “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Soap” video.
