Swiss tubers without a chance?

The video platform YouTube belongs to the search engine and advertising giant Google, so one thing is clear: there are no figures on its distribution in Switzerland. So it is (and will probably remain) an assertion when Werbewoche describes YouTube as the most popular social network in this country. But there is good evidence for this: Younger users in particular search for visual content first and do so on YouTube, and because they also frequently use the extensive range of music on YouTube for their individual soundtrack, they are connected to the site for long periods of time every day. YouTube has been the second-largest search engine since the end of 2011, when Google integrated the video platform with its Google+ social media initiative. Today, YouTube claims to have over one billion unique users worldwide every month, who watch six billion hours of videos. That is 50 percent more than a year ago.

Swiss YouTube stars

In Switzerland, YouTube launched a special Swiss channel in April. The timing of this is remarkable, namely a good five years after such a country-specific channel was introduced for Germany. This gives an indication of the market leader's assessment of the Swiss online video market. Like Google, the search engine giant's subsidiary also makes its money with advertisements that are tailored as precisely as possible to the target groups. In order to be able to offer attractive and exclusive content in addition to cat videos and the like, YouTube sets up an original channel for successful and well-known or up-and-coming names and contributes to the production costs. There are currently 13 original channels in German-speaking countries, 60 in Europe and 186 worldwide. When this initiative was launched, Google pledged 100 million dollars for it and last year invested 200 million for its promotion and marketing.

But even video producers who have not been selected for an original channel can benefit from YouTube by having their own videos released for advertising. Such YouTube partners receive a share of the advertising revenue. According to YouTube spokesperson Mounira Latrache, the partner program has more than 1 million partners from 27 countries. Every year, "millions of dollars" are paid out to the partners, with "a few hundred YouTube partners in the USA even generating profits in the six-figure range". However, this only works with correspondingly large target markets. Switzerland is far removed from this - so is it the end of the story for YouTube stars from Switzerland? Certainly not when it comes to Julia Graf alias MissChievous and Benoît Moreillon alias Diablox9 - both have already been the subject of several media reports due to their YouTube channels:

- MissChievous (572,706 subscribers): She posted her first make-up video on the internet five years ago and now earns her living from it. She produces at least one new video every week, with the most successful ones reaching up to six million viewers. The basis of her success is quickly clear: the Swiss-Canadian dual citizen speaks English and therefore reaches an international audience.

- Diablox9 (1,443,458 subscribers): He is also hereditarily favored, as his father is a radio journalist, so his appearances in front of the camera are characterized by a calm professionalism that cannot be taken for granted in a young person. And his topic is also typical of his generation: it's about video games. However, not in English like most others who tackle this topic, but in French. When he started at the age of 13, he was quick to conquer a gap in the market. As a 20-year-old, he now has an audience of millions thanks to YouTube, which he could only have reached decades later at best with a conventional professional career.

Although there are a few other YouTube practitioners in Switzerland with a sizeable following, no other YouTube stars from Switzerland with similar reach can be found (in the YouTube statistics from Socialblade or Socialbakers). Above all, there is a lack of channels with genuinely Swiss content (in dialect, for example) from independent new talents who make YouTube their stage.

Networks

It is precisely these commercially successful Tubers that have led to another commercially interesting phenomenon in other markets such as the USA or Germany over the last two years: YouTube networks. These are sometimes compared to the film studios in Hollywood in the 1930s, when the film business was in its infancy. Nobody knew exactly where the journey would take them, so they bought as much exclusive content as possible, mostly from young and inexperienced producers. Today, YouTube networks take a similar approach and merge different channels. Like record labels, they discover and promote talent. They help with production and promotion, as young talents are often unable to take care of all aspects as a one-man show. And they offer support in the event of conflicts relating to copyright issues, as they have better contacts with YouTube to resolve these. Such networks usually have clear target groups, bundle reach to improve marketing and sell advertising, sponsorship and product placements. The network earns from this and the partners involved should also be able to achieve better revenues.

YouTube networks have grown rapidly over the past year, particularly in the USA, and every major network now has investors from the media industry on board who do not want to miss out on these new gold mines. Google itself has invested in Machinima and Next New Networks, Comcast in Full Screen, Bertelsmann in Style Haul, Time Warner in Maker Studios, Discovery in Revision 3. Commentators therefore see the future of video currently at a turning point, with the next generation of big media companies being born on YouTube. They are combining new technologies with good old-fashioned video production and some will succeed in establishing themselves as partners or competitors to today's big media groups.

A good dozen such networks have also emerged in Germany. The German flagship network is Mediakraft. Unlike the equally wide-reaching Game Star&Friends network of media company IDG, for example, it was founded by YouTubers for YouTubers and today describes itself as "Central Europe's largest online TV station group". Mediakraft's most successful driving force is the comedy trio Y-Titty. With songs such as "Halt dein Maul" or "Ständertime" and Eminem parodies, they reach over 2.2 million subscribers, making them the most popular German YouTube channel. It has a fixed format: Every Wednesday, the troupe uploads a video from the comedy show section - this is where Philipp Laude (Phil, 23 years old), Matthias Roll, (TC, 22) and Oguz Yilmaz (OG, 22) discuss users' comments on their films. Fridays are FreiTitty Day, when new sketches are posted online. Mediakraft uses the appeal of its flagship channel to promote new channels such as Ponk, which got off to a fabulous start with over 100,000 subscribers on its first day. However, the top channels are generally relatively old. They have grown and their producers have constantly optimized their channel, producing videos for years that hardly anyone watched, and they have saved their time for it. Then they suddenly had a viral hit or were recommended by YouTube on the homepage. Anyone who has established a channel in this way not only generates views from the new videos, but also from the archive, which often accounts for more than half of the views.

La Suisse n'existe pas

In 1992, the motto "la Suisse n'existe pas" ("Switzerland does not exist") adorned the official Swiss pavilion at the World Expo in Seville, triggering fierce controversy. Today, this observation largely applies to YouTube: Although YouTube is consumed diligently in our country, Swiss content (still?) hardly plays a role on this new platform. On the Swiss homepage, YouTube documents what the often under-30-year-old YouTube consumers in Switzerland are watching: "An Interpretive Dance For My Boss Set To Kanye", "Treehouse of Horror XXIV Couch Gag by Guillermo" and "Rihanna - Pour It Up (Explicit)" (most popular videos from 7.10.2013). One reason for the lack of local video producers with Swiss content on YouTube is easy to find: The curse of the small market. What works in the USA and in Germany, namely that producers have a chance to finance themselves through a share of the advertising revenue, is hopeless in the Swiss mini-market. Possible measures to counteract this are quickly formulated, but hardly quick to implement:

- YT uses higher prices in the Swiss advertising market, which should also make the share payments to Swiss producers more attractive and ensure their survival in the event of success, as is the case abroad.

- The state instruments for media promotion (film promotion, etc.) will be extended to video producers on YouTube so that Swiss content can be used on this new media platform.

- Companies support video producers by enabling them to produce content that fits the You Tube platform and also has a positive impact on the image of the respective company.

- Depending on which of the above three options is mainly used, a corresponding Swiss network will be established to support and promote Swiss tubers.  In education, the production of videos should be promoted at the appropriate level. In schools, the production of video contributions should have the same status as the writing of essays, and there should be corresponding job profiles and courses of study at universities of applied sciences.

It's not that there aren't any talented video producers in Switzerland - it's just that they haven't yet achieved a brilliant reach on YouTube. We will present some of them in the rest of this video marketing series.

Christoph J. Walther