Ykone Insights #2: Videosyncrasy, June 2014

Paris & New YorkA production by

I N S I G H T N º 2 / 1 9 T H J U N E 2 014

VIDEOSYNCRASY:Making Waves in the Social Video Age

INSIGHTS / 19TH JUNE 2014

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INSIGHT Nº 2CONTENTS

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Video Killed the Radio Star

03 – 05The Big Bang and the Beygency

07 – 10From Going Rogue to Landing Vogue

11 – 13Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

05A Tale As Old As Time

16Language is Skin

17Youtube? Yes You Phan

18A Brand Built on Video

19 – 21From Upscale Vlogger to

Up-and-coming Blogger...

25 – 26Beneath the Surface: The Vimeo Equation

27 – 28In The Future, Everyone Will Be World-famous For 15 Seconds…

VIDEO KILLEDTHE

RADIO STARWORDS by YKONE’S EDITORIAL TEAM

t was just past midnight on August 1st 1981 when MTV aired its first ever music video. The clip chosen to represent this landmark event? Video Killed the Radio Star by British new wave band The Buggles. A biting comment on the

potentially ‘lethal’ cultural impact of audiovisual technology on the music industry, it couldn’t have come at a better time. At the dawn of the 80’s, users

began consuming video in new ways and in new contexts: VCR and VHS, pausing and playing, rewinding and restarting, tuning in to MTV before shelling out on CDs… A technological and cultural phenomenon which connected artists and audiences as never before. Revolutionary? You bet. And yet something was still missing from the equation…

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INSIGHTS NO. 2

THE CONTENT CONUNDRUM? REACHING THE RIGHT CROWD, IN AN APPROPRIATE CONTEXT WITH HIGH-QUALITY, ON-BRAND CONTENT.

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”

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INSIGHTS NO. 2

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INSIGHTS NO. 2

THE BIG BANG ANDTHE BEYGENCY

astfoward to 2014, and the video scene would seem to have come full circle. Almost a decade after the first ever video was added to YouTube, over one hundred hours of content are uploaded

to the video hosting platform every minute by generation ‘C’ millenials who, not content with consuming content from their favourite artists and brands, are busying creating and curatingtheir own. In a world where it would take us several million years to watch a month’s worth of online video, and where diffusion is no longer a one-way street, video is both an unprecedentedmarketing opportunity and a real challenge strategically. The content conundrum? Reaching the right crowd, in an appropriate context with high-quality, on-brand content.

Not sure what we mean? Just ask pop music’s video content queen. For her latest launch, Beyoncé changed the rules of the game, releasing the first ever ‘visual album’, comprising 14 tracks and 17 videos. This ambitious project entailed revealing all the clips simultaneously as part of an immersive online video experience. Video was no longer to be seen as an accessory to the music; it was part of a

bigger audiovisual picture. But it didn’t stop there. With just one 15-second Instagram video, Beyoncé surprised her fans with news of a new album. 600,000 likes and several million sales later, the social experience continued to grow with directors’ cuts, inspirations and interviews posted to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. A multi-channel, self-sufficient ‘seeding’ strategy that singlehandedly earned the singer the title of best selling album of all time on iTunes. Ultimately, though, the secret to the Beygency’s success relies on more than just music; it’s about mastering modern media.

Her latest magnum opus? An advert for the forthcoming On The Run tour with Jay Z, which is, in fact, anything but… Presented as a fictional trailer, the short film stars the couple alongside Hollywood stars Sean Penn, Jake Gyllenhaal and Blake Lively. Insolent in content, influential in community, perfectly in context, RUN blurs the lines between traditional advertising and content creation, leaving 8 million Vevo viewers all asking the same question: “When will we see the main feature?”. “Coming Never”, say Beyoncé and Jay Z. Video may well have killed the radio star, but it gave birth to a whole new generation of social media seers…

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‘RUN’ by Beyoncé x Jay Z: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNcJg5svv9A

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INSIGHTS NO. 2

CHAPTER I:THE GAME CHANGER

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TO MAKE VIDEO

MEANINGFUL, YOU HAVE TO

PRACTISE ACCESSIBILITY

AND AUTHENTICITY.

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INSIGHTS / CHAPTER I

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We know what you’re thinking: that’s all well and good, but what happens when you don’t have a Beyoncé-sized budget and backing? As a handful of forward-thinking fashion houses have shown, high-impact, high-quality

video is about creative rather than financial investment.

FROM GOINGROGUE TO

LANDING VOGUE

ack in 2010, all major fashion houses had but one obsession: putting out a fashion film to accompany their seasonal ad campaigns. While many were happy to opt for the commonplace ‘behind-the-scenes’ scenario, one contender in particular stood out with a viral video

that knocked the competition into submission: Lanvin. If there’s one artist that seems a thousand leagues from the haute société of the Faubourg Saint- Honoré, it’s probably Pitbull. And yet with a little help from one of the most mainstream global artists of the day, Alber Elbaz and Steven Meisel set the web alight with their witty, perfectly executed couture dance routine. While the average Lanvin campaign receives somewhere in the region of 90,000 YouTube views, this one hit 100,000 in just 3 days, going on to clock up almost a million. Meanwhile, the Prada FW11 campaign, a stricter reflection of the brand’s codes also shot by Meisel for that same season, never made it past the 30k mark…

Metrics are about much more than mere numbers, though, and by understanding social video culture Lanvin succeeded in leveraging humour and pop culture to bring niche fashion to the masses, increasing brand notoriety and ensuring effortless media coverage. From Vogue to Mashable and LOL of The Day, everyone wanted a piece of the Lanvin x Pitbull pie. Then came the spoofs, proof, if ever there was, of a successful YouTube video. In a trailblazing role reversal, stills from the film even went on to provide campaign shots published in the coveted Vogue September Issue. It just goes to show: when making video content, context and crowd essentially mean power. The online video community loves nothing more than a little humour, and what Lanvin grasped earlier than most is that to make video meaningful, you have to practise accessibility and authenticity.

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TECHCRUNCH / NEW YORK 2014

VIDEO IS NOT ABOUT CREATING MINUTES,

IT’S ABOUT CREATING MOMENTS.

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“”

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ust as we all remember where we were the first time we kissed, we probably recall equally well the very first time we laid eyes on First Kiss. In a stripped-back setting, a series of surprisingly stylish strangers prepare to lock lips for the

first time. Touching? Absolutely. Suspicious? Maybe just a little... But we all let our faith in human nature get the better of us from time to time. A beautiful, documentary-style black and white short film, First Kiss had a secret to tell…

After going viral on social media and racking up several million views in just a few hours, the news broke: First Kiss was, in fact, a fashion film by up-and-coming LA label Wren Studio. Cue the critics, skeptics and cynics. As Melissa Coker and Tatia Pilieva, the creative minds behind the project, were hauled over the coals for their ‘unconventional’ approach to branding, social media experts praised what was soon referred to as possibly “the most successful fashion film ever made.”

The irony of the situation? First Kiss was initially launched as part of Style.com’s Video Fashion Week, an initiative intended to offer visibility to brands without the means to fund a full-blown runway show. As former Vogue editor-at-large and boss to Coker André Leon Talley so rightly points out, “She

gets better attention than an actual fashion show in fashion week.” With just over three minutes as opposed to the 15-minute runway standard and with far less overheads, First Kiss has garnered 83 million views and 50,000 comments on YouTube in a forthnight. When you compare it to Louis Vuitton’s latest epic installment of L’Invitation au Voyage starring David Bowie, which has taken seven months to reach to 33 million views, what started out as a video sent to just 20 friends on Facebook is clearly a killer piece of content, in or out of context.

Our focus may not be on the clothes and Wren Studio may not be selling many more dresses as a consequence, but the real question is: would the film have been so successful beyond the fashion crowd had it been heavily branded, and was that even the point? We’ll never know. At the very least, a recent study by Axonn Research suggests that 7 in 10 people view brands in a more positive light after watching interesting viral video content from them. More importantly, though, director Tatia Pilieva believes that the key to video “is not about creating minutes, it’s about creating moments.” With its perfectly-dosed blend of sincerity and spontaneity, First Kiss redefines the limits of the social fashion film, an outsider achievement second only in volume and impact to the stature of Beyoncé and co.

KISS KISS,BANG BANG

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‘First Kiss’ by Wren Studio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpbDHxCV29A

CHAPTER II:THE STORYTELLER

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INSIGHTS / CHAPTER I I

ince time immemorial, the tenet governing the art of successful storytelling has remained unchanged. In the words of the Roman lyric poet Horace, “one gains universal applause

by mingling the useful with the agreeable”. 2000 years on, little has changed. The storytellers of yore? We now know them as Viners or Vloggers. The ‘useful’ part of the equation? Think of it as a ‘how to’ or ‘DIY’ tutorial. And the fun? Therein lies the secret to harnessing your crowd’s full potential: working with the most influential and approachable ‘friendly’ faces in online video to collaborate on powerful, relatable brand content.

Whether it be Vine artist Meagan Cignoli creating award-winning #fixinsix video tutorials for American household name Lowe or portraying make-up made easy for Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, the message is very much the same: less focus on advertising the product and more time spent enjoying and understanding it. An art form in its own right, Twitter’s six-second video platform

generates no less than five tweets per second containing a Vine link. Though Vine may initially seem to be challenging brands with its creative constraints including limited expression and zero editing features, its rapidity and authenticity are qualities which have only served to bolster the Vine community’s interest. That’s surely all the more reason to leave it up to the professionals. Take PAULE KA, for example, who just named Meagan their World Wise Woman of the month. Without ever joining the platform, the brand commissioned a series of vines in the manner of digital portraits which now hang in the Tumblr gallery as well as on Meagan’s account: her content, her crowd, her rules.

In the words of Meagan, “Vine is a completely new world and has its own set of rules – I think this has given me an opportunity to shine”. With a 450,000 strong following and several prestigious short film awards under her belt, Meagan has built a social media empire as a short format, stop-motion specialist. Her winning formula? Impeccable quality and a strong sense of community.

A TALE ASOLD AS TIME

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hen theorist Roland Barthes wrote that ‘language is a skin’, little did he imagine the day would actually dawn when skin would quite

literally become one of the most powerfullanguages on the web. Welcome to the world of the ‘beauty besties’, an industry that representsseveral billion dollars and over 700 millionYouTube hits per month. As of last year, more than 120 million ‘how-to’ and beauty tutorials werebeing watched every day, making beauty the

most searched for content on the platform. With such powerful business potential, it may seem surprising to learn from a recent Pixability paper that only 3% of the 14,9 billion beauty-relatedvideos in existence are actually a product of brand initiative. This means that vloggers, haul girls and beauty fans are in fact controlling 97% of the conversation around beauty brands on YouTube. With jaw-dropping statistics such as these, clever crowdsourcing must surely become key, and meaningful collaboration a no-brainer.

LANGUAGEIS SKIN

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hought Beyoncé was big? Guess again. There’s a young beauty enthusiast who has nearly five times as many subscribers to her name: Michelle Phan. What started with a homemade

beauty vlog uploaded to YouTube back in 2007 has grown organically into a three-billion-view strong social media empire. As the platform proudly proclaims, people no longer search for ‘smoky eye’ or ‘lip liner’; they start by searching for Phan. One

brand who saw the potential in Phan’s simple, accessible video tutorial format early on was Lancôme. By giving her a voice and a choice (she wasn’t bound to promote Lancôme alone), Michelle maintained her editorial integrity while showing her loyal followers how to have fun with the brand’s best products. Looking beyond revenue alone secured Lancôme a stellar e-reputation thanks to endorsement than no level of conventional brand content could ever achieve.

YOUTUBE?YES YOU PHAN

0:02 / 6:00

Subscribe

Michelle Phan

6,546,320

54,176,058105,378 1,705

Michelle Phan, 27 yrs old, 6 million+ YouTube followers

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ith her low-cost, high- impact videos and close-knit community, Phan has sourced her fair share of product and consumer

insights over the last seven years. So much so that she would go on to build her very own social-driven cosmetics label, EM, in partnership with L’Oréal Luxe. An intelligent exchange that gave Phan the product she longed for and L’Oréal the platform they dreamed of. In a video posted to present the final product, she tells the story of her evolution, thanking her fans for their involvement and encouragement. From community comments she created a full-blown community platform, where EM fans can post their own looks and tips while

enjoying shoppable video tutorials from Phan. All of which ties neatly back into the origins of the project: YouTube. But Phan isn’t the face and voice of any one brand, she is the face and voice of an entire generation. More of a media brand than a make-up expert, her latest partnership reveals the real power of user-generated content. In a bold move, Google has chosen to promote Phan’s beauty channel as part of the first ever full-scale YouTube advertising campaign: TV, print, billboards, ads across brand-owned entities… Bearing in mind that by 2017, 90% of all internet traffic will come from videos, Google didn’t waste any time declaring war, such is the value of a woman who is much more than just a pretty face; Michelle Phan is a full-blown video media brand.

A BRAND BUILTON VIDEO

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e may not all be blessed with a Phantastic support system comprising the biggest beauty and technology corporations in the world,

but that might just be an opportunity to reach out to a whole new generation of vloggers and bloggers with fresh new perspectives and growing audiences. Take French fashion sensation Elsa Muse, whose outsider eye and bold point of view have made her a firm favourite with brands the world over.

Though video is by no means her speciality or the origin of her notoriety, Comptoir des Cotonniers saw the creative potential in Elsa for experimenting with innovative online content. Armed with little more than two cameramen and her own directing talents, she pieced together not just the perfect fashion wardrobe, but a week-long web series with a

painstakingly simple concept: 1 day, 1 dress, 1 hairdo. Video is by no means a given for small brands and small-scale blogs, as it tends to imply big-budget, heavy production. But therein lies the secret to this project’s success: keeping it real. Everyday scenarios, everyday dresses, an everyday girl… does it get more relatable? But if Elsa’s participation brought visibility to the brand, engagement came from an added community dimension: the dress hunt. Viewers were encouraged to seek out one of the dresses hidden in the video to be in with a chance of winning it. All they had to do was click on the silhouette in question to automatically generate a tweet and confirm their participation. Add to that shoppable video technology and you’ve got yourself the social media holy grail: on-brand video content in a YouTube friendly context (web series), strong community (blog collaboration and competition) and integrated e-commerce (drive to store).

FROM UPSCALEVLOGGER TO

UP-AND-COMINGBLOGGER...

‘ Dress Fashion Week’ by Elsa Muse x Comptoir des Cotonniers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW4-64xLetI

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CHAPTER III:THE CONTENT FACTORY

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aving explored bothbrands excelling on social media and social media leaders excelling as brands in the first two parts of this paper, one question remains: what about those who are both, or neither, or somewhere in-between. On both sides of the creative pond, a handful of video mavericks are slowly but surely rewriting the rules, operating as fully fledged entities not dissimilar to the Warholian factory model. History repeating itself? Indeed, only with two major differences: technology and community. Their hallmark? Uncompromising quality and originality. Video is by no means a given for small brands and small-scale blogs, as it tends to imply big-budget, heavy production. But therein lies the secret to this project’s success: keeping it real.

H

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INSIGHTS / CHAPTER I I I

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uring a rare interview given as part of the Intel x Vice Creators Project, Jérémie Rozan, Creative Director of Paris-based fashion label and creative film studio Surface To Air,

made his position on video content crystal clear: “When insiders tell me things like ‘We want to make a good movie to create some buzz on the internet’ it means nothing to me. A good movie is a good movie, right?” One of the most respected names in the alternative fashion film industry, Rozan uses his vision for his own label as a guiding principle for client briefs. An artistic integrity and 360° approach that have led him to work with some of the most prestigious names in fashion, PR and music, such as

Louis Vuitton and Dom Pérignon, Justice and Kavinsky. Cool kids through and through, you won’t catch the Surface To Air team hanging around YouTube anytime soon. They have a strict Vimeo-only policy, favouring high quality while actively targeting the creative set. You might be forgiven for finding this angle somewhat ‘anti-social’, but that’s just the point: by working as a contemporary collective, they draw on their niche creative community to leverage influence. Whether it’s designing a Kavinsky x Surface To Air limited edition jacket or using Justice’s Planisphere as the soundtrack to a Louis Vuitton Fine Jewellery video, they harness the hype potential to the full.

BENEATHTHE SURFACE:

THE VIMEOEQUATION

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IN THE FUTURE,EVERYONE WILL BE

WORLD-FAMOUSFOR 15 SECONDS…

ad Warhol lived to experience the Instagram age, he would undoubtedly have rethought his most famous phrase. At a time when anyone can try their hand at the short format film

with little more than a smartphone and a flash of inspiration, high quality and high impact don’t always go hand in hand. On the one hand, the world’s most powerful bloggers are publishing poor

quality shots of Chanel shopping trolleys garnering hundreds of thousands of likes, and on the other, professional photographers are producing 15-second masterpieces that go cruelly unnoticed. Then there are those, like New York-based digital artist Jamie Beck, who have built a business out of influence and inspiration. Judging by her fashion filmography to date, she looks set to stay around for far more than just 15 seconds...

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It’s no co-incidence that Jamie and husband Kevin Burg hit the big time, as they started by forging a niche for themselves with the cinemagraph, a video format combining never-before-seen photography techniques and the latest digital technology. Their smartest move, though, was understanding the power of context and crowd, which would lead them to post their cinemagraphs on the Tumblr From Me To You. A few million impressions and hundreds of thousands of notes later, creative insiders grew into fashion admirers, the first of whom was none other than Oscar de la Renta, who commissioned a series of motion portraits with Coco Roca. An ingenious collaboration that brought together three of the most powerful Tumblr voices.

It would have been all too easy for Beck to content herself with simply churning out cinemagraphs, but as a classically trained artist with a flair for fashion and an ever-growing social media presence, she understood that content diversity was the name of the game. Her traditional-meets-tech approach and blogging prowess made her an ideal ambassador for a number of high fashion and jewellery brands, the latest of which is none other than Chanel.

In an on-going partnership this season, she has worked on several tailormade projects for France’s most famous brand, including ‘Monday through Friday’, a fresh and fun shoot with Lucky Magazine. During the shoot, Beck put out a playful 15-second video, shared on her Instagram and Vimeo accounts. Having already amassed over 100 likes for every second filmed, the video, which never appeared on Ann Street Studio, proves that successful video requires the right content on the right channel.

But it is perhaps Jamie Beck’s latest project with Chanel which best embodies what videosyncrasy in the socia video age is all about: appreciating what makes a video artist different, and providing them with the means and the space to shine. For L’Instant Chanel, the house’s first watch advertising campaign in over 20 years, nothing was left to chance. Shot by the legendary fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier, the campaign stills provided inspiration for a series of four black-and-white 17-second films. Short and sweet, they have collectively totalled over 900k views on YouTube.

That’s far more than Karl Largerfeld’s recent epic ‘Once Upon A Time’ starring Keira Knightley as Coco Chanel. Surprised? In a video age where 80% of all content lasts less than a minute, you shouldn’t be.

Chanel could quite happily have stopped there, but instead commissioned a short film from Ann Street Studio. There’s no mention of L’Instant Chanel and no apparent link to the official campaign; it’s more about providing a talented and influential voice in online video with the opportunity to comment on her own

relationship with time as a modern audiovisual artist. The result? ‘Money is Recycled, Time is Spent’, a heart-rendingly beautiful piece, and arguably some of Beck’s finest work to date. The thing that makes it so special? She is at once the star, the director and the distributor of her own film, which made a striking debut on Instagram before premiering on the blog. A picture-perfect illustration of the Generation ‘C’ millenial, Jamie Beck consumes, creates and curates like no other. Therein lies the key to videosyncrasy: understanding and inspiring. It’s a wrap.

“A PICTURE-PERFECT

ILLUSTRATION OF THE

GENERATION ‘C’ MILLENIAL, JAMIE BECK CONSUMES,

CREATES AND CURATES LIKE

NO OTHER.”

Paris & New YorkA production by

INSIGHTS / 19TH JUNE 2014

CREDITS

E D I T O R- I N - C H I E F

Olivier [email protected]

A R T D I R E C T O R

David [email protected]

W R I T E R / E D I T O R

Richard [email protected]

P H O T O G R A P H Y

Anna Rakhvalova, Fred W. McDarrah,Melina Matsoukas, Steven Meisel, Tatia Pileva

I L L U S T R AT O R S

Anna Ismagilova, Bioraven, Canicula

C O N TA C T

Ykone, 28 Rue du Sentier75002 Paris, [email protected]

Ykone is a Paris and New-York based agency proud to help Fashion and Luxury brands to connect with their clients and fans on the social web. We build social media strategies, organize international conferences, manage

brand pages on social networks, help brands work with digital influencers and create many types of content.

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Ykone Insights #2: Videosyncrasy, June 2014

Technology

Transcript of Ykone Insights #2: Videosyncrasy, June 2014