Thismoment Content Marketing Blog » News

End of YouTube Custom Gadget Brings the Birth of Owned Video Hub

Vince Broady — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 18:14:05 +0000

Google recently announced it will no longer support custom brand channel “gadgets,” on YouTube. This is a huge change for brand marketers, so huge that Google is giving them a full year to adjust their strategies.

Obviously, video remains a critical element of digital marketing, and YouTube remains the most important player in the video ecosystem. But the demise of the custom brand channel forces marketers to face a stark reality: to make video an element of their digital brand presence, versus an end unto itself, they will have to establish their own video hubs in the one place they can control their own destiny: The Web.

To understand where we are today and the opportunity we’re headed towards tomorrow, we must first understand where we came from.

The birth of the YouTube brand channel

Upon their introduction in the late 2000s, custom YouTube brand channels quickly established themselves as the pinnacle of brand marketing in the Google ecosystem.

Anyone could buy a banner, or a keyword, but with a custom brand channel, you could create a brand experience. You could organize your content exactly the way you wanted, control every element of look and feel, and highlight more than just video content through modules and apps. You could keep “related” competition out, and instead of dumping users into a plain vanilla “watch page” you could keep them within your branded environment for an entire session.

You could even create a unified global channel capable of delivering the right content in the right language to any viewer in the world, automatically.

Amazing!

What changed?

Over the past few years, brands that embraced brand channels experienced a duality of change and evolution. On one hand, the YouTube gadget experience and the support offered changed, and on the other hand, macro trends of online video and business evolved.

Changes to the YouTube brand channel experience: As with all social networks, YouTube evolved rapidly over the past several years, and this produced a constantly evolving environment for brands to navigate.

For example, one the main appeals of the brand channel was to increase the level of branding via “gutters” and background images. Over time, this creative canvas was steadily diminished, until at first glance, most custom channels looked like standard ones. What didn’t change was the limited discoverability of the channels, and the restrictions on functionality which reduced their impact (no email collection, no commerce, etc.), all of which reduced ROI.

Despite all of this, hundreds of brands continued to maintain their custom channels. They still do, even to this day.

Why?

Because, brands must differentiate to exist, and custom brand channels on YouTube offer the ability to do that. Furthermore, every brand wants to have some level of control over the customer journey, so the content organization and categorization remain valuable. And who could (or can?) argue with the idea that delivering a consistent video experience across brands, regions, and markets isn’t a huge benefit to global marketers?

Macro online video and business trends evolve: Marketers also faced a significant consumer shift towards mobile dominance, and the rise of “pull vs. push” strategies on social media, YouTube included.

Simply put, today more and more consumers are viewing video on mobile devices than ever before, and brand channels are not supported on mobile. And, more and more brands are recognizing that they need to “own the channel” rather than re-creating brand experiences off of their own websites. Of course this includes video.

Over time these two forces combined to bring about the ultimate demise of the brand channel.

Which brings us to today and the future

The time allotted for these tools is now fleeting, and beginning in 2016, brands will have to make their mark on YouTube using their videos and playlists alone.

Today I offer good news. There is a path to success. A way to stay committed to YouTube as a video hosting service, while at the same time achieving the brand differentiation, coherent customer journeys, and global controls that marketers so desperately need their video assets to deliver.

The days of driving traffic to a third party platform — one in which you have little to no control — are coming to the end. Brands today need to think about driving traffic to owned channels. This is not to say that the days of videos are over. Far from it. Nor should brands stop using YouTube. What’s changing is the brand channel strategy — it’s shifting towards placing more focus on YouTube as a means of content distribution than a means to maintain a brand presence.

As such, with this change, brands have the opportunity to own the channel. Rather than recreating website branding on borrowed space, marketers should be thinking about how they can use social media (including YouTube) to drive traffic to a video and content environment without specific platform restrictions and arbitrary timetables. The video hub will live on, but it will, and should, live on brand owned channels.

Learn more on our FAQ page

The post End of YouTube Custom Gadget Brings the Birth of Owned Video Hub appeared first on Thismoment Content Marketing Blog.

NEWS: Thismoment Announces Series D Funding to Push the Boundaries of UGC Marketing

Marc Cowlin — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 13:11:07 +0000

Today we are pleased to announce that we’ve closed a $17.6 million Series D funding round. The new funding will be used to advance the development of Thismoment Content Cloud, more specifically, product development to meet demand for UGC management as core layer in the enterprise marketing technology stack.

“Our mission is to help enterprises evolve their use of UGC beyond promotions and campaigns into always-on business applications that transform how they engage with their customers, employees and prospects,” said Vince Broady, Founder and CEO. “Thismoment Content Cloud is the most advanced UGC management platform in the market, and is the only solution that is integrated with leading IT systems, from publishing platforms to CRM to analytics. This is why it is being deployed by the world’s most innovative companies – including Coca-Cola, AB InBev, Salesforce.com and Sephora – to power next generation, content-driven digital experiences at an enterprise level.”

User-generated content (UGC) is an essential part of establishing brand credibility and developing more personal relationships with customers, employees, partners and prospects. Thismoment Content Cloud automates the process of monitoring, moderating and clearing rights to UGC across multiple platforms and media types. In addition, it allows UGC to be mixed with professionally created content, enabling new and more engaging digital experiences across every part of the enterprise including brand marketing, sales enablement, customer support and HR/recruiting. Through integration with leading systems such as Adobe Marketing Cloud, Salesforce1 and Sprinklr, Thismoment Content Cloud efficiently meets a critical need within an enterprise’s marketing technology stack, while providing maximum return on existing IT investments.

For more information, see full press release and news at Techcrunch, Re/Code, Venture Beat, Wall Street Journal Blog, Reuters PE HUB, Tech Meme, Vator News, MediaPost, St Louis Business Journal, Fortune “Term Sheet” and Dow Jones.

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This Transformational Moment: 5 Years of Thismoment

Vince Broady — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 17:43:00 +0000

When I was a kid, people would ask me what my name meant. And I can remember beaming with pride telling them it meant “to conquer.”

It hasn’t always been so easy explaining the name of our company. Thismoment doesn’t fall into any obvious category, doesn’t roll off the tongue, and somehow invites more questions than answers. Those patient enough to learn about its origins are appreciated, but also few and far between.

Today, after more than five years and thanks to the work of our amazing brand marketing team, it all finally makes sense.

Our lives are a series of moments, and every experience we have and connection we make happens within them.

Most moments are drops in the river of time. But some stand apart, and have an impact that can forever change our attitudes, relationships, and actions. In these cases, “this moment” becomes something else: “amazing,” “unforgettable,” “jaw-dropping,” or “humbling.”

At Thismoment, we are building technology to facilitate this transformation in our increasingly digital world—a system that helps to turn any moment into something more meaningful and enduring.

Thus our new logo—with its obvious gap in the middle, waiting to be filled—is both a reminder of our purpose, and our potential.

And at this/transformational/moment, we eagerly embrace both.

The post This Transformational Moment: 5 Years of Thismoment appeared first on Thismoment Content Marketing Blog.

Global Brands Herald the Era of Responsive Design With New YouTube One Channels

Andrew Sielen — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 21:05:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwired – Jun 27, 2013) – Thismoment, the global leader in brand solutions for YouTube, today announced broad adoption of YouTube’s responsive One Channel format by major brands — including Activision, Acura, iRobot, Land Rover, Levi’s, Microsoft Office, Mobily, and TaylorMade. All of these brands, and their agencies, used Thismoment’s system to design and build their new channels, and to manage their content and subscribers on an ongoing basis.

One Channel better serves today’s mobile, multi-screen audience by optimizing the viewer experience for every device through its responsive design — which fluidly scales based on the size of the browser window — and promoting channel subscription visibility and access.

The move to the new, responsive One Channel design is a significant evolution of YouTube, and Thismoment ensured its customers were prepared for the transition. Alicia Jones, Manager of Social Marketing for Honda and Acura, explains, “Initially we were concerned by the One Channel announcement, not knowing exactly how it would impact our current channel. Thismoment, however, has made the transition painless, as they have been very attentive to our needs and concerns. It’s been nice having the peace of mind that — whatever changes may come to the platform — we can rely on Thismoment to keep us ahead of the curve.”

Liz Phillips, Social Media Manager at Taylormade, echoes this sentiment: “Thismoment went to great lengths to communicate the migration to One Channel was coming and proactively prepared TaylorMade for the transition. Thismoment has been a true partner. They armed us with the knowledge we needed to be prepared for the One Channel migration, and we worked together to identify the best strategies going forward.”

Vince Broady, Founder and CEO for Thismoment, notes, “A key advantage of our system is that it future proofs brands against the constantly changing digital landscape. When new developments like One Channel emerge, Thismoment users gain competitive advantage by being first to market in the new format, and by being able to take full advantage of the new capabilities from day one. In addition, they gain this advantage with minimal effort, no chaos, and at zero incremental cost.”

Stephen Bury, Senior Marketing Communications Manager for Microsoft, relates, “When we received word regarding Google’s planned One Channel migration, we were faced with deadlines that would have been difficult to manage on our own. Learning, however, that Thismoment was going to provide their resources and expertise in making the transition, we soon realized it was going to be an extremely straightforward and manageable process. As is typical with our experience of working with Thismoment, this migration has run efficiently and smoothly, turning something that was initially a source of concern into a project that has been seamless and bulletproof.”

Thismoment’s success with One Channel reinforces its position as the defacto standard for brand engagement on YouTube. Over the past three years, Thismoment’s system has powered more than 300 YouTube brand channels, an order of magnitude more than any other provider. Driven by the demands of its customers for differentiation and creative freedom within the YouTube environment, Thismoment has continually delivered first-to-market capabilities including:

The ability to extend YouTube brand channels — including user-generated video contests — to other online environments, including Facebook, mobile and the Web
The use of mixed media (photos, text, flash) within YouTube, both for brand and user-generated content
The deployment of global channels that combine universal brand elements with localized content, all on a single YouTube URL
The ability to curate and display an interactive, consolidated social conversation stream — incorporating YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ within a YouTube brand channel
The launch of the first responsive custom brand channel — Head & Shoulders’ Deep Like Troy.

A thought leader and the founding member of Google’s Engagement Solutions Developer Program (GESDP), Thismoment shares its knowledge about YouTube and One Channel with its customers and to the marketing community at large. Recent examples include publishing the most complete One Channel FAQ for brands and agencies, and making its Playbook for YouTube Brand Solutions freely available for download.

For a concise overview of Thismoment’s One Channel capabilities, please view our One Channel Solution video featuring commentary from our team and from Levi’s.

About Thismoment

Thismoment is the leading system for creating and delivering content-rich, social brand experiences. The world’s most recognizable brands use Thismoment to achieve superior audience engagement across YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, brand sites and other online destinations. Thismoment’s system optimizes the user experience for mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, and supports global distribution in 60 languages. To learn more, please visit www.thismoment.com.

Customer Insights

“There has been a bit of uncertainty about this transition, and it’s been reassuring to know that we have a partner who’s looking ahead for us and helping us navigate the change in a way that makes sense for our brand. Thismoment’s proactive approach to new technology has enabled us to engage with our YouTube consumers across the globe.”
-Blake Corbin, Manager of Digital Marketing for Activision

“We’re always working on a full plate of projects, so it was extremely beneficial that Thismoment offered to create the templates for OneChannel and — on top of that — would help us through the migration at no additional cost.”
-Liz Philips, Social Media Manager for TaylorMade

“It was very reassuring to have Thismoment streamline the process for us and communicate predecessors on such a timely basis.”
-Anis Zantout, Director of Digital for KSA at Initiative, Mobily

“Thismoment did a great job of communicating the intended One Channel migration — as well as providing us with a preview of how it would look and feel, which was all incredibly helpful. Thismoment made the transition quick and easy for us.”
-Kim Kyaw, Digital Marketing and Social Media Manager for Land Rover

“Thismoment’s technology allows us to deliver content in a more engaging and strategic way, while also allowing us to determine the best content to deliver. The CMS and software platform give us a much more robust way to present and market to our audience — and thereby have us think differently about our content strategy. The capabilities Thismoment provides today empower us to determine what our best strategy is for tomorrow.”
-Stephen Bury, Senior Marketing Communications Manager for Microsoft

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