3 Takeaways from VidCon 2019
Last week was the 10th annual VidCon, a multi-genre and multi-platform video conference for creators and industry players started by Hank & John Green in 2010. I'm a big fan of the conference. I attended for the first time in 2017 and was so energized by the experience that within moments of entering the Anaheim Convention Center, I started piecing together an executive report to bring back to my colleagues in New York which I spent the rest of the summer road-showing and evangelizing to anyone who would take a meeting with me.
VidCon is an important event because it brings together people who operate in a digital space to a real-world environment to meet and discuss themes that are relevant to our industry such as: platform changes, emerging formats, sponsor participation, community values and the creator economy. The patterns that emerge from these discussions, and the observations I make across the community, creator and industry tracks serve as leading indicators for where I think the social media ecosystem is headed.
Here are 3 of my key takeaways from VidCon 2019:
1. Influence can make you rich but building a durable brand will make you wealthy. Creators work hard for their money, which they mainly earn in exchange for their direct labor (e.g. sponsorships, talent deals, ad revenue, etc) and largely depends on their ability to remain relevant (e.g. subscriber counts, views, engagements, etc) by feeding a content treadmill that is determined by algorithms over which they have no control and can lead to burnout if they work too hard to keep up or irrelevance if they fall behind. The spread of Creator licensed product lines (t-shirts, makeup, memorabilia), whose merch booths seemingly account for more space on the convention floor each year, is a rudimentary step in the right direction. I believe there is untapped potential in working with creators as startups, rather than talent, to help them generate long-term value by tapping into their online followings to build robust, diversified businesses, and to help them grow and protect their wealth through sustainable investment strategies.
2. TikTok. Theorist Media founders, Matthew Patrick & Stephanie Patrick, have an uncanny ability to see around corners and forecast rising content and platform trends. That’s why I partnered with them 2-years ago to offer quarterly workshops for my colleagues at Velocity to keep them sharp on emerging trends in online video formats and platforms. During the recent Q1 ‘19 session, they predicted TikTok would be a thing and now it’s officially a thing. The platform offers similar features to Vine and Musical.ly (which TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance purchased and rolled into its app in August ‘18) features user generated lip syncs, duets and super short-form sketch videos and is a hotbed for launching viral memes. Lil Nas X famously used it to help propel Old Town Road to viral and mainstream success earlier in the year. This summer, everyone with a teenager is probably asking their friends in marketing about the app to figure out what it is, and everyone in marketing is likely asking teens the same to figure out how to monetize TikTok by reaching valuable Gen Z audiences. If you work in marketing, start ramping up your expertise, because your clients are going to have lots of questions.
Here are the vital stats about TikTok:
Age: 13-20
Gender: Skews female
Interests: Humor and memes
Formats: Highly edited, short-form video
3. Opportunity for Outliers. VidCon was originally conceived of to celebrate social media creators and their community of fans. That promise remains the same today, but the ecosystem both inside and outside the festival has evolved to include a growing contingent of industry attendees from the worlds of marketing, media, entertainment, and a variety of adjacent service providers. They make the trip to Anaheim to network and stake their claim of the $107 billion U.S. digital ad market share, 57% of which is currently captured by two companies. In this context "content" is often treated as a commodity like grain, precious metals or pork bellies. Most commodities markets are a race to the bottom on price, because they are fungible products considered to be as good as the next equivalent one, with less emphasis placed on who produced it and more on how much it costs and the ROI. In a sea of undifferentiated content offerings and panel discussions about "data-driven content", "best practices", and "optimization" aimed at delivering high yields of impressions at low prices, Cut.com CEO Michael Gaston's thoughtful keynote presentation was a breath of fresh air by offering a roadmap for alternative paths that courageous digital brands can follow. He spoke about his company’s commitment to produce editorial formats, videos and products intended to promote understanding and empathy first and foremost above views, subscriptions and quick-buck profits. Cut.com is pursuing this strategy in service of a long-term vision to build an enduring brand that inspires passion and loyalty among its audiences which Gaston and his co-founders want to harness into a flywheel effect capable of spinning off a variety of revenue producing content IP and products, rather than devoting resources in the pursuit of the short-term dopamine hit that comes from renting out audiences for ad dollars. So far, their values-based model is producing videos, formats and IP that are garnering large, engaged online audiences, successful product lines and brand recognition among their competitive set who are freely “borrowing” ideas. Time will tell if the strategy pays off, but to quote another CEO who preferred to go against the grain, “the people crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
