WatchMojo CEO’s Vision For Monetizing Online Video
By Anna Johnson on January 18th, 2010In a recent TechCrunch guest post, Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, the founder and CEO of WatchMojo, shared his thoughts on the trends in online video… including some advice for video producers wanting to monetize online video.
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan has some authority on the subject of online video. In the four years WatchMojo has been producing its professional quality information and entertainment videos, the company has built up a catalog of 5,000 videos, which have generated over 105 million streams since 2006. WatchMojo now streams nearly 10 million videos each month, reaching some 20 million consumers online and offline.
So what does Ashkan Karbasfrooshan regard as the major trends in online video? Firstly, he believes that, with online video consumption soaring threefold in 2009, the industry is on the verge of a similar increase in online video revenues.
With the economy recovering, Karbasfrooshan believes marketers will start increasing their ad spending, but will increasingly shift it online at the expense of traditional media. Online video producers are well-placed to attract such advertising dollars, but are only likely to attract it with professional content.
Mainstream advertisers are unlikely to invest in amateurish, user-generated, talking-head online videos that offer an experience that is nothing much more than reading an article. On that basis, online video creators need to harness the audio-visual medium, and produce videos that are demonstrative, not descriptive.
On the other hand, while online video producers wishing to attract advertising dollars will need to produce premium content, they do not need to produce ‘super premium’ (TV quality) content. According to Karbasfrooshan, “online audiences tend to favor Web content whose format and style is more in tune with their more fickle tastes.”
My take on that is this: Internet users want good production values but, more-so than TV viewers, want authenticity and transparency. This applies to Internet content in general but, when it comes to video, Internet audiences are particularly eager to escape the slick, superficial content they associate with most TV content and are looking for videos that ‘keep it real’.
As with TV audiences, however, online video audiences will not be fooled by video advertorials. Says Ashkan Karbasfrooshan:
“Audiences are unlikely to embrace marketing videos disguised as entertainment. Advertorials in print media have long been a part of the magazine experience, but audiences have learned to bypass them. Advertising cannot fully replace or become the content outright. But producers who tastefully weave commerce into content will win.”
Karbasfrooshan suggests that the ‘Field of Dreams approach’ may be what ultimately delivers huge audiences… and huge advertising revenues:
“create content that you are passionate about and people want to watch, build an audience and then monetize it. We all want advertisers to pay for content before it’s green lit, but that doesn’t mean it will happen.”
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan also suggests that, since consumers “will never pay for online videos” video producers can either seek advertisers directly or license their content to online media companies that in turn seek advertisers (as per the traditional media model). To be in a position to supply content to other media companies and ‘maintain the Field of Dreams philosophy’, online video producers will need to produce videos that balance quantity, quality, frequency, consistency, timeliness and variety.
Karbasfrooshan is, of course, directing his comments to online video producers seeking a mass audience, or at least an audience that is big enough to attract either advertisers or licensing deals from media companies. Niche Internet marketers CAN and DO charge consumers directly for video content – as many Internet marketing ‘gurus’ and others selling online training courses will attest.
Nonetheless, for those Internet marketers interested in producing and/or distributing online video content using an advertising or licensing model, Karbasfrooshan’s insights are definitely worth considering.
January 24th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Good information to read. Thanks for the post, you learn something new all the time….