Quality content matters, but advertising maximizes viewers: L2

Quality content remains an essential factor for videos to garner attention, but advertising is key in maximizing reach and scale, according to a new report from L2.

The “Beauty and Hair Care: Youtube” report examines the relative successes brands have with different advertising models. In sum, content must be good enough to hold viewer attention to justify advertisement spend, but organic views rarely drive scale.

“Despite everything that we have heard about successful viral videos, relying on organic reach alone is a long shot,” said Eleanor Powers, head of insight reports at L2, New York. “The vast majority of beauty and hair care brands on YouTube are relying on advertising to scale their content.

"There are only a handful of examples of brands which have managed to get both above average views and above average share of organic views without ad support," she said.

“While quality content is core to achieving organic views, there is no one winning strategy; beauty and hair care brands are using a range of content types to drive organic views. Unpaid views can also be supported through the use of niche search terms.”

Organic overreach
The report arrives on the heels of the L2 Intelligence Report: Video 2015, which found that viral videos are myths and that proper ad spend is essential for a video to receive high views. The new findings provide further evidence, as only three brands have channels with above-average viewership and a share of at least 50 percent organic views.

Chanel video

Of those three brands, em Cosmetics, YSL Beauty and Chanel, Chanel has the most channel views by a significant margin, pushing 160 million, but achieves only slightly more than half organically. YSL Beauty and em Cosmetics have almost entirely organic viewership but are just barely above the average in overall views. Among more than a dozen other brands attaining most of their views organically, none exceed 20 million channel views.

Moreover, Lancôme, the third-most viewed brand, and Armani, also well above average, receive less than 10 percent of their viewers organically. Dove, the brand with the most channel views after Chanel, with approximately 140 million, achieves around one-fourth organically, with 91 percent of the 11 million viewers on its “Love Your Curls” campaign video arriving from in-stream advertising alone.

In-stream advertising, when a 15- or 30-second ad video runs before the video the user has selected to watch, has an enormous impact on viewership, with usage frequency and the percentage of views it garners increasing as brands achieve more views. Eighty-two percent of channels with 10.6 to 25 million views and 100 percent of channels with over 25 million views—21 brands in all—source 85 percent of their views from in-stream ads.

YSL Beauty

Nonetheless, there is not a noteworthy correlation between percentage of organic views and total views—only that advertising often accounts for the majority of views—meaning engaging and well-made videos are essential for brands to be successful on video platforms such as YouTube.

Competitive queries
In general, brands have thus far been unable rely on YouTube’s search function to lead users to their videos.

Only 2 percent of results on the first page for popular beauty-related keyword searches are brands. However, brands have the opportunity to employ words that are popular enough to be searched frequently but not so popular as to be lost in a larger sea of results.

Searches for “Lisa Eldridge” or “secret,” for example, have led many users to brands’ videos, as they are used infrequently enough to keep brands on the front page in a way that more common searches do not.

With cord cutting becoming increasingly popular among young and wealthy consumers, brands must reach out on channels frequented by the demographic, namely social media and YouTube. The report shows that advertising remains an effective, even necessary, manner in reaching consumers, and even channels with the most views or the most organic views rely or could gain from it.

Still, brands face a great deal of competition in the online world.

According to a previous report by L2, video bloggers in the beauty space generate more than 700 million views on YouTube per month, showing the value of filmed content.

These influencers now have more clout with younger consumers than most mainstream celebrities due to the authentic and approachable format video blogging allots, making collaborative partnerships with revered video bloggers worthwhile for beauty marketers. The L2 “Intelligence Report: Video 2015” also found that posts from popular video bloggers achieve two times the number of views as the monthly circulations of top magazines targeting the same demographic (see story).

"While video viewing overall has increased, linear viewing is down, especially among younger viewers ages 17-34," Ms. Powers said. "Cord cutters are disproportionately young and wealthy.

"Most over-the-top video services are based on paid subscription models, leaving brands with few options for video advertising to reach this attractive target demographic," she said. "YouTube and Facebook are the two options that provide brands both scale as well as sophisticated targeting options to reach this audience."

Final Take
Forrest Cardamenis, editorial assistant on Luxury Daily, New York