The FameBit Influence Marketing Platform has been strangely silent since it was acquired by Google a year ago, according to several leaders in the advertising and entertainment industry (" I have not received anything from them since YouTube, does not even call us cold, "said an agency official.Now, the company is about to break up this silence
"Definitely, we are strategic in the sense that we want to do things right, we have a lot in store for the creators we want to get," said Agnes Kozera, co-founder of FameBit, when she been asked about the low profile of the company after the acquisition.
When YouTube bought FameBit a year ago, the logic seemed obvious. For YouTube to push back Facebook, Twitter and other people trying to seduce its creators of video, the video service owned by Google was to encourage these creators to stay. A decline in the advertising business of their videos could not go that far. The case was made more urgent this year after YouTube began demonetising more videos following brand security issues that scared many big advertisers earlier this year.
"With" ad-pocalypse ", we know that YouTube's advertising revenue on YouTube has declined, YouTube being a talent-driven platform, it makes sense to offer additional monetization opportunities. for the talents, "said an advertising agency manager.
FameBit, which provides tools to automate branded content agreements between creators and marketers, has helped YouTube to support more creators beyond its traditional advertising activities. And YouTube has offered FameBit a way to extend its work to more creators and more brands and to deepen this work across Google properties. This is largely the way the acquisition has unfolded until now.
The mandate of FameBit after the acquisition
Since its acquisition by YouTube, some things have changed at FameBit, while others have remained the same.
The company continues to work with influencers on social platforms outside of YouTube, such as Instagram and Twitter. And his former CEO, David Kierzkowski, remains involved, leading the development of FameBit products.
Meanwhile, the product of FameBit has developed, especially its links with YouTube and Google. In addition to using the FameBit platform to hire creators to produce branded videos, marketers can now redirect users to these viewers with ads on Google sites. And, as expected, Google's sales teams have integrated FameBit into their sales pitch to marketers. The company is also working on a measurement product, although Kozera has refused to discuss it "because it's still going on."
We do not know how these changes are made with traders. I've contacted half a dozen brands that have worked with FameBit in the past to find out how their work with FameBit has or has not changed since the acquisition, but none of them. they were not ready to talk.
The new sales boss of FameBit
Perhaps the biggest movement of FameBit since the acquisition was the hiring of the former head of Google Preferred, Beau Avril, to be its world leader in sales and marketing. marketing. "We had the impression that he was the ideal candidate for the operationalization of the model within Google and YouTube, since he created Google Preferred and that he really understands the space, the actors and the creators, "said Kozera
.
At the helm of Google Preferred, Avril oversaw Google and YouTube's efforts to sell top marketers by buying ads against top YouTube creators. Today, as FameBit's sales manager, he can cover the other end of the spectrum, selling brands on integrating their brands into YouTube designer videos of all sizes.
"With FameBit, we are now able to offer a full YouTube offering to our customers, offering branded native content that works well when paired with premium content like Google Preferred, as well as great variety of YouTube content, "said Avril. in an email.
The challenge and the opportunity of FameBit
April has a lot of work to do for him. Brands are still not very comfortable when it comes to working with influencers. And ad-pocalypse and the FTC's font of branded content disclosures did not really help things. But in addition to needing to appease risk averse buyers, the FameBit sales team must also explain to brands why it would be necessary to work with the middleman.
As vice president of branding and partnerships at Swift, the creative agency of WPP, Buck Wise has never used an influential marketing platform to organize brand contracts with influencers. "When you work with marketing agencies of influence and [multi-channel networks that can span thousands of creators] you lose a little control," he said.
Many others share this position. Thanks to the rise of the so-called "micro-influencers", there has never been more reason for marketers to turn to programmatic platforms to automate these transactions. And yet, brands generally prefer to deal with influencers directly than to go through an intermediary like FameBit – with one important exception.
There is "a threshold on the number of influencers you can contact at any given time," said Wise. While his team has directly managed unique campaigns with 30 influencers, the time required to manage a larger campaign, especially when it comes to developing contracts and legalities, requires an intermediary . "It's the only thing they have, that's the speed," he said.
FameBit recognizes its role and its post-acquisition opportunity to benefit even more. The company was created as a way to facilitate the work of individual brands with several creators. Its platform has allowed brands to find specific creators tailored to the types of audience and / or content sought by a brand. Many, many other platforms of influence marketing do the same thing, using much of the same data. But since its acquisition by YouTube, FameBit has access to data that can help it stand out from the competition.
"Now, as part of Google and YouTube, we can use real-time data and audience information to better target brands and creators and determine what content works best with a particular audience," said Avril.
