Not on YouTube: Video sales

Suzie Reider, CMO of YouTube, was but one of four panelists at Ad:Tech’s “Online Video Revolution: A Marketer’s Dream or a Consumer-Generated Mess?" Tuesday. Not surprisingly, however, her “broadcast yourself” musings stole the thunder from Akami, CNN and Isobar co-panelists.

Reider put forth an unflappable confidence in the YouTube formula, as I recount in “YouTube on marketers: Won’t be ‘messing it up’”

Reider began by asserting YouTube’s Google-backed mission:

Become the greatest entertainment destination in the world.

All of Reider’s subsequent commentary suggests YouTube believes it can accomplish its lofty goal without tampering with the YouTube magic that brought the site to the Google party.

For Reider, YouTube is doing just fine. 

Copyright a problem? Apparently not:

Even if we stripped out all of the professional content (copyright protected studio owned work) on YouTube, it would still be a very robust entertainment platform.

Advertising averse “community”? Marketers won't be “messing it up”: 

Positive ways for marketers to gain placement at Google-YouTube are 1) sponsor the YouTube “front door” and 2) buy a PVA, participatory video ad, Reider suggested. 

During the Q & A, an audience member expressed concern that he may no longer be able to watch video clips on YouTube from his favorite TV shows if content owners demand the removal of unauthorized video uploads from YouTube; He suggested that YouTube open up a video store with a micro-payments solution, indicating he would be happy to contribute a small, but fair, share towards compensating content owners, as long as he could still see his favorite TV shows at YouTube. He also underscored that he is not interested in YouTube’s “snack-sized,” UGC clip culture type fare.

Reider was not receptive to the gentleman’s friendly suggestion: 

We are a streaming site. Studio owned content doesn’t belong to us. You can go to iTunes or Amazon to buy, it is not a direction we are going. We are about streaming content. 

Reider confidently concluded YouTube’s clip culture and community of artists would spur a new Hollywood scouting system.

SEE: "Do Google $$$ billion acquisitions kill competition?" and
"Is Google's multi-billion dollar free ride over?"