Next Generation Advertising: Social Video Software Connecting Brands and Content Creators

Project Information

OCTOLY

Grant agreement ID: 685001

DOI

10.3030/685001

Project closed

EC signature date 15 June 2015

Start date 1 July 2015

End date 31 December 2015

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

VIDEOAGENCY SAS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - OCTOLY (Next Generation Advertising: Social Video Software Connecting Brands and Content Creators)

Reporting period: 2015-07-01 to 2015-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The aim of the feasibility study was to investigate the development of an innovative software suite for brand management on YouTube – allowing brands to monitor the impact of videos on their own “official” channels, but also to analyse and maximise the videos created by highly influential independent YouTubers that mention their brand. At the heart of our offer is the Free Store, where brands can give influential YouTubers access to their products for free – generating thousands of online videos about their brand and leading to millions of views.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We began by carrying out a detailed market study in our target initial segment: beauty (over 43% of women watch beauty tutorials on YouTube (Source: Birchbox & Octoly (2016)). We ran pilot tests with several leading beauty brands. The results were encouraging: brands highly rated our service and a large majority chose to sign up for a paid subscription at the end of the test period. Our market study also included working closely with a sample of YouTubers, 97% of whom positively reviewed our platform. Based on the results of the market study, we updated the technical and feature specifications for our platform. We also tested our technology in a different segment and across multiple countries and languages, as part of a pilot test with the world’s leading video-games company (with whom a worldwide contract is being finalized). In the final phase of the study, we finalized our IP and commercialization strategy.

Our feasibility study yielded great results and we experienced rapid growth: in France, 70% of beauty YouTubers have joined our platform and 16% of all French beauty videos now contain a product provided via Octoly’s free store. In the US, “Octoly” videos have generated 4 million views (Source: Octoly Analytics). These results are highly encouraging for the continuation of our project and the full development of our innovative solution.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Our Phase 1 work has confirmed that our approach and technology are unique on the market – with US players describing us as the “next generation” for YouTube channel management. We now aim to accelerate our development and retain our technological & first-mover advantage. Beyond the advantages of our solution for established brands, our solution is highly adapted SMEs, who can use Octoly to reach large audiences at manageable costs. For talented YouTubers, our platform offers the opportunity to professionalize their activity.

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