Description

Google has a deal with fast-food chain Carl's Jr. to create branded Web content with eight YouTube stars, inching the video site along toward its goal to win more ad dollars. At the Digitas New Front in New York earlier this week, Google's Alex Levy, director of branded entertainment, told Beet.TV about the partnership that rolled out this week. Google and YouTube are creating custom content for Carl's Jr. to distribute across the Google content network.

Transcript

Alexandra Levy on Google's Deal for Branded Video Content with Carl's Jr. Daisy Whitney: Hey I’m Daisy Whitney and I’m reporting for Beet TV here at the Digitized New Front and I’m with Alex Levy who is the director of Branded Entertainment at Google. She’s actually going to be on my panel later today about Branded Entertainment. So very briefly in a nutshell what is it that you do as the director of Branded Entertainment. Alex Levy: So that’s always that question people ask. So I’m trying to get it down into one sentence. I’m not sure if I’m successful yet but let me try. We connect to advertisers to content and create meaningful and relevant contextual environments for their brands that are entertaining and engaging. Daisy Whitney: And is the goal that the content that you are putting together and the deals that you’re putting together is distributed then across the Google content now. Alex Levy: That’s right so we act as a match maker for the brands and the content and then we push the content out across the Google content Network and then we also create a destination typically for it on YouTube. Daisy Whitney: Okay so you’ve got a couple of things that you’ve been working on lately, you have something going on with Carl's Jr. What is that? How does that work? Alex Levy: Yeah so that‘s a neat one. We’re working with Carl's Jr. They’ve actually selected eight YouTube stars and they’re going to be creating custom content for Carl's specifically and we’ll be setting up a branch channel for Carl's Jr. that includes the YouTube stars content that’s custom made for them. Daisy Whitney: And now that’s just taking off, is it rolling out this week? Alex Levy: Yeah. It’s just it’s launching this week and the neat thing is, the brand advertising that supports it will be pushing people back to the destination so that we find all those guys 18 to 34 and fast food enthusiast and send them back to that destination where they see the YouTube stars. Daisy Whitney: Now measurement is such an important topic online especially when it comes to advertising and for something as specific as branded content and branded entertainment. But Google is great at measurement. That’s what you guys do. How do you measure these types of campaigns and projects? Alex Levy: Right, it’s a good question. The Holy Grail right, well a lot of it is art and a lot of it is science and really I think there’s a lot more art this time around because it is about branding. It is about sort of engagement in those more subjective features and qualities of a campaign and you can’t necessarily put a number on and but we do obviously look in impressions, we look at views, we look at time spent, we look at you know sort of what was clicked on when and where and why but there’s also just sort of the intangible of developing community around the content too. Daisy Whitney: And what do you know so far about what‘s resonating with consumers? What type of content and what type brand that get involve with the content work for the consumers? Alex Levy: Well you know we’re still testing that and there’s a lot of experimentation. I think a lot of it is about offline talent and it can be offline talent that’s behind the camera or in front of the camera but it’s also about the organic YouTube stars as I mentioned with Carl’s Jr., they’re leveraging these new people that literally built their names and built equity for themselves on YouTube as a platform and obviously would have big us to be without YouTube so, we’re sort of testing whether on it’s new media whether or not it’s offline media that really resonates with the online crowd. Daisy Whitney: Can you name a couple of the YouTube Stars? Alex Levy: So actually, we’re just finalizing that list right now so, no. Daisy Whitney: So we will get back to you when that’s official, I mean we’ll let you know. Alex, thank you so much for joining us at Beet TV and have a great afternoon here. Alex Levy: Thanks. I’m looking forward at the panel.