If it weren’t for YouTube, we wouldn’t know what it looks like when Norwegian army troops spazz out to a dubstep track or when a cat repeatedly wrestles open a freezer door or how a mathematician makes paper snowflakes.
The platform that has given power to the camera-wielding masses and made celebrities out of former, well, nobodies (hello, Mr. Bieber) hosted an event in Toronto on Monday to highlight how brands can use YouTube to share their messages and stories and interact with their target audiences.
Google Canada’s YouTube Pulse event took place at the TIFF Lightbox, and included a range of case studies, video clips (from the Red Bull space freefall to a tyke coming down from pain medication after dental surgery) and prerecorded interviews with insights from bands such as Karmin that launched their careers using the platform to perform cover songs.
Some of YouTube’s most popular categories, including comedy, sports, music, live events and how-to, were showcased in an attempt to show why brands should, as Google Canada managing director Chris O’Neill said, be excited to build themselves on YouTube.
There’s the reach, for starters. Suzie Reider, director of media solutions at Google, spoke of how more than four billion videos are viewed off the site everyday. It’s the type of strong following that prompted TV producer Simon Cowell to launch his latest series exclusively on YouTube.
