Forbes Asia - November 2016

NOVEMBER 2016 FORBES ASIA | 59

JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES

video advertising is projected to reach $10.3 billion this year,

according to eMarketer, with 43% of that going to mobile.

By 2019 it could reach $16.3 billion. Much of that will target

Millennials, who don’t mind watching on a small screen. It’s

an audience that’s especially hungry for the kind of content

Vevo ofers.

But YouTube is not about to cede its music fans to anyone.

It released its own dedicated app, YouTube Music, in Novem-

ber 2015. This summer, around the time of the Vevo redesign,

it launched a national marketing campaign to promote it.

“The feedback from music fans so far has been great,” a You-

Tube spokesperson says. In September YouTube hired indus-

try veteran Lyor Cohen, a former Warner exec and founder

of the independent label 300 Entertainment, for a new role

called global head of music.

Part of his job will be to mend YouTube’s fraught rela-

tionship with major artists, some of whom contend that the

company pays them too little for their content. In a letter to

his new crew, Cohen said he looked forward to “helping the

music community embrace the technological shifts we’re

seeing in music today, so we can help take the confusion and

distrust out of the equation.”

Despite the open rivalry for eyeballs and ad dollars,

both Vevo and Google insist the partnership is cordial. “In

any relationship there are ups and downs, but it’s been

mutually beneficial,” Huggers says. Google is similarly

neutral: “We work hand in hand with them to support art-

ists in making connections with fans around the world,” a

spokesperson says.

As he seeks to make his mark, Huggers faces yet another

challenge. While music-streaming companies like Spotify

have experimented with adding videos to their services, no

company dedicated to music videos has yet taken of. “I don’t

think anyone has figured out a competitive model based

purely on music videos,” says Woody Marshall, a Spotify in-

vestor and board member.

Huggers believes Vevo can beat the odds with its recent

redesign and an upcoming subscription service. The com-

pany plans to start out with a free tier and then phase in a

premium service. But it, too, faces long odds. YouTube’s own

subscription service, YouTube Red, allows fans to download

videos and then “use the music app to listen to music videos

o

ine—without an Internet connection—and uninterrupted

by ads or when their phone’s screen is turned of,” a spokes-

man says. Red also gives users access to ad-free videos and

original YouTube shows. None of that will stop Vevo from

forging ahead. Its subscription service is likely to launch in

the first half of next year. “We’ll ship it when it’s ready,” Hug-

gers says. For Vevo the bigger question may not be when it

will be ready but whether anyone will care.

From atop Vevo’s $500 million business, Huggers is gunning for YouTube’s much larger music video audience.

DIGITAL MEDIA

F