NAB
A giant of content creation meets broadcast and cable TV head-on at NAB Show, where the president of the largest YouTube channel in America will enjoy challenging the audience.
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At 137 million
subscribers and counting, MrBeast is not only the largest YouTube channel in
America, but the fourth biggest in the world. It is spearheaded by nearly
26-year-old creator Jimmy Donaldson, whose content revolves around extreme and
expensive stunts, reaping several billion views on social channels.
MrBeast YouTube is
already a huge media business, expanding internationally with dubbing into more
than 12 languages, including Mandarin, and side ventures like Feastables and
MrBeast Burger, which contribute an increasing slice of revenue.
Hear the Top 5
Trends in the Creator Economy
At NAB Show,
Hustvedt will explore the current state of the creator economy, the content
strategy behind creating viral sensations, landing lucrative sponsorships, and
more. In conversation with Jim Louderback, editor and publisher
of Inside the Creator Economy, Hustvedt will idenify The Top Five
Trends in the Creator Economy.
What, for instance,
are the key things that MrBeast optimizes in order to keep millions of viewers
coming back for more?
“You are trying to
continually optimize to keep the audience stimulated and excited,” Hustvedt
said in a YouTube chat with CreatorIQ. “Particularly with our product, we
don’t put in a lot of what people from traditional entertainment think is
valuable. Like the little simplest thing: you’ll rarely see an establishing
shot from us. If we’re going into a Walmart or something, you don’t need to
show the outside of a Walmart and then go into it, but television was sort of
trained in that way.”
He added, “In terms
of value, obviously you have to deliver on the promise of what the viewer
expected. We sort of train internally to think about where in the video that is
going to go.
“Let’s say there’s
this giant spectacle with an airplane shooting off fireworks, and it’s going to
cost a lot of money. It actually really matters where that is in the video,
because if we’re looking at where we need to spend, we’re typically going to bias
towards the front side of the video. There are little things about the literal
time of the video and the progression of the video that are super important to
think about.”
MrBeast is equally
smart at integrating brand partnerships into stories. “They’re not interruptive
ads — it’s so weaved into the story,” he said.
That’s in contrast
to some content creators who simply read out a sponsorship message so it
actually feels like an ad break. “The viewer is conditioned to hit the skip
button — it’s literally built into every interface,” Hustvedt said. “Knowing
that, how do we make it so that these are not skippable because you’re so
invested in the story that’s going on that you just need to see what’s going on
in the background?”
While MrBeast grew
the business on YouTube, the creator team have made a concerted effort to grow
the brand’s presence on TikTok.
“You can ignore it,
or you can lean into it,” said Hustvedt. “On one level, it’s like an
existential threat to our long-form YouTube business. If our long-form YouTube
business has a couple of million dollar ad integrations in the middle, each
video is a multimillion dollar piece of business, but it’s on a 12- to
18-minute video. [TikTok is] this ultra short-form content.”
There are different
types of creator, Hustvedt says, explaining to FastCompany how some excel at
retention-based editing, while others are really good at marketing themselves
and building hype. “And some are just incredibly good at oozing authenticity and
being themselves.”
Before MrBeast
Hustvedt’s own
resume prior to MrBeast is impressive. The digital entertainment expert and
veteran entrepreneur has founded several successful ventures, including
Tubefilter, Supergravity Pictures, and the Streamy Awards, and has served as
CEO at Above Average and React Media.
“If you can make
consistent content that an audience wants to see, the tools are there for you
to do the rest of the business stuff. And then you can hire some idiots like me
to help you out.”
Hustvedt is
underselling the professionalism required in making content that aims to reach
more than a billion people every month. MrBeast even has an HR department to
professionalize recruiting.
“When we hire
people, you can hire somebody who has helped develop shows and talent or worked
with the major brands on a big campaign,” he said. “We put in an applicant
tracking system. We now have a core set of values that we think make a strong
and successful employee.
“That’s why we
announced the partnership with East Carolina University. We needed a
better pipeline of talent because this stuff is not trained in schools. We’re
developing a curriculum with ECU, and hopefully we will bring a lot more people
into the industry.”
From a personal
career standpoint, Hustvedt says he doesn’t want to work in an industry “where
everybody knows everything, and it’s just super traditional.
He added, “If it
feels like network TV at a certain point, and you’re just defending the old way
of doing it, then I’m probably in the wrong place. We’re going to keep playing
around.”
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