Dude Perfect Wants to Graduate Beyond Being a "Creator Company"
How many true media brands built on YouTube can compete with TV?
In a few weeks, members of the trick-shot, humor-centric group Dude Perfect will make an appearance on stage during YouTube’s Brandcast event - Google’s answer to the TV upfronts.
In a few years, might the Dudes be one of a handful of YouTube-born companies able to host their own upfront? In some ways, the company is already a contender.
The question is, as a collection of YouTube talent looks to build out full-fledged boutique studios, aiming at IP and brands and staying power, how many can thrive in the changing, tech-dominated streaming landscape? What happens when YouTube and others encourage more democratic creator spending, as micro-influencers and talent that can churn out hundreds of videos per day rule?
Those are some of the questions I had for Dude Perfect CEO Andrew Yaffe, who joined the Next in Media podcast this week.
Yaffe, who created the CEO role about a year and a half ago after helping to lead social video and content efforts at the NBA, made it clear that the Dudes have graduated - whether brands realize it or not.
“YouTube is the biggest streamer on TV right now,” he said. “And so it’s only natural for YouTube to have an upfront. [Today] More than half our content is consumed on TV. And so it’s a natural conversation for us to have.”
“Our partnerships business looks more and more like a media business, not a creator business, day by day.”
What exactly is the difference?
“I don’t mean to denigrate any other businesses, just that when I think about a creator business, it tends to be more direct response or one-off or short-term, I think the value we provide is brand association and affiliation,” he said. “When we talk to brands, we look more like a sports sponsorship or a media opportunity than ‘hey, here’s a creator thing where, you know, on this day, we need you to post this message and we’ll pay you X.’
“That’s not really the business we’re in.”
Plus, according to a new story in the Wall Street Journal- just being a creator - even a relatively large one - is a really tough business. Which is why ‘one-off’ deals are increasingly being seen as a negative.
“We have long-term, deep relationships with A-tier partners. Whether that’s Body Armor, who’s our official hydration partner and has been for a couple of years and will be for a few more years, if not longer. “
We have deep, meaningful relationships with top brands that spend with the NHL and the NBA and the NFL and spend on FIFA and the World Cup. The brands that want [to work with major sports leagues] are the same brands that want to work with us.”
That’s still rather rare territory, particularly in a creator-verse that is increasingly being asked to churn out hundreds, if not thousands of variations of organic sponsored posts a day. During a press session on the VaynerX yacht at the Possible conference in Miami on Monday, founder and CEO Gary Vaynerchuk talked about how his various personal social handles will deliver 400 posts in a given day.
While not every creator or brand can match that level of production, in an increasingly algorithmic discovery world “the creative creates the reach,” he said.
Social-first brands are going to need “organic social creative at scale,” he said. “That has shaken up some of our clients.”
In the case of Dude Perfect, the company has been producing longer-form content for so long that it much more resembles a production studio than a social video factory. It helps to have 61.9 million YouTube subscribers and a multi-city live tour this summer.
“When I was a kid, we all used to gather around and watch shows together or go to the movies together,” he said.” Now everyone is on their phone doing things individually. So reaching the family unit has become increasingly challenging. We are unique in that we’re able to do that. 80% of our consumption [is kids with parents]. There are not a lot of media properties where that’s true.”
More recently, Dude Perfect is looking to expand beyond its original five performers and core YouTube channels. Back in December, the company launched Dude Perfect Outdoors headlined by the brothers Jared and Josh Pettitte (sons of former Yankee pitcher Andy Pettitte).
“They are very much part of the Dude Perfect family,” he said. “It provides us more bandwidth and more scale. So I think you’ll see us continue to develop new talent. The other thing I’d say the real unlock [for Dude Perfect] is developing formats and IP. And the more of that that we can own, the more it unlocks our business.”
“Our overarching metric is watch time…It is part of our programming strategy that premium, longer, more TV-like content is what the audience is demanding right now, and we are happy to oblige.”
Check out the full interview here: