Video of the Week: How One Piece Of User Content Delivers 20,000,000 Hits

Sometimes, brands or agencies can spend millions of dollars on specialised, digital content – premium creatives or exciting, sponsored or celebrity endorsed content. These videos might go ‘viral’ – a couple of million hits, maybe a few news articles here and there.

But then, by giving a YouTube star a free upgrade to a transatlantic flight, they can amass a grand sum of almost 20,000,000 hits in the space of a couple of weeks, with reports in major tabloids, broadsheets and blog sites, viral social media coverage and television debates. All for around 20,000 dollars.

The power of social video cannot be underestimated, and Casey Neistat is the king of social video content. His daily vlog now has 5 million subscribers, reaching a daily hit rate of an easy million within 24 hours. Only a couple of weeks ago he surpassed 1,000,000,000 channel views. Emirates didn’t even realise they had an advertising goldmine on their hands.

What is interesting is that, overall, the content on that video in particular is far less creative than a lot of Neistat’s work – filled with drone shots, skateboard rides and timelapses. Here the shots are confined to a small (albeit luxurious!) environment. You can watch the full video below – be sure to check out the rest of the channel to see even more fantastic content in action.