How Premium Brands Are Leveraging FAST
As with any other entertainment streaming genre, the engine driving FAST is the monetization of content, and as with large-scale live events in particular, FAST thrives on pairing brands with properties and serving those brands effectively. In this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2023, Chris Pfaff, CEO, Chris Pfaff Tech Media, Producers Guild of America (PGA), VR AR Association (VRARA), talks with Damian Pelliccione, CEO / Co-Founder, Revry, how Revry works with brands and the sort of brand identification with key Revry programming that enables the industry's leading LGBTQ+ programming destination to thrive and grow.
“There’s more innovation happening every day in FAST,” Pfaff says. “Damian, what's interesting is a lot of people think, ‘I've heard of these guys Revry and what they're doing. They've got these brands, they're FAST. This isn't subscription, this isn't even AVOD. How do you do that? Are [people] coming to you saying, ‘I see something really both subversive and also very clever in that strategy of pulling people in who have disposable income, brands who want to attach themselves because there's an audience, not because they just like throwing cash around. Do you find other people who are looking to pay you flattery by imitation, or where is that going?”
“I think the biggest thing we did is we built distribution and we built audience,” Pelliccione says. “We're over 5 million monthly active viewers across all of our apps and channels, with almost 80% of that coming exclusively from our FAST channel partners. And we've leveraged the opportunity to sell that inventory at really high CPMs. We're selling at the height, during Pride season, at 50, 60 CPMs, the entry point being 35, because we're a very affluent market. We have the [highest] amount of scale of video inventory in CTV addressing this market, and we've not been challenged. We're really the thought leader in this space.”
Pelliccione emphasizes that the core of FAST effectiveness is having great and original content. “Obviously, that takes the cake, where our original programming is completely underwritten by brands, de-risking all of the opportunity, us owning all of that IP,” they say. “We did over 1.5 million views in two weeks for a Vogue competition show that was completely underwritten by Henkel’s got2b brand, the hair gel and dye, which I'm wearing right now, and Nike, which I'm also wearing right now. I obviously like to support all the brands that support us. And a shout out to John Lear, Mark [Bracero], and Linda [Morel] at Triple Threat Productions. We're seeing multi-Emmy award-winning producers. Mark has five Emmys for Queer Eye. He's nominated currently. Linda, having won for Key & Peele, is currently nominated for A Black Lady Sketch Show. Producers from traditional media are trying to get into the FAST and the AVOD market and work with networks like Revry because they see us scaling our business, scaling our original content opportunity, working with brands, and creating. We only create unscripted content from an original standpoint, and seeing [opportunities] like Drag Latina, which Triple Threat is producing for us right now. We did a million live impressions when we announced that show [and] when we actually premiered season one last fall, and they're producing season two right now as we speak in Los Angeles.”
Learn more about a wide range of streaming industry topics at the next Streaming Media Connect in November 2023.
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