K atie c ouric

Good Content Travels Well
Phil Ranta, former COO of Studio71, one of the largest influencer-driven
digital entertainment companies, discloses that YouTube is being unlocked
in territories where it wasn’t previously popular. Digital platforms are truly
global; people are starting to discover more content from various cultures.
The fact that content is accessible anywhere in the world means that
creating with a global audience in mind leads to success.

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He suggests trying to create content that’s not language-specific. Try to
make the joke or the premise understandable without necessarily knowing
the language. Another option is to include translations. YouTube has built-
in tools that help create closed captions, and if you create them in English
YouTube does a good job of translating them to other languages.
Ranta feels that people who aren’t thinking globally now are going to
struggle in five or ten years. There are many places where internet
infrastructure is just starting to pick up; in those locations, people are just
now getting mobile phones that can stream content they couldn’t access
before. All those markets will start growing and developing new fandom.
Jonathan Skogmo, CEO of Jukin Media, agrees. His company has a
huge universal and global audience with 75 percent of its three billion
monthly views coming from outside the United States. He says, “Good
content travels really well. An ouch is an ouch in any language.” Jukin
Media licenses and distributes a lot of viral comedic fail videos, since a guy
falling over is a guy falling over anywhere. His team looks at the global
picture of content because they see real scale and value by focusing on
different parts of the world where others are simply not paying attention.
Quick Tips and Recap
• Acquiring a follower or a like in India, Indonesia, Brazil, or Mexico
is far cheaper than in the States because there aren’t a lot of people
fighting over those countries, which creates an excess of inventory
in the auction.
• Followers in emerging markets can cost less than a penny, versus
eight or nine cents in the States.
• In emerging markets, there’s often less competition and users spend
more time on mobile devices.
• India is an important country; it’s where some of the smartest people
on the planet are investing, so keep it on your radar.
• Brazil loves to share more than most countries. Test your content
against this audience to make content go viral.

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• A smart strategy is to build engagement on a piece of content in
emerging markets first because of the lower cost efficiency. Then,
once you have significant engagement, share that post with your
core target demos in domestic markets. You’ll get more engagement
at a lower cost.
• If you’re a start-up, build a massive audience in emerging markets
and then become an attractive acquisition target for a company from
the United States or the United Kingdom that’s looking to extend its
audience. The same applies if you are an individual or a start-up
trying to partner with global brands.
• People in other markets appreciate if you go and visit them. It can
help you grow.
• Good content travels well. Create content that’s not language-
specific. Create with global in mind.
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1
 “Theatrical Market Statistics 2016,” Motion Picture Association of America,
https://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MPAA-Theatrical-Market-Statistics-
2016_Final.pdf
.
2
 Simon Kemp, “India Overtakes the USA to Become Facebook’s #1 Country,” The Next Web, July
13, 2017, 
https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2017/07/13/india-overtakes-usa-become-facebooks-
top-country
.
3
 Vivek Kumar Singh, “Most Spoken Languages in the World,” ListsWorld, November 10, 2012,
http://www.listsworld.com/top-10-languages-most-spoken-worldwide
.

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