When Jawed Karim published the first movie in YouTube probably he had no idea that he just started the revolution. In lasting 19 second video called “Me in Zoo, ” he explained why elephants are cool animals. It was 12 years ago.

During last 12 years, YouTube completely changed the way we watch the video and create the video. In fact, YouTube redefined the market and set the trends. However, it is not only YouTube’s success. It would not happen without fast developing technology – broadband internet that let to watch and upload videos without any delay or obstacles and cheap smartphones that allowed everyone to record movies. YouTube also changed the way we consume video content. Finally, TV stations noticed huge YouTube popularity and started to use a platform to catch up with the people who prefer to watch what they want and when they want, not to depend only on TV schedule. Here’s is worth to notice Netflix also which make TV revolution even bigger. Growing popularity of video online was seen by every other player and today it is rather hard to find some who is not offering video online. The video became crucial for Facebook, and it looks it will be one of the most important pillars of the company from Menlo Park. It also seems it became the final call for Twitter existence. The video is the essence of applications like Snapchat, Musiacal.ly or HouseParty. Moreover, it is essential for entire generation…

Generation YouTube

You can call them Generation YouTube or Generation C. What the C stands for? It stands for Connection, Community, Creation and Curation.

Connection, especially in that group, means multichannel, but if they have to choose their favorite device, it is definitely mobile. 38% say that when they look for entertainment, they switch to their smartphones [source: ThinkWithGoogle.com].

Even better picture of Generation C comes when we look at the numbers from Google/Ipsos/NowWaht research:

90% create content for the net at least monthly

83% have posted a picture online

76% visit YouTube weekly

59% look to the Internet as their primary source of entertainment

56% have followed through after watching ads on YouTube

55% are connected with 100 or more people through social media

What do they say about themselves?

How about the age of people from Generation C?

“Globally, it is still true that most millennials are Gen C, but across 30+ countries, on average, 39% (with a range of 20% to 50%) of Gen C are aged 35 or over.” – Says Google report.

It means that Generation C consists of two generations – Millennials (mostly) and Generation X. And if you realize that, you can understand what kind of challenges stand before marketers, e-commerce, and content creators.

First of all, it is not only about the multichannel communication with the focus on mobile. It is also the necessity to take care of the communication that fits people from two different generations. Moreover, they are very different. Adweek published interesting infographic which shows the differences between three generations: X, Y, Z. From the research Adweek we can learn what people from different generations watch on YouTube most often:

Generation X – watched on YouTube most educational video

Generation Y – watched the most workout video

Generation Z – watched the most vlogs and style collection videos

Let’s look more in details:

So what we have? People from two generations (let’s leave Z for a while) who:

a/ use different devices for content consumption

b/ are interested in the various content

c/ are on different levels of content creation

d/ have different expectations

How many challenges can you imagine when you are the marketer, and you are responsible for e-commerce? Well, don’t also forget about omnichannel, as online might be not enough to your customers. I believe that shows the scale and complexity of communication when it comes to Generation C. And you cannot only say that it is not relevant to your business. Sure it is. Here are two arguments: Gen C sets the trends and determines what’s going to be popular next, with an influence that accounts for $500bn of spending a year in the US alone

Generation C sets the trends and determines what’s going to be popular next, with an influence that accounts for $500bn of spending a year in the US alone according to Berkley’s.

The second argument is that people from Generation C are more interested in buying some group of goods than others [source: ThinkWithGoogle]:

What are the top categories in CEE?

Serbia:

• clothing & accessories
• technical devices
• sports equipment
• books, movies, music
• computers and related hardware

Lithuania:

• The movie, theater, concert tickets
• clothing & accessories
• travels
• cosmetics and other beauty products 
• insurance

Poland

• clothing & accessories
• books, movies, music
• smartphones, tablets
• electronic devices (TVs, kitchen equipment,etc.)
• movie & theater tickets 

As you can see in every country in the group of top 5 most popular products people buy in e-shops are at least three categories that Generation C is often buying than average. For some e-commerce players is the big advantage to rethink a strategy, for some of them, it is easy to adapt. Might be a little bit easier when we come back to the hero of the article – YouTube.

YouTube in CEE

The popularity of YouTube in CEE region is growing. When we checked YouTube popularity among internet users in Central Eastern Europe (but not only) we had such a results:

Two years later, when we test the popularity of YouTube in the group of young people (15-24) we get that:

No surprises, gemiusAudience research results confirm the high popularity of YouTube among young users, but here we have members of another generation – Generation Z, which are entirely different from Generation X, and vary from Generation Y. Regardless of the differences, there’s one fact that every one of us can be sure – video online has a bright future ahead. Google will definitely focus on YouTube development, and I am more than sure that it is the top priority for the company from Mountain View. However, the competition never sleeps. Facebook proved it a few times already that video it is one of the most important pillars of the company’s future. Now, according to rumors, Facebook is in the phase of the negotiations with music labels to get on the exclusivity as much music videos as possible.  Why? The answer comes from Google research showing top five most favorite genres globally, and when you see it there’s no doubt why

Video online is today business worth billions of dollars. All the signs show that value will only grow. However, the video is only the content that left alone is not so important. The most important part of that business are users who create the content and users who consume the content. In many cases, they are in both groups at the same time. Moreover, this is also something that you can be sure – this group will grow again in next years. The question is if your business is ready for this?