AOL’s head of video across Europe Mark Melling talks to M&M Global about the company’s ambitions to become a ‘cultural destination’ for content consumers.

AOL today (18 October) announced a raft of new, original content for the UK market, as part of plans to position itself as the partner of choice for ‘brand’ activity – versus social-focused Facebook and search-dominated Google.

The digital media firm gathered the industry at London’s One Marylebone for its IAB UK ‘Upfront’ session and revealed a series of new online video programmes.

The content on display included AOL UK’s first two in-house productions, retro gadget show ‘Tech Hunters’ and documentary series ‘Antarctica: Last Wilderness on Earth’, as well its UK versions of the ‘MAKERS’ women’s leadership platform and ‘BUILD’ live interview concept.

M&M Global spoke to AOL senior director of video, Europe, Mark Melling to find out why the firm is increasing its investment in original productions.

M&M: What is the message to the advertising community, in terms of what AOL is able to offer in original video content?

“First is that we are continuing to invest in premium digital video. That high quality is very, very important to us. This year we’ve invested substantially in our teams and our production capabilities. We have a brand new video editorial team, as led by Dawn Kelly, and we have Geoff Goodwin, who is our creative director.

“[Goodwin] also leads our charge on creating bespoke series for brands. We have done a lot of that this year – for instance ‘Drive Society’ with Shell. That was an unbranded AOL original, creating something lacking in the market that Shell wanted to do. It has been very successful. We do what we have continued to do, but we are expanding those capabilities. That is the main message.”

In terms of the UK and internationally, is the marketplace catching up with North America?

“Absolutely, and it doesn’t hurt that the technology is catching up as well. One of the thing we are most proud of announcing at this event is ‘Tech Hunters’ and ‘Antarctica: Last Wilderness on Earth’. Those are two series that we won’t be commissioning; we will be producing those in-house, because of the capabilities we now have in-house. 360-degree video has become cheaper. Live capabilities allow us to catch up with broadcast. It took an incredible amount to broadcast live 10 years ago, but we can do that now. The audiences are getting more accessible, too. There is less in the way of barriers to entry.”

360 video is now moving into the mainstream. Do you think audiences are ready for that content?

“Absolutely, I think they are ready. The reason why I know they are ready is that people want something more than just a linear format. Television is great as a lean-back experience, but younger generations want to interact with the content more. I’m not saying, ‘Let’s create all these 360 digital series.’ Let’s create really engaging linear formats that have ancillary content adding into the base storyline. That’s 360, that’s social, that’s mobile. When we do that, we’re taking advantage of what digital has to offer. Otherwise, we’re just carbon-copying what broadcast is doing.”

“If you look at so many successes we’ve seen in video, it’s traditional publishers turning their brands into content brands”

If you are advising a brand on an original content project, how do you advise them in terms of their ambitions for that content?

“We really encourage engagement. It might sound like a broken record, but we want to encourage the idea that we can add something more to [the] linear [format]. There are off-line opportunities. With Paco Rabanne and ‘MAKERS’, we had this great format and we went out on the street and interviewed everyday people about makers. It’s a more engaging form of content. That’s where we see the opportunities. When I’m seeing brands, and saying, ‘Take a chance on this,’ there are so many ways we can work together on video. Take the mind-set out of the TVC repurposed for pre-roll. That’s not what it’s about. And brands have incredibly smart people, we have incredibly smart people, we can brainstorm this together.”

Do you think clients are getting more comfortable with operating in the video content space?

“Absolutely. These people are content experts. Every time I walk into an agency, they have more and more content experts, and we’ve done the same. That’s why I hired Geoff Goodwin – because he’s a content expert. They speak the same language, and they also know the opportunities to change, what broadcasters lack.”

What are your ultimate, long-term aspirations, or is the market moving so fast so cannot look more than 12 months ahead at any one time?

“Our ambitions are to look at our brands, and build brands people love. That is what we’re doing with our brands. If you look at so many successes we’ve seen in video, it’s traditional publishers turning their brands into content brands. I want people to flip on a Huffington Post documentary and go, ‘That’s normal’. Just like years ago we used to look at Vice, and it was a magazine sitting in a barbershop, the most traditional media you can imagine. And now it is a content brand.

“That is what we’ve been successful in doing. If you look at ‘BUILD’, we’ve turned it into a content brand. We’ve turned ‘MAKERS’ not into a series, but a content brand. The way that we look at thing, and what I always say to my team, is that, in an uncertain digital economy, content is recession-proof. People are always going to want great content, no matter how this industry changes. And that is what we are doing. We are building our content brands now for the future.”