YouTube Spain Hip-Hop Content Opportunity Analysis™ 2019-2022

‍Content Opportunity Methodology

1. Measure & Categorize. Sample a large number of social posts to find ones that are significantly outperforming the average.
2. Identify Top Themes. Identify the themes that are resonating most with the audience by sorting the themes by their aggregated performance metrics.
3. Identify a Benchmark. Identify content themes that are performing above and under an average benchmark for the industry based on views & engagements.
4. Identify Opportunities. Look at the data and find the content themes that are resonating with the audience based on a set of top creators.
5. Repeat For Each Platform. Repeat the analysis for every platform that matters to your brand and audience to find platform-specific opportunities.

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YouTube Content Bucket Definitions

• Rap Battle Performance: A performance style where artists pair up against each other to compete through freestyles in a series of segments in front of a live audience.
  
• Cypher: Within one continuous song, three or more rappers take turns performing their verse until they pass it off to the next artist.
  
• Interview: Long form content where artists get a chance to sit down and connect with their interviewer and audience to offer insight into their lives. ‍
• Window Gallery Session: Artists perform their songs in a specially designed performance space with musical accompaniment of their choosing. ‍
• Single Format Freestyle: Performance formats that highlight one rapper freestyling for a specific session.‍
• Animation Rap: Videos that feature rappers creating an animated story but told with a rapping voice over.‍
• Reaction Video: Creators analyzing, reviewing and reacting to new music, news or music videos by artists in the industry.‍
• 2v2: A freestyle battle rap format where top performers from previous exhibitions go head to head in a series of segments to decide who is the best.‍
• Role Swap Challenge: A freestyle battle rap format where participants must take on the mannerisms and voice of their competitor in the ring.‍
• Guess The Song: Rappers are invited on to listen to small samples of songs and see if they can guess them.‍
• Responding to Comments:  A format where artists sit down to read negative comments about them online and respond..
• 15 Questions: A rapid fire question format where artists are asked 15 questions and choose between different options to show their background.‍
• Lyric Meanings: A dissection of the meaning of different songs and lyrics from rappers.

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Content buckets that had the highest average views & engagement in the Spain hip-hop space include:

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Good performing content opportunities for the Spain hip-hop audience on YouTube include:

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Substandard performing content opportunities for the Spain hip-hop audience on YouTube include:

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Low performing content opportunities for the Spain hip-hop audience on YouTube include:

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Viral Callout:

Rap Battle Performance.

A performance style where artists pair up against each other to compete through freestyles in a series of segments in front of a live audience. The content category of Rap Battle Performances saw 3.4x more views and engagement than the YouTube benchmark at 11M.

Tactics to Implement:

• Live Streams or Compilation: Videos that featured full or live streamed rap battles (4-8 hours) saw average views and engagements of 9M where shorter videos (10-30 minutes) saw 10.5M average views and engagements.
• Timing: 30 minute videos generated +21% more average views and engagement than other video lengths (from 10 minutes to 8 hours).

Content Opportunities:

• Leverage Current Channels & Content: Look into ways that Red Bull can continue to post long form content of respective Rap Battles to get a chance to stream the competition to its full length. Cut up smaller more impactful segments to optimize and distribute to other channels.

18M  Views

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17.5M Views

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Cypher‍

Within one continuous song, three or more rappers take turns performing their verse until they pass it off to the next artist.

Tactics to Implement:

• Video Length: Top performing cyphers are 5-10 minutes in length.
• Visuals: Cyphers are very simple and feature the main performer in the front with a mic while the upcoming performers remain in the background.

Content Opportunities:

• Other than the hip hop platform Urban Roosters, there are no creators hosting recurring cyphers in the Spain space. Channels like 4 Elementos will host cyphers irregularly and infrequently. This leaves an open space for the artists of Spain to find a way to collaborate together. 
• Rap Battles in Spain are a large content category where artists are often rapping against each other as opposed to in unison on a cypher. 
• Create an open space with familiar backgrounds that can be serialized as a way to tap into the battle rap audience. 

29M  Views

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8.4M Views

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Content Opportunities:

1. Interview

Interviews feature longer content where artists get a chance to sit down and connect with their interviewer and audience. Interviews provide a chance for the artist to offer insight into their lives. 

Tactics to Implement:

• Cut & Distribute: The majority of interviews in this segment feature long form content that have a variety of different engagement segments within the videos. Shorter segments could be produced with artists that enable the audience to identify with them even moreso.
• Live Audience: The popular show La Resistencia conducts interviews in front of a live audience with a manufactured stage set up. 

Content Opportunities: This interview features Rosalia explaining her music in a long form feature. Create a studio space for artists to join a music expert on the Red Bull team to sit down and breakdown their lyrics and musical components together. This should be lighthearted and musically inclined to take viewers into the history of their favourite lyrics.

Outliers in this category were omitted for exceeding more than 3x average views + engagements of its content bucket, view their tactics here. 

4.8M  Views

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3.4M  Views

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2. Window Gallery Session

Artists perform their songs in a specially designed performance space with musical accompaniment of their choosing. This segment is owned by the outlet Gallery Sessions. 

Tactics to Implement:

• Unique Setting: Gallery Sessions happen in a unique setting where artists stand in a window display performing on the other side of the glass while pedestrians and cars drive by.
• Musical Accompaniment: Some artists choose to perform alone however others include backup singers, live bands or DJs in the window with them. This creates a dynamic performance.

Content Opportunities:

• Videos in the 3-4 minute range saw +141% and +64% more views and engagements than videos less than 3 minutes and more than 4 minutes respectively.
• Find a space to create juxtaposing content and a unpredictable space for artists to perform as a unique twist on this current content format.

Outliers in this category were omitted for exceeding more than 3x average views + engagements of its content bucket, view their tactics here. 

5.2M  Views

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3.4M Views

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3. Single Format Freestyle

Single Format Freestyles feature videos that highlight one creator performing a freestyle in a performance format.

Tactics to Implement:

• Introductions: In this video, the editors feature screenshots from the comments section of audience members asking for CACHA to perform on their freestyle sessions. 
• Visual Effects: Many different angles are featured in these freestyles from the artist to the producers or other musicians present behind the beat. In this video, the most replayed moment features a quick series of back and forth angles that match the beat before the rapper goes into a fast flow.

Content Opportunities:

• Similar to cyphers, there is a lack of freestyle performance formats being produced in Spain.
• Build a quick freestyle format that can be easily reproduced with many artists. The top performing videos in this category range at 2 minutes and 30 seconds. 
• Currently, freestyle formats include bland settings, use a visually stimulating setting to attract artists and encourage sharing. 

Outliers in this category were omitted for exceeding more than 3x average views + engagements of its content bucket, view their tactics here. 

4M  Views

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1.6M Views

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Viral Videos:These videos were omitted from their content buckets as ‘viral’ outliers for exceeding 3x the views and engagements of their respective benchmarks.

Animation Rap

Length: Both the viral Animation Rap videos are 5 minutes in length.

Visual Style: These experiment with different visual styles than the creator usually produces. Instead of Minecraft/Roblox style characters, he experiments with flat illustration styles or graphics similar to the new Sonic style, which was made in line with the release of the new movie.

9.7M Views

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4.9M Views

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Interview

Length: Both the viral Interview videos range at about 15 minutes in length.

Content: The top replayed moment in this video features the guest breaking down how a song was made and how he incorporated different instruments into the production. 

8.2M Views

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6.9M Views

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3. Single Format Freestyle

Tactics: The artist constantly makes eye contact and gestures to the camera. Footage of people through the vocal booth window is shown often to build behind the scenes content.

10M Views

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Window Gallery Session

Tactics: This video features a top rapper from Spain who performs completely alone as opposed to with a DJ or band. He features a lot of emotion and direct contact with the camera.

7.8M Views