The burlesque hidden cameras of Rémi Gaillard, the crazy compilations of “Zap de Spi0n”, or even the first valves of the Palmashow: here are the kind of nuggets that we came to look for on Dailymotion fifteen years ago. The video sharing platform launched by two Frenchmen, Benjamin Bejbaum and Olivier Poitrey, in early 2005, at the same time as YouTube, was then experiencing its golden age. The sequel is less brilliant. While YouTube benefits from the strike force of Google, its powerful acquirer. Dailymotion, on the other hand, lives between several owners, Orange then Vivendi (since 2017), while renouncing, in the winter of 2013, an attractive takeover by Yahoo!. Then Minister of Productive Recovery, Arnaud Montebourg had made it a point of honor to keep the platform under the tricolor lap. Leaving it, unwittingly, to waste away for many years.
A new page opened last week. Dailymotion gave in to the sirens of verticality, with the launch of a new mobile application inspired by the Chinese TikTok and American platforms which have already swung into the era of short video: Meta, with Instagram, creator of “reels”, and the rival of its beginnings, YouTube, father of the “shorts”. “Dailymotion will have a lot to do in an ultra-competitive market, dominated by giants”, analyzes Diego Ferri, senior consultant at EY Fabernovel. Which does not scare the French. “We are the only global video-sharing platform, present in 145 countries and in 35 languages, which is neither Chinese nor American”, boasts its director of operations, Guillaume Clément, to L’Express. Within the company, however, they refuse to consider themselves a “direct competitor”. “TikTok employs at least 5,000 people in Europe alone, while at Dailymotion we are just over 300,” continues the leader. The latter also wants to “magnetize” (this is the meaning of its logo) a more restricted population, the 18-25 year olds, “this generation which creates uses, trends”. And it relies on an algorithmic operation based on exploration.
Concretely, the new Dailymotion does not just offer personalized videos based on likes and the views of users, but it also randomly presents them with various content, from media or creators, that their use had not allowed them to discover so far. His first advertising campaign, “Change your feed”, shows a young man drowning day after day in similar content – including rude fake news – until indigestion. An undisguised criticism of TikTok. “We see ourselves as a way of remedying the lack of diversity of opinion on the Internet”, sums up Guillaume Clément more civilly. The “shattered generation” portrayed by L’Express in an issue published at the start of the year also warned against the dangers linked to a frantic quest for virality, to the detriment of the mental health of young people. “There is a real appetite for an alternative,” says Dailymotion, based on the findings of a study of 4,500 people.
“It is not enough to attack the opponent…”
That said, this sensational entry by Dailymotion into the social network and short video market remains “cheeky”, says Arthur Kannas, director of the digital marketing agency Heaven: “Young people are sensitive to the issue of intoxication to the content. But do they really change their behavior as a result? Nothing proves it, for the moment. It is not enough to attack the adversary in an advertisement…” TikTok indeed continues its strong growth and counts today about 1.7 billion users every month worldwide. The Meta galaxy has nearly 4 billion of them. Their turnovers do not really suffer from criticism. “The search for virality is above all a wager on profitability,” recalls Jérôme Colin, strategy consultant at Fifty-five. Dailymotion, with its unique positioning, more ethical, more editorialized, thus takes the opposite view of an economic model based on attention, which has largely proven its worth: a fully personalized feed monopolizes the attention of the user, who watches more videos and more ads. Part of the sums collected are redistributed to the creators pushing the content. And so on.
The outsider Dailymotion, which also has a business model mostly oriented towards advertising, will therefore have to join in the battle for the audience. The company hopes to reach one billion monthly users by 2026, and add 500 million more by 2028. For now, Dailymotion claims 400 million worldwide. A total inflated, three-quarters, by clicks on videos hosted by the French company on many sites, such as AlloCiné, The Team, or even BeIN Sports. “9 out of 10 French Internet users use our player“, welcomes Maxime Saada, its CEO, on Twitter. This “almost invisible” activity already brings in advertising revenue for Dailymotion – including turnover increased by 29.5% between 2021 and 2022 –, but they are not enough to allow him to make a name for himself. Nor to be profitable. “With the upcoming disappearance of third-party cookies, the usage data collected on publisher sites will no longer be as monetizable as before. Hence the interest for Dailymotion to attract users to a brand new application. These cookies , first party, this time, will belong to him and will have more value, because they will make it possible to offer targeted advertising to advertisers”, deciphers Jérôme Colin, of the firm Fifty-five.
The Battle of the Creators
Dailymotion’s bet is now based on its ability to attract star creators. “In short, to tear them from YouTube or TikTok, where they have often been comfortably installed for several years”, indicates Arthur Kannas, of the Heaven agency. 230 of them already have an agreement with Dailymotion, specifies the director of operations, Guillaume Clément. Mostly French, like Benjamin Brillaud, alias “Nota Bene”, a historical popularizer with 2 million subscribers on YouTube, who will publish two videos there each week. “A French-speaking anchor would be a good idea to get started”, observes Arthur Kannas, because of the population pool he represents.
A certain number of creators also broadcast their content there on an unannounced basis. By connecting to the application, the “pop culture” videos of Adam Bros, of the fashion specialist Charlotte Pouget, or even those of Charles Sterlings, purveyor of financial advice, to the million appear. followers on TikTok. Dailymotion also highlights a feature called “react”, video response, which could quickly swell the flood of clips present on the patch. And why not, bring out new talents. The company hopes to convince 3,000 to 5,000 creators by the end of next year. Guillaume Clément offers them an “RPM [revenu par 1 000 vues] up to 6 euros”. A sum much higher than what its competitors promise, with the exception of the classic version of YouTube, with much longer and richer content.
In addition to the financial argument, Guillaume Clément is committed to a more “human” dialogue with creators. Especially on moderation. Many youtubers and tiktokers have long complained of sudden deletions of their videos, without any form of trial. Very often, for remarks deemed contrary to the rules and identified by artificial intelligence, without worrying about the context in which they are pronounced (denunciation of racism, sexism or even homophobia). “There are a whole bunch of weak signals, of criticism towards traditional social networks, which Dailymotion can exploit to grow, believes consultant Diego Ferri. Without forgetting that brains and innovation are no longer concentrated in the only Silicon Valley.”
Last strong argument in favor of Dailymotion: its proximity to Canal+, also owned by the Vivendi group. Asked by L’Express about the bridges between the application and the content of the television channel, Guillaume Clément kicks in touch. By connecting to Dailymotion, however, we find, prominently on the stream, the humorous videos of Studio Bagel. Or, closer to the news, the summary of the Manchester City-Real Madrid football match, broadcast by Canal+ Sport on Wednesday May 17. What offer a launch pad to Dailymotion, which will need it.