If ever there was a perfect zero-to-hero story in the digital video world, Jungle Creations fits the bill. Four years ago, the digital publisher was a newcomer to the online video scene. Now, the UK-based media property is one of the most-watched in the entire world, pulling in at least 3-5 billion views per month across its media brands, including the wildly popular VT. This onslaught of views often lands Jungle Creations in the top ten leaderboards for most-watched publishers, alongside verticals from other media giants such as BuzzFeed; for example, in September alone, Jungle Creations claimed #9 globally in the most-viewed media and entertainment category.
Clearly, Jungle Creations is doing something very right, and we wanted to know what that was. In a recent conversation with Melissa Chapman, Chief Content Officer at Jungle Creations, she revealed:
- How data-driven knowledge and competitor analysis is incorporated into the company’s digital video strategy
- Which metrics the company actively monitors to understand its success
- What role data, audience, and testing have in the development of original video, including longer-form content
- How Jungle Creations expanded beyond Facebook and formed an ever-growing cross-platform strategy
- How the company creates successful branded content for its partners
- What’s going to happen in online video in 2019
Whether you’re a publisher, broadcaster, studio or brand and are pursuing a digital video strategy, there’s certainly a lot to learn from the fascinating growth at Jungle Creations.
How Jungle Creations Became a Multi-Million Pound Media Brand
Going from 0 to 5 billion views per month obviously doesn’t happen overnight. It all started with a simple listicle article — “Twenty People You Will Meet at Fresher’s Week” — written by Jungle Creations founder Jamie Bolding back in 2015. Little did he know that article would be the start of something huge.
As a brand, Jungle Creations actually started uploading viral entertainment videos to Facebook under its flagship property VT (formerly known as Viral Thread), which quickly garnered 24 million followers. The Jungle Creations team then realized there was a huge opportunity in the food and drink market, so they launched Twisted for original recipe videos, which became its fastest-growing vertical ever by hitting 1 million followers organically in just six weeks. Using Tubular to analyze video performance and growth opportunities, Jungle Creations added even more sub-properties to its verticalization strategy over the next few years, including channels like Level Fitness for exercise and fitness videos, Four Nine for female first content and World Unknown for travel content.
Jungle Creations has now developed into a full-fledged content creation giant which earns millions of pounds a year. The company claims a variety of media brands, an in-house creative agency ‘Treehouse’ in London, and a team of over 140 employees in London, Los Angeles and New York. The company’s enviable digital video strategy also includes a firm stake in the growth of sponsored video in the UK; between Q1 and Q2 of 2017, for example Jungle Creations tripled its sponsored video views and also increased its share of sponsors in the UK by 65% (Bolding notes a lot of that growth was driven by insights from Tubular’s Dealmaker product).
And the company isn’t stopping there; while looking to produce more original and sponsored video content, the media property is exploring opportunities in e-commerce and even offline retail ventures (like a delivery-only restaurant called Twisted London) and e-commerce business Lovimals. Based on its explosive growth over the last four years, we expect some great things from Jungle Creations over the next few years. If you’d like to see more of the insights Chapman provided, click here to watch our conversation!