Currently for online branded video content in the UK there are very few regulations imposed by the government or other regulatory bodies. However, over the last few years bloggers and other online influencers have started to self-regulate and create their own governances. Transparency is key, and when we work with bloggers and other talent to either appear in, mention or create content on our behalf they disclose it as sponsored content.

Our starting point for content creation is always the interests of our target audience. We approach technology from the point of view of these passions and involve our audience and relevant guests in the content creation and distribution. To give just two examples, we created content about great apps for children around Mother’s Day and used mumsnet bloggers to appear in the content and help distribute it. We created a series of short films, all shot on smartphones with award-winning directors, and ran a competition for a film enthusiast to create the fourth film in the series.

The content has reached and engaged a large audience within the UK, with over 22 million views online, over 26,000 likes and favourites on YouTube and a 400% increase in subscribers to the channel in 2012.

Our content strategy has contributed to a significant increase in awareness of O2 Gurus amongst O2 customers – from 19% in January 2012 to a peak of 38% in October 2012. Those aware of Gurus score O2 significantly higher on a number of brand perception scores and those aware of Gurus have an average Customer Satisfaction Index of +3% for consumers, and +6% for SMB customers. O2 calculates the lifetime value of just 1% uplift for a customer as being £41.70.

By integrating search and social into our content strategy, we have been able to reduce the cost per view from 34p to 4p and Guru TV has achieved top 3 natural search rankings for the Top 10 BlackBerry and iPhone-related help search terms.

And while not explicitly a sales mechanism, Guru TV content sees extremely high click-throughs from annotations to O2.co.uk. Content regularly achieves CTRs of over 10%, compared to an industry average for direct response banner advertising of 0.01%.