Top 8 Car Commercials from Super Bowl 50

The Super Bowl is the biggest sporting event in America and always ranks top as the most watched TV events of the year. The commercials they air during the mega event has also become an event of itself and a way for brands to make a name for themselves.  Car companies have been on this bandwagon for years now and each year they try to "up" the competition. We've compiled our favorite 8 which were shown during the big game.

1. Honda Ridgeline: Freddy Mercury maybe rolling in his grave but there is something fascinating about sheep singing Somebody to Love.

2. Runnin' with the Devil - Acura NSX: What is this, like the third year in a row Acura has aired a commercial for a car that still isn't on the showroom floor? It's beyond belief that they've pulled it off once again. David Lee Roth can't sing worth crap. But when there is no music, there is nothing to be out of tune with! This acapella version of Van Halen's Runnin' with the Devil actually works.  

3. Audi R8 V10 "Commander": An old retired astronaut gets his mojo back by sitting in the cockpit of his son's new V10 Audi R8.  If this doesn't get you going, nothing will.  

4. Kia Optima "Walken Closet": We toast for most things with Christopher Walken in it. Well, maybe not when he played Captain Hook in Peter Pan... But Kia's "Walken Closet" is worth a toast. 

5. JEEP: As a former CJ7 Jeep Scrambler owner, I had to sneak this one in.  Jeeps are not cars, they are 4x4s that happen to be allowed to drive the same roads as cars.  But Jeeps are made not only for the road but to be out in the wild and this commercial exemplifies that lifestyle.  

6. MINI #defylabels: The BMW brand bought on some celebrity power for this year's Super Bowl ad with Serena Williams, Ryan Renolds, Harvey Kytel, T-Pain, Tony Hawk, Abby Wambach etc to convey the #defylabels message. 

7. Toyota Prius "The Longest Chase": Bank robbers take the all new 2016 Toyota Prius as a getaway car. Initially the authorities scoffs at the idea of chasing, the s-l-o-w reputation, Prius but the new hybrid somehow manages to get away. Ok we get it, but just because you see it on TV, don't take the Prius to rob a bank. 

8. Hyundai Genesis "First Date": Funny Man Kevin Hart plays psycho dad and uses the Hyundai Blue Link Car Finder feature to stalk his daughter on her first date. Which agency came up with this original idea? Hart is so on fire now that he can make any lame commercial concept work. Background music "Another One Bites the Dust" by again Queen.  

YouTube Partner Program for MCN-affiliated channels

There was a message sent out by YouTube to channels that belong in MCN(multi-channel networks) this morning.

You can go ahead and click through and agree.

In a nutshell...

• This is a re-agreement to the partner program you are already apart of.  
• The verbiage in the old agreement when partners signed years ago was dated. It is updated now to take into account all the new revenue models and features YouTube offers now.  Things like Fan Funding etc.  
• There is no difference in the way you work with YouTube and GTChannel. 
• GTChannel and YouTube worked together to make this possible. You will benefit by gaining access to new features such as revenue sharing on eligible third party content in your video. (e.g.cover songs or videos that use music)

False Copyright Claim by GTChannel?!

Recently we have been receiving claims by YouTuber users outside of our network regarding false copyright claims by GTChannel.

This is unfortunate because some partners in our network are clicking on the "Enable Content ID matches" during the uploading process.

Just to clarify, you should only click on "Enable Content ID matches" if you own the copyright to the video you are uploading.  

DO NOT enable Content ID if you are uploading any of the following. 

• GAME PLAY footage. Whether or not this is footage of you playing, your friend playing or something you found on the internet, game play footage copyright is owned by the game company.  Not the player.  
• Music videos and live music performances. 
• MOVIES and TV shows. Do we really even need to get into this? Don't click it!

Check out this video that explains what Content ID is. It is there to protect the rights of the copyright holders.

When our partners click on Content ID on game play footage they do not own, the user is hit with a claim from GTChannel. Not only does this make us look like complete a__holes, it is illegal to claim content we don't own. We do not condone this action but can't stop it unless our partners learn that Content ID should only be enabled if the video was shot and produced by the partner themselves.  

If you are a YouTube user who has been hit by a false claim by GTChannel, we apologize and urge you to "dispute" the claim. That way we can see it and release the false claim. 

Here is a link on How To Dispute a Content ID Claim. 

Digital Video Ecosystem Map

Here is an interesting look at the current digital video ecosystem by Mode Media. It's grouped different platforms together into continents and spread them across a map like infographic. 

There is nothing we don't already know in here but it's a great way to sort different platforms and services and how they can be categorized in a visual way. 

Original article on Techcrunch. 

GTChannel On Comcast's Cross Platform Video Service Watchable

 Although YouTube is still GTChannel's biggest market, we feel that our creators and content need to develop new distribution channels. Our audience is consuming content in every way possible and we want to be there.

We have continued to expand our reach onto other platforms and in October we launched on Comcast's new video service called Watchable.  Watchable curates the best content from popular video networks and we are proud to be one of the select content providers for this new service.

Other content service providers include Buzzfeed, GoPro, Maker Studio, Vice, Discovery Networks, Vox Media etc.
 - TK

How To Do SEMA - SEMA 2015 Report

The 2015 SEMA Show took place from Nov 3 to 6 and GTChannel was on site to cover the best of the best of the show. It was personally one of my best show experiences because we were able to focus on a few goals we set out to achieve. 

Top 13 Tuner Cars of SEMA 2015

1. Create Good Video: We really just focused on making two videos from the show.  The first piece was going to be a "Top Tuner Car" video because that is what our (at least my) expertise lies in. I'm not going to pretend I know everything about trucks and muscle cars because I don't.  We're producing videos for GTChannel's home channel so let's just stick to what our audience wants to see and what we do best.  We also didn't want to go in blind to the show and end up with a highlight video. The show is enormous and just absolutely impossible to cover everything. (Not according to our friends at Speed Academy...) So we chose to focus on selecting a number of "tuner cars" and list them as our favorites. That direction ended up saving our time and prevented us from scattering our resources all over the place.  

Our second video is on the GT Awards with an interview with Sung Kang (Han from Fast & Furious Tokyo Drift) and Kenji Sumino from GReddy.  You may have seen his Z Dream series on the Speed -Fox YouTube Channel which was beautifully shot by eGarage.  We had interviewed Sung and Kenji at the Fugu Z reveal event in Irvine the week prior to the show so we didn't have to interview them during the crazy SEMA week. It just happened that we were also working with Sony to produce a GT Awards video so it turned out perfect that they also won Best of Show for GT Awards. It's extremely rare that things fall into place this perfectly but when it does, it feels really good!  That video with the Fugu Z featuring Sung and Kenji is scheduled for release in the next couple of days. 

                            

                               Sung and Kazunori Yamauchi, creator of PlayStation's Gran Turismo

In partnership with the ID Agency, I directed videos for CTEK Battery Chargers. We have created a series of videos leading up to the show featuring builders and the CTEK Battery Charger. It's a brand/product integrated video series that could be a good template for future video projects. We hope to get more partner channels involved in these types of brand/product integration projects. It's a great way to earn additional revenue from the videos we create.

How LTMW Became The Go-To Builder - Road 2 SEMA Presented by CTEK

2. Partners: The SEMA Show is a once a year event where many of our Network Partner Channels get together in one location. Since we sponsor the Honda Soiree, we took advantage of the situation to get a little corner to hang out and enjoy a few drinks together.  Individually we were also able to see a bunch of partners on the show floor, at restaurants or on the dance floor. It's always great to see our partners in person. Maybe next year we'll even plan a bigger get together at SEMA with more of our awesome partners.  

SEMA Show Day 1 

The Speed Academy guys unfortunately were not able to come out to any of the parties but heck they got a lot of work done.  This video was released on the first night of the show and it already has 123K views.  Way to go guys! 

MotoIQ was also there to cover the SEMA Show. These guys cover the industry from the car nerd perspective and we love their stuff.  

Photo M.D. Media looks like he got some great footage. Let's see the video now!

SuperspeedersRob walks the floor and shows us what's hot or not.  

3. Taking Care of Biz: The SEMA Show is also a time for us to wheel and deal. But the reality is that not much ever really gets done at the SEMA Show floor because people are just so busy and hard to get their attention. You have to do the ground work before SEMA so you can follow up at SEMA or actually close the deal as a formality.  We took the opportunity to meet face to face with several potential brand clients which we hope to work with in 2016.  

This is also a great time to just hang out with folks you normally only work with. The after hours of SEMA is just as important to what is going on during show hours. The big difference with other trade shows is that we are all there to share a common passion which is cars. So when we get to relax over a drink or a meal, we're still talking about CARS!  

Out of my 10+ years of going to SEMA, the key is not to try to do too much.  If you try to grab too much candy, you're hand is going to get stuck and you won't be able to pull it out of the jar. So focus your efforts on a few important things. Set those goals and spend your time wisely.  And drink a LOT of water! 

- Taro Koki 

President & Co-founder of GTChannel Inc.

See our Instagram for car pics from the SEMA Show.

Get a YouTube Custom URL Today

Now it's easier than ever to obtain a custom URL.  

When you create a new channel, it usually looks like a bunch of mumbo jumbo after youtube.com/channel/.  No one will remember this and it also looks amateurish. 

You want a custom URL like https://www.youtube.com/gtchannel. 

You can claim your URL right from your YouTube account. You used to need 500 subscribers but now you only need 100 subs.  

Think hard about what your URL should be.  You can never change this!  Watch the video below to see how to create your custom URL!