C Channel, Ookbee join hands for fashion videos

“C Channel is a new media brand for the smartphone era. It will enable people to communicate through videos,” Akira Morikawa, chief executive officer of C Channel and a former CEO of Line, said on Saturday.

C Channel is his latest creation, which was launched in Japan a year ago. 

C Channel is set to become the global No 1 video magazine for women’s fashion, he said. 

Globally, there are many fashion magazines for women. This is a big market for advertising, especially for make-up and fashion. 

This market is really shifting to digital media, but it is not digital media for women, so C Channel is creating a new market in this area.

“The four major videos at C Channel are make-up, hair arrangement, food, and lifestyle,” he said.

The company wants to open media branches in Asia. It started its global business in China, Taiwan and Thailand and plans to expand to Korea and Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. 

This year C Channel will be seen in seven countries in Asia. 

In Thailand, C Channel aims to draw over 100 million views by year-end, from more than 20 million views now.

“Ookbee is a good partner in Thailand since they are strong in the user-generated content service that is a vital part of C Channel. 

“With Ookbee, first we will create a new market together and then we will do a joint venture this year,” he said.

C Channel’s concept is to make videos easy stuff. 

With C Channel’s app for both iOS and Android, people can shoot and edit their video on their smartphone and then post it onto cchna.tv and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Line.

“We are going to make a world where we can create a large amount of videos quickly with high quality,” he said.

There are three points, including an open studio where people can create videos easily anywhere and anytime. 

There is the Spa model, which is a way to create high-quality videos quickly.

The third is a one-minute video that is optimised for smartphones.

The SPA model likes fast fashion. Performers work with creators, producers and engineers at the same office. 

Young people stay on smartphones and they do not entertain longer versions of videos because they enjoy short videos, so C Channel focuses on one-minute videos.

C Channel also makes original videos even though it also plays the role of a video platform like YouTube. 

C Channel calls its video producers “clippers”. It will select quality videos produced by them to share on social media.

In Thailand, it has about 100 clippers, mostly Japanese bloggers and online influencers. It now gets over 100 million views per month after soft-launching here for two months.

For revenue, C Channel uses the adverting model including video native adverting and video e-commerce. 

Video native ads will be blended and tied into a clipper’s video, which will go viral and be seen by the clipper’s followers.

Video e-commerce is videos that lead viewers to purchase products online. The company will share revenue with its clippers.

“Initially, the big part of revenue comes from video native advertising, but in the long run, video e-commerce will take the lead,” he said.