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Clipping economy - what does it mean for brands?

OneFifty Consultancy
Jun 3
2 min read

What is clipping?

Clipping means taking sections of longer video content, and clipping them to make them more digestible and relevant via short form video platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube shorts.

The main challenge is to make the content comprehensible to someone who lacks context on the wider people or topic discussed. It involves grabbing attention through the short, snappy hooks.

This act of Clipping then distributes the content more widely than the original content, via third party distribution and algorithms.

Is clipping new?

There’s a case to be made that ‘clipping’ is as old as the internet. Iconic memes such as ‘Charlie bit my finger’ are examples of the genre. Sports highlights have done the same principle since video could be distributed. Hollywood has done this for years with segments of films created to make compelling pre-release YouTube content. But, it began with streamers fans, who would take the relevant sections of Twitch streams and edit them to make it accessible to people who didn’t want to sit through hours of a Twitch stream.

However, the rise of the ‘clipper’ is the more recent phenomenon. These are individuals who will ‘clip’ content from creators and distribute it. There were versions in the earlier social internet, who would retweet things for money, and this an evolution. Spotify has even introduced a feature right in the app to facilitate it.

Why would someone clip content?

Money. Clippers are paid, by the content creators, on a CPM basis, to distribute their content. So, for every thousand views they accrue for the original creator, they get paid. Whilst some do it for genuine fandom, most do it for £.

How can brands get involved in clipping?

Product placement in clipped content - e.g. a drink next to the mic for a podcast segment
Create their own content which merits being clipped - and commission clipping. A challenge for most brands

Is clipping for brands legal in the UK?

The ASA and CMA regulations around content disclosure make it difficult to clip content without full #AD disclosure, which would undermine most clipping activity. So, in short, it’s possible, but it’s likely to be challenging in the algorithms. Then the US, with laxer disclosure rules is likely to retain a significantly higher share of activity.