Alvivi Sexcussion on Youtube: a review

Hi there, given that Alvivi was such a hot topic in Singapore last year, I thought it was high time I did a follow up given that Alvivi has recently launched their Youtube channel "Sexcussions with Alvivi" on the 7th January - so given that today is the 25th January, it is only 18 days old so far. It is really premature to judge the success of a Youtube channel 18 days after its launch - but I can certain review the content presented in the first three episodes and let you know what I think about the first three episodes. There should be a new episode every week, so look out for them!

Let's begin by talking about Youtube. Many of us enjoy watching video clips on Youtube because we are able to access all kinds of content for free. Revenue is generated for Youtube by the ads that appear on the side of your screen and sometimes before the playing of the video itself. Thankfully, I use Google Chrome which has a really good ad blocker, so I am able to bypass these irritating ads - but there you go, such is the business world: you want the free content, you will be bombarded by ads. The ads you encounter on Youtube are supplied by Google Adsense - Google Adsense is a system which covers a variety of websites apart from Youtube. Depending on the traffic you get along with the click through rate, you can get anything from a few cents to a few thousand dollars a month. So would Alvivi generate enough revenue for it to be profitable?

Right from the start, I see a problem for Alvivi. This is Youtube, there are strict regulations about what you are permitted to put on Youtube - there is no adult content, though these rules are fairly relaxed and there is plenty of soft core content that is on Youtube already. I had a browse through the uploading procedure and they seem far more hung up about copyright issues than adult content but there are certain lines that cannot be crossed. So showing a woman in a bikini is fine, but the moment she takes goes topless - that's when the line is crossed and it becomes unsuitable content for Youtube. So Alvivi are trying to talk about sex whilst keeping it just on the right side of Youtube's rules on content - can this work?

Now, if I was looking for porn on the internet, I could easily surf onto plenty of porn sites which allow me to access all kinds of hardcore pornographic content. Alvin and Vivian simply cannot demonstrate anything that would fall foul of Youtube's rules on adult content - so they are talking more about seduction techniques in the first episode and in the second episode about foreplay, there simply couldn't demonstrate a lot of things they were talking about. Now you may tell me, "hey Limpeh, there are so many popular cooking channels on Youtube, I love learning new recipes from Youtube. I can't taste the cooking but I can still learn from the video - such is the nature of Youtube."

Now there's a clear difference between a cooking programme and Alvivi's Sexcussions: imagine if I made a video about cooking where I described how to prepare crispy baked chicken wings but it was simply me standing in my kitchen talking about it without even getting my hands or any plates dirty. How is that going to work? Perhaps there was a time, 20 or 30 years ago, where people were happy to get a recipe from a cookbook without even any photographs and simply following the instructions. I'm sure your parents might still have a cookbook like that tucked away somewhere in your house. However, in 2013, our expectations are much higher and the average viewer will expect to see some form of demonstration or illustration: actions, not just words. Who would want to watch a programme of Alvivi talking about sex? Certainly, that format isn't going to bring the kind of gratification to those looking for porn - so who would be their target audience? Can they find a captive audience? (AKA 'subscribers' in Youtube talk).

Is it entertaining? If it is not meant to be overtly sexual like hardcore porn, is it simply light entertainment or even comedy? Well the proof is in the pudding. I watched the video and I guess that really depends if you're interested in the topic. Certainly, what they're talking about is hardly provocative by British standards - we have a lot of prime time TV comedy dealing with male teenagers obsessed with sex and desperately trying to get laid, such as The Midnight Beast and The Inbetweeners (see clip below). So I can see a certain segment of the male population - late teens to early twenties - who would be interested in Alvivi's channel, though this appeal is limited to that particular social demographic. I can't imagine women enjoying that channel (correct me if I am wrong) as I worry that they may be offended by Alvin's somewhat sexist use of language - but hey, I am not a woman so correct me if I am wrong. Also, for someone like myself: I'm going to be 37 in April - it suffices to say that I have been around the block and back a few times when it comes to sex, I don't need 'advice'. People like me already know what I want, what I enjoy and what I don't like from experience so I need to be entertained rather than simply informed if they want to sustain my interest.

The production quality is fairly low - certainly in the first two episodes, it is very low-tech and low-budget, it is simply the two of them sitting in bed and talking to the camera. The sound quality in the first episode was quite poor and the lighting was inadequate - such as the technical issues that can easily affect one's enjoyment of a programme. The production quality did improve with the third episode so yes, there has been some improvements. But like I said, early days and some of the most successful vloggers out there had humble beginnings too.

Now one of my favourite vloggers that I do follow on Youtube are EatYourKimchi - the lovely Canadian expatriate couple who blog about their life in Korea, making K-culture far more accessible to an English speaking audience. Their very first video was of them visiting a Korean Restaurant on the day they arrived in Korea and the production quality was awful - in fact the production quality in all their early videos were pretty dreadful until they started getting a serious amount of traffic on their vlog.

Today, they vlog full time in Seoul and the production quality of their videos are excellent - but it takes time and money to make a professional looking product and until you know your videos are being seen by thousands (rather than just your good friends), you are unlikely to want to invest that much time and money to polish up the final product. By that token, I am willing to excuse the poor production quality of their first two videos as they are just starting out - if the production quality doesn't significantly improve say after 3 or 4 months, then I'll take issue with them on the poor sound and lighting. Certainly the moment when uncle Francis popped in so spontaneously on the streets of KL - okay, that was comedy gold. It was awesome, it was totally brilliant. I hope Alvivi realize they need more moments like that in their videos rather than just go for the shock factor by talking about things like rimming.

In terms of the business plan for EatYourKimchi, they started vlogging about their life in Korea without thinking that it would eventually become a full time job. It started out as a simple way to show their friends and family back home in Canada what they were experiencing in Korea. By the time they started attracting a worldwide following, they had already amassed a critical mass of videos so when I first stumbled upon one of their videos and liked it, I naturally wanted to see what other videos they had made about Korea. They have had over 100 million video views (and counting) to date on their two main channels - but this doesn't represent 100 million different people seeing them on Youtube. Some of this traffic is made up by faithful subscribers like me who have seen practically all of their many videos and of course, also some people who have seen only one EatYourKimchi video and everything in between.

What works against Alvivi right now is that they lack that critical mass to sustain traffic - they only have three videos and let's be fair to them, their channel is brand new. I sat down and watched all three episodes back to back - so they did manage to sustain my attention, but after that, they lost me. Once I've seen one of their videos, that's it, I am not going to see it again, I am going to see something else. Let's look at the statistics in greater detail.

Their latest video generated 36,855 hits so far as of 16:00 GMT 25th January 2013. That's pretty impressive when you compare it to one of EatYourKimchi's videos from this week: their K-pop music Monday's review of Jaejoong's Mine has generated 91,752 hits so far and both videos were released on the 22nd January. Nonetheless, EatYourKimchi has over 1,000 videos already in their various channels generating income for them. Think of it as a fruit orchard: EatYourKimchi has a plantation of over a thousand trees and even if each tree produces one fruit a day, that's still a great harvest.Whereas in the Alvivi Sexcussions fruit orchard, there are only three trees which are quite productive but it's still very early days and they need to plant more trees. In the meantime, no they're not going to make any money but like any business, it will take a while for them to get this off the ground and I'm sure the pair of them realize this. So yes you can make money vlogging on Youtube, but it is not easy.

Many of you have also realized that their videos have received more thumbs down than thumbs up - I don't see that as a problem really, after all, these two like nothing more that being provocative and a bit of notoriety can go a long way in terms of drumming up publicity for a new Youtube channel. There's nothing more sad than putting a video on Youtube, only to be ignored and getting a handful of hits. Heck, Justin Bieber's music video for Baby has 3.3 million thumbs down vs 1.5 million thumbs up - yet it remains the second most viewed music video on Youtube after Gangnam Style and he's certainly made a lot of money from that bloody awful song.

Lastly, it has been suggested that Malaysia and Singapore are two very conservative Asian countries. The locals are not prepared for a show like that, even if it is on Youtube. Should they instead be doing this in the West where people are far more relaxed to talk about sex? This then boils down to a question of supply & demand. You may think that the British are conservative when it comes to sex, but turn to page 3 on the biggest selling newspaper in the UK The Sun and you get a topless woman with her tits on display. There's so much sex and porn easily available in places like the UK, what is the point in entering a saturated market like that? Whereas in the case of Singapore & Malaysia, there is definitely a gap in the market as no one else is daring to do what they do. So from a commercial point of view, they're definitely doing the right thing. They need to turn this disadvantage (conservative society) into an advantage (being the first to fill the gap in a this market). Perhaps they can try to do something on safer sex and get sponsorship from a condom company, there are many possibilities as they are the first to do something like that in Malaysia & Singapore.

They have to be careful how they position themselves in this market, it can't be, "hey sex is fun, go out and have as much sex as possible." That could lead to a backlash by the more conservative elements of Singaporean and Malaysian society - but what they need is to balance that with some sex education and useful information about sex that goes beyond instructions on how to get laid. Heck, for those wanting pornographic content, there's already plenty of hardcore porn out there for that kind of enjoyment but there's no one really doing quality sex education in Singapore and Malaysia. Again, this is a new product and they need to decide what their message and raison d'etre is - and they need to pitch it just right. If they're too bland, then they'll be ignored - if they're too provocative then they may alienate some viewers: whilst they can never please everyone, they need to find the right place to position themselves so as to maximize their appeal. That is their challenge - to get this delicate balance right.

I did manage to catch up with Alvin Tan after I have written this article, so please read my interview with Alvin here.

So yes, I think they're on to something here. It's still early days for them but I support them in their efforts and hope they they will refine their business strategy in order to turn this into a meaningful and profitable business. What do you think? Have you seen their videos? Leave a comment below, terima kasih!