When video marketing emerged on the scene years ago, many marketers decided to focus on developing strategies for user generated video campaigns, where users submitted their own videos to corporations to represent their brands or products.  Now, as video evolves into a multi-dimensional medium, user generated content (UGC) is decreasing in popularity and success.  Why is UGC declining?  Simple, the decline can be attributed to an emergence of professional video campaigns in the market, causing corporations to turn to newly developed video marketing firms to create, implement and manage their video marketing campaigns.

According to the report “Pro Online Video Views 1998–2012” from AccuStream iMedia Research, professionally produced online video grew nearly 25% last year, accounting for 41.6 billion views. “The sharp escalation of professional video content on the Web—mainly from TV networks—is creating a viable base for brand marketers,” said David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer.

In another study by The Diffusion Group (TDG) in 2008, short and user-generated clips made up 60% of US video advertising revenues.  But TDG analysts predicted that 70% of streaming video ad revenues will come from long-form videos in 2013.

According to LiveRail, this change in videos has not gone unnoticed, with 18-to-24-year-old social network users  spending more time watching online video than ever before.  In a Q4 2008 survey of more than 400 young adult social networkers, LiveRail found that 53% said that in an average month they spent more time watching online video than traditional TV. Nineteen percent of respondents said they watched each “about the same,” and only 28% said they watched more TV than online video.

So not only are more people watching online videos, but the types of videos they are watching are changing drastically.  Gone are the poorly developed UGC videos of the past, the new online videos are sleek and professional, with content playing a very important role.