MONTRÉAL — Un an après l’arrivée des tout premiers réfugiés syriens au Québec, les défis demeurent considérables pour ces nouveaux arrivants, mais dimanche, lors d’un événement festif pour souligner cet anniversaire, les politiciens québécois et canadiens ont surtout tenu à souligner les réussites du programme d’accueil mis en place dans la foulée de la guerre civile en Syrie.

«Il reste du travail à faire, tout le monde n’est pas ici. Le travail n’est jamais fini, mais je pense qu’on a fait très bon début», a déclaré le ministre fédéral de l’Immigration, John McCallum, qui s’est réjoui que le Canada ait tout de même accueilli plus de 36 000 réfugiés depuis un peu plus d’un an.

Plusieurs réfugiés étaient présents pour parler de leur joie de vivre en toute sûreté dans un milieu calme, mais aussi des défis auxquels ils se heurtent, dont la langue.

Fadel Moutfi, un père de famille de trois enfants, s’était trouvé un travail dès son arrivée, en janvier dernier. Il a finalement décidé d’abandonner son emploi parce qu’il ne maîtrisait pas assez bien la langue, a-t-il expliqué par la voie de son interprète, Fayza Rifai. Il suit maintenant des cours à temps plein avec sa femme, Bouchra Mzeek.

Moussa Alzeraoui, père de deux filles de 20 et 16 ans, trouve l’apprentissage de la langue difficile et il dit ignorer ce qui l’attendra plus tard, lorsque l’aide du Canada viendra à échéance, selon le Programme des réfugiés parrainés par le gouvernement, a expliqué son interprète, Hakima Hator.

La ministre de l’Immigration, Kathleen Weil, qui semblait très émue en rencontrant les réfugiés, a reconnu que l’intégration des nouveaux arrivants constituait un «défi» et qu’il fallait s’assurer de bien faire le travail avant de s’engager à en accueillir davantage.

Le gouvernement québécois s’était fixé l’objectif de recevoir 7300 nouveaux arrivants en 2015-2016 et ce sera atteint dès les prochaines semaines, a assuré Mme Weil en mêlée de presse. L’an prochain, le Québec prévoit accueillir 7000 réfugiés, dont environ 4000 Syriens.

«On est vraiment juste au bon niveau, on n’a pas eu de demande pour en faire plus. Les gens reconnaissent que c’est quand même un défi important, on veut bien les intégrer. Évidemment, il y a des milliers de réfugiés syriens qui ont besoin d’être sécurisé, qui ont besoin d’un nouveau domicile. Mais chaque société fait ce qu’elle peut», a expliqué Mme Weil.

La ministre ne disposait pas de données sur l’intégration des réfugiés sur le marché du travail, mais elle a souligné que de toute façon, la première année était normalement consacrée à apprendre le français.

Mme Weil a toutefois tenu à dire qu’il fallait aujourd’hui «se féliciter en tant que Québécois», qui «ont fait un travail extraordinaire» depuis un an, a-t-elle insisté.

Mme Weil était accompagnée du ministre des Affaires municipales et de la Sécurité publique, Martin Coiteux, et du maire de Montréal, Denis Coderre, qui partageaient son optimisme.

«Il peut y avoir de la morosité dans certains pays. Mais je suis très, très fier d’être Canadien, d’être Québécois pârce ici, ça veut dire bienvenue et je suis très heureux d’en faire partie», a souligné M. Coderre dans son discours.

Un autre défi de taille dans l’accueil des réfugiés: les longs délais. Le ministre fédéral John McCallum a affirmé qu’il ne pouvait pas aller aussi rapidement que «la demande énorme» des Québécois et des Canadiens.

«Je suis probablement le seul ministre de l’Immigration autour du monde qui a ce défi! Nos citoyens sont tellement généreux, ils veulent accueillir tant de réfugiés qu’il est difficile pour moi d’aller à leur vitesse», a-t-il affirmé.

Le 12 décembre 2015, les premiers réfugiés syriens avaient été accueillis notamment par le premier ministre Philippe Couillard, le ministre McCallum et le maire de Montréal Denis Coderre à l’aéroport Pierre-Eliott Trudeau, à Montréal.

«Une par une, ces familles sont entrées dans la salle avec un grand applaudissement. C’est un moment que je n’oublierai jamais», s’est souvenu le ministre McCallum.

Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) revealed on Saturday the #BeMyGuest film starring Bollywood superstar, Shah Rukh Khan.

After six days from the release of the popular campaign teasers, which kept Bollywood fans from all over the world in anticipation, the film showcases Khan revealing to his legion of fans why Dubai is his home away from home.

In the video, Khan shows the soul, sights and sounds of the metropolis through experiencing different dimensions of Dubai amongst its people.

The actor, who owns a home of his own on The Palm Jumeirah, is seen playing host in this viral campaign, which features a kaleidoscope of culinary, shopping, cultural and adventurous settings.

From boarding a Skydive Dubai plane to surprise jumpers, he is also seen playing volleyball on Kite Beach, while his evening sees him don the role of a waiter to surprise fellow diners in a restaurant.

Dubai Toursim describes the film’s ‘high energy and fast paced tempo perfectly captures the vibe of the city, and Khan’s dynamic relationship with it. It also brings alive the hospitable soul of the city through the megastar’s candid interactions, as he plays host to Dubai’s tourists and residents’.

In a statement, Khan said: « Dubai offers endless experiences that stay with you forever. Whatever you want to do – an adrenaline-fuelled adventure like skydiving or a desert safari or a delicious culinary experience of tantalising flavours – and whether you’re travelling with family, friends or as a couple, this city truly offers a complete holiday experience. »

« It has been great fun working with Dubai Tourism and rediscovering this inspiring city in a whole new way. I can’t wait to be back and live the Dubai magic again, » he added.

As one of Dubai Tourism’s series of upcoming initiatives with Bollywood, it emphasises on nurturing the connection that Dubai has with India.
 
Commenting on the collaboration, Issam Kazim, CEO, Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM), said, « Shah Rukh Khan truly represents the beautiful relationship that Dubai and India share.

« Our continuous dialogue and strong history with India supports projects like these that celebrate and strengthen this union. In line with our vision of hosting 20 million visitors per year by 2020, our tourism efforts are increasing every year, with a major emphasis on the Indian market. We are excited to invite Indians from all over the world to experience Shah Rukh Khan’s Dubai for themselves. »

From creating a video series or publishing a book to celebrating the Chinese New Year, January 2017 is full of content marketing opportunities for your business.

Content marketing is the act of creating content, publishing that content, and promoting it with the goal of attracting, engaging, and keeping customers for your business. Content marketing depends on the concept of reciprocity or a mutual exchange of dependence, action, or influence.

When your company provides someone with useful, informative, or entertaining content, that someone may feel a sense of obligation to your business and may purchase from you when the opportunity arises.

Here are five content marketing ideas for your business.

1. Start a Video Series

Your customers and prospects almost certainly watch videos online.

In October 2016, trend tracking firm comScore reported in its Multi-Platform Media Metrix that YouTube reaches about 95 percent of regular Internet users in the United States age 35 or older in a given month.

From 2015 to 2016, the amount of time American adults spent on YouTube doubled, according to an April 2016 Google and Nielsen report.

Again, your customers and prospects are online watching videos. So, for your content in 2017, commit to producing a monthly video series. You just have to publish once a month. You can do that.

Your aim is to create a series that helps your potential customers complete a task, provides those customers with good information, or entertains your customers.

The video embedded above from multichannel retailer Michael’s can be your inspiration.

2. Celebrate Chinese New Year

Worldwide, just about one in every six people is Chinese or of Chinese descent. So when your business celebrates the Chinese New Year, there are a lot of potential customers celebrating with you.

The Chinese New Year, which is also called the Spring Festival, is a 15-day event that begins on the second new moon after the winter solstice — January 28 for 2017.

The holiday is one of the most important economic and social events of the year in Chinese culture. And the United States — San Francisco, Calif. specifically — is home to the largest Chinese New Year celebration outside of China.

For your Chinese New Year content you might:

• Describe the event’s history,
• Provide dumpling or long noodle recipes,
• Show off fashion featuring the color red,
• Describe how-to articles for making decorations.

3. Offer Classes

How-to content could be content marketing’s highest form. When you create something useful, something that genuinely helps, folks will appreciate it and will be more likely to purchase from your business. This is the principle of reciprocity.

For January 2017, consider offering classes that really help your potential customers learn a new skill. These classes can be in the form of online videos or, better still, real world events.

Michael’s, the brick-and-click craft retailer mentioned above, is a master of using classes (content) to build customer relationships.

Michael’s offers classes that help its customers learn new skills.

Specifically, a shopper could attend a multi-week cake-decorating class at Michael’s and learn all of the fundamental techniques needed to be an outstanding cake decorator. And given that Michael’s took the time to teach you, where would you look first for cake decorating supplies?

You don’t need a physical store to offer classes. For example, imagine that you sell fly tying tools and materials online for fly fishermen. You could teach a series of fly tying classes at libraries all around your region.

4. Create a Checklist

The checklist may be an under-appreciated literary form. Or, at the very least, it is a good way to present helpful and easy-to-share content.

From the content marketer’s perspective, a good checklist should include an actual list of items readers can check off and an accompanying article or description of the checklist.

For example, Martha Stewart’s website includes a number of holiday checklists, including one that describes how to manage a holiday cookie swap.

Need to know how to organize a cookie swap? There is a checklist for that.

This January, produce a few helpful and fun checklists that make sense in the context of your business.

5. Self-publish a Book

The Michelin Guide series is an excellent example of content marketing well before the practice became popular.

A little over 100 years ago, André and Édouard Michelin of the Michelin tire company began to publish a guidebook for French motorists. The book included maps, lists of hotels, the locations of gas stations, and some simple tire maintenance and repair information.

The guide was intended to encourage travel by car, which in turn would encourage the use of tires, which is what Michelin was trying to sell.

Over time, the Michelin Guide grew to be a well-known restaurant and hotel guide. For example, the 2015 Chicago edition reviews 400 restaurants.

For more than 100 years the Michelin Guide has pointed motorists to hotels and restaurants.

In January 2017, consider publishing a book that might help your business.

For example, if your company sells men’s suits, you might publish a book about how to be a modern gentleman or how to dress for success.

If your company sells high-quality paper or journals, you could publish a book about handwriting or about famous letters or journals.

You don’t even have to do all of the work yourself. You can hire researchers and writers to help put words to your ideas.

This is the most challenging content marketing suggestion on this list, but it is a new year. Who isn’t up for a challenge?

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OTTAWA – Après des discussions tendues, le fédéral et les provinces – à l’exception de deux – sont parvenus à s’entendre sur l’adoption d’un cadre pancanadien de réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre.

Le Manitoba a refusé d’adhérer «pour le moment» à l’entente, alors que le premier ministre de la Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, a maintenu son refus catégorique de voir Ottawa imposer un prix sur le carbone, craignant un impact économique néfaste sur sa province.

Ce cadre pancanadien prévoit que le fédéral imposera un prix de 10 $ la tonne sur le carbone aux provinces dès 2018. Ce prix doit ensuite augmenter de 10 $ par année pour atteindre 50 $ la tonne en 2022.

Au sortir d’une rencontre avec ses homologues provinciaux, vendredi à Ottawa, le premier ministre Justin Trudeau a rétorqué que le fédéral aurait le dernier mot.

«Les mesures que nous avons annoncées (qui sont) d’amener un prix sur le carbone à travers le pays – s’il n’y a pas de programmes équivalents générés par les provinces – continuent à s’appliquer à travers le pays», a-t-il tranché.

Équité

Après avoir fait durer le suspense, la première ministre de la Colombie-Britannique, Christie Clark, a pour sa part décidé de se rallier à la dernière minute à l’entente.

Elle avait auparavant soulevé un «enjeu d’équité» entre le système de sa province qui prévoit une taxe sur le carbone et les modèles québécois et ontarien de plafonnement et d’échanges de droits d’émission de gaz à effet de serre. Elle y voyait même une question «d’unité nationale».

Mme Clark soutient avoir obtenu la garantie d’Ottawa que la Colombie-Britannique pourra en 2020 examiner l’enjeu d’équité et décider à ce moment-là de hausser sa taxe sur le carbone ou de recourir à d’autres mesures.

Absent lors de cette rencontre, où il était représenté par le ministre de l’Environnement, Philippe Couillard a qualifié le compromis obtenu par Mme Clark de «geste de bonne volonté».

«Techniquement, on ne peut pas comparer une taxe sur le carbone et un marché de carbone. Ça n’existe pas, ce n’est pas une comparaison même possible. (…) Je pense que c’est un peu une piste latérale qui ne mènera pas à grand-chose, mais s’il faut faire cette étude tant mieux (…) mais ça ne nous préoccupe pas du tout», a soutenu le premier ministre du Québec.

Un parcours

Le cadre pancanadien vise à donner suite à l’accord de Paris, selon lequel le Canada s’est engagé à réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES) à 30 % en dessous des niveaux de 2005 d’ici 2030.

Avec ce cadre pancanadien, les provinces et le fédéral se dotent d’un «parcours», mais sans échéancier détaillé. Le document d’une cinquantaine de pages indique plutôt comment le Canada et les provinces s’y prendront pour faire passer les émissions de GES projetées de 742 mégatonnes, en décembre 2016, à la cible de 523 mégatonnes en 2030.

Une première tranche de réductions de 89 mégatonnes proviendra des annonces faites en novembre dernier, incluant les régulations sur les véhicules lourds et le méthane, et d’autres mesures provinciales ainsi que les crédits de plafonnement et d’échanges internationaux.

Une autre tranche de réduction de 86 mégatonnes des émissions proviendra des mesures prévues dans le cadre pancanadien à être adopté, tels que l’élimination progressive de l’utilisation du charbon d’ici 2030, le code du bâtiment, les industries et le domaine des transports, dont la norme fédérale sur les carburants propres.

Enfin, une troisième tranche de réductions de 44 mégatonnes des émissions proviendra de mesures additionnelles comme le transport en commun et les infrastructures vertes, les technologies et l’innovation et le stockage de carbone.

Le cadre pancanadien reste relativement général et mise aussi sur une approche à quatre «grands piliers» qui sont la tarification de la pollution par le carbone, des mesures complémentaires, des initiatives pour s’adapter aux impacts des changements climatiques et des mesures axées sur l’innovation et le développement de technologies propres.

L’entente prévoit que les provinces dotées d’un système de plafonnement et d’échange, tel que le Québec, devront «fixer une cible de réduction des émissions en 2030 égale ou supérieure à la cible de réduction de 30 % du Canada» et «réduire les plafonds annuels (…) au moins jusqu’en 2022 qui correspondent, au minimum, à la réduction des émissions prévue pour l’année visée résultant de la tarification du carbone dans les systèmes fondés sur les tarifs».

La tension était palpable alors que plusieurs centaines de syndiqués devaient se prononcer sur l’avenir de la présidente de leur syndicat, Chantal Racette, qui a fait l’objet de vives critiques au cours de la dernière année.

Une série de décisions impopulaires, prises par l’exécutif du syndicat, avaient semé la grogne au sein des rangs des cols bleus de la Ville.

L’exécutif avait notamment été blâmé par la Cour supérieure du Québec pour grève illégale. Des membres du syndicat soutenaient aussi que l’exécutif avait espionné des cols bleus.

La tension était palpable, samedi matin, avant le début des discussions, à tel point que le Service de police de la Ville de Montréal avait été appelé sur les lieux pour s’assurer que la rencontre se déroulement rondement.

Un vote de confiance devait avoir lieu pour décider de l’avenir de Chantal Racette, mais à l’issue de la rencontre, les syndiqués ont rejeté la résolution visant à tenir le vote.

À la sortie de l’Assemblée générale, la plupart des syndiqués se sont refusés à tout commentaire. La présidente du syndicat, Chantal Racette, n’a pas voulu s’étendre sur les implications du vote et le résultat particulièrement serré.

« Ils n’ont pas voté pour la recommandation de la résolution d’un vote de confiance à 50 %. On va regarder ça […] c’est chaud », a-t-elle simplement déclaré, avant de quitter rapidement les lieux.

Avec les informations de Mélissa François et de Louis-Philippe Ouimet

Un petit avion avec deux passagers à bord s’est écrasé dans la rivière Etchemin dans le secteur Pintendre de Lévis, samedi vers 14h.

L’avion s’est écrasé tout près du chemin des Îles, quelques centaines de mètres au nord du Chemin Atkinson. La rivière n’est pas gelée. Elle est peu profonde à cet endroit. On voit une petite partie de la carcasse de l’avion jaune hors de l’eau.

Le porte-parole Chris Krepski du Bureau de la sécurité dans les transports confirme deux personnes se trouvaient à bord de l’appareil, un Grumman AA-1. On ignore s’ils s’y trouvent toujours et s’ils s’en sont tirés.

Il semble que l’avion ait accroché des fils électriques d’une ligne de haute tension avant de s’écraser. «J’ai été réveillé par un gros bruit. En sortant, j’ai réalisé que je n’avais plus de courant, et quand je suis sorti, j’ai vu un fil électrique cassé qui, normalement, enjambe la rivière», indique Gonzague Côté, qui habite juste à côté.

Le fil pend toujours et près de 500 clients d’Hydro-Québec sont privés d’électricité.

Myriam Emond était sur la route quand elle a vu «un avion tournoyer dans les airs et s’écraser dans la rivière». Elle a ensuite vu des débris tomber à l’eau. Elle a immédiatement appelé les secours.

Odile Bérubé était chez elle. Elle n’a rien vu, mais elle a entendu un son infernal. «J’ai entendu un gros boom, je pensais que c’était la maison qui sautait!»

Les représentants des services d’urgence sont très nombreux sur les lieux. La police de Lévis, les pompiers et les ambulanciers sont là. Une équipe de sauvetage est aussi sur place.

– Avec la collaboration de Pierre-Paul Biron

Many people have stories about their relationships to television when they were growing up. Some warmly remember how their families gathered around a favorite weekly TV show for dinner, while others recall the regimented half-hour their mothers gave them each day. For some it was a reward after a long day; for others, an escape from the anxiety of hard days to come. The small box that grew bigger every year, a bringer of very real news and provider of fantasy all in one. Binge watching, streaming, offline show content—none of these really entered into the traditional TV formula in the decades that followed the television’s creation.

Traditional TV has been dead for years, and now cable consumption, as you’ve likely heard, is diminishing.

Today, the field for television content has dramatically changed. Ads grow in their domination of air time while increasingly more users are “cutting the cord” in favor of specialized online services. Meanwhile, online streaming platforms continue to see strong growth with Netflix leading the field. As a result, people are becoming accustomed to watching their favorite shows in multi-episode sprints and demanding seasons to be released in their entirety from the start. Binge watching, which was once only possible through infrequent “marathons” has now become a norm that Netflix has begun to research and work into its own formula. Television is moving online, and in a space with more content, fewer interruptions, and greater variety, viewers seem happy about it.

But you know all that, most likely because if you’re not a Netflix subscriber, you know someone who is. You’ve heard them talk about the weekends they’ve lost to shows such as Black Mirror, Narcos, even Mad Men (for the third time). And one night before bed, it hit you: people are willingly devoting hours to this content because they love it. And maybe if they loved your brand story that much, they would do the same for you.

Here’s the problem: more likely than not, you’re among the 83 percent of marketers who would love to create more video content, if only you had the time and resources to do so. Even if you had it, you wouldn’t know where to start. There’s no way you can make readers actually binge on your brand.

Or so you assume.

Encouraging the Binge

There are clearly a few differences that prevent brands from treating themselves like Netflix, not the least of which being that such streaming services offer video content as their product rather than promotional material—meaning they can devote considerably more time, effort, and budget to its creation. But there are still a number of ways in which marketers can encourage binge-viewing behavior within their own communities, without much change to their existing content engines.

The most fundamental place to begin the pursuit of bingeingess has to happen at the content level. If your video content doesn’t lend itself to continuous viewing, then there’s no combination of video presentation or infrastructure that’s going to be able to keep your audience watching. There are two primary forms that at the content level encourage this kind of viewing behavior.

1. Episodic video

Episodic video content typically involves recurring characters, themes, visual style, and plot that grow which each subsequent episode. The advantage of this form is that it most closely mimics television-style content and—if engaging enough—has the highest potential to keep people watching one after the other. However, this form does make it a bit more difficult to onboard people halfway through, presenting some challenges when it comes to promoting your content with each release (though this difficulty is somewhat reduced if with “full season” releasing models.)

Pepsi continues to produce one of the strongest examples of this with Uncle Drew, which cast Cavaliers player Kyrie Irving as an old man with incredible basketball chops. To date, the series is pushing out its fourth episode, in addition to loads of behind the scenes and extra content which has netted the Pepsi brand over a hundred million views across the current 13 videos combined. A fun and funny story with engaging characters that encourages people to keep coming back for more.

2. Video Series

Typically used for live content or interview style pieces, series content keeps much of the thematic consistency of episodic content while stripping away the continuing plots and recurring characters. This content tends to be much easier to produce, since each individual video doesn’t impact other videos in the series. This can reduce production costs, allow for more concurrent productions, and greatly widens the pool of potential video ideas for content creators to choose from. However, series don’t have the same guardrails built in that episodic content does, making binge watching a little bit more self-guided and less evident for the viewer than with episodic content. For great examples of how this looks on both small and large scale, music brands like Musicbed and KEXP Radio provide awesome Youtube hubs to see what well curated and grown series can look like through their series of artist “session” videos.

But once you have content in hand, what good does your audience binging do for your brand?

Measuring Binge Watching

The first step to measuring binge as a metric requires your brand to make some decisions in video content hosting.

The least cost intensive option is to use playlists, recommended video spreads, and titling on public video hosting platforms to guide users from one piece of content to the next. As with all marketing, every action your user has to make will cause some friction that may cause them to leave your video flow, so putting the work in on the front end to make it easy for users to start-and-leave your content gives you the best chance for a binge viewing session. Episodic content should always have the first episode of any series at one click away (end of video recommendations are a great space for this) for viewers who discover your content halfway through, while series content should make every effort to make sure that autoplaying content continues to meet your audience’s tastes and doesn’t repeat content—segmenting thematically can really help with this. (If your brands content were music, could your separate it out by genre?)

With this structure, binge viewing is largely measured by looking at the difference of views between your video content, number of average videos watched per visitor, and average time watching per user. The lower the difference in views between each video, the closer your average view time is to the average length of your content, and the higher the average number videos watched per user, the better your brand is doing at binging. With this data in hand, you can then answer three questions: Is your audience made up of bingers? Is your content bingable? Are your bingers more likely to click off of a video CTA or to your website? Not every brand appeals to binge-prone viewers, so understanding how your content relates to your audience’s viewing habits can help you make informed decisions about your video marketing strategy.

The more cost-intensive-yet-effective method of hosting this binge content is to create a specialized video hub on your own website. Red Bull has done this across many of its audience segments, and it continues to provide a powerful mix of episodic and series content that grabs headlines and bring viewers back for more. With the ability to better track individual viewer behavior from your webpage’s analytics, video content on your own website offers you the chance to both more directly track binge watchers (perhaps defined as a visitor watching three or more videos in one session) and then segment out their behavior specifically. Are your binge watchers more likely to respond to certain types of CTA, make a purchase, request additional information, or convert in a different way after watching your content? Do they return to your website more often or less often than other visitors? Do they have the same lifetime value as the rest of your audience? (A critical question given the amount of content you’ll need to be creating to support this viewing behavior.)

Overall, binge viewing and measurement can help your brand engage with viewers in a way they are becoming increasingly accustomed to, while also giving you a powerful outlet to develop a better understand how people are reacting with your brand’s ongoing themes and stories. This isn’t an approach that works for every brand (sorry B2Bers, this appears to be a primarily B2C tactic, at least for now) but for the brands who can afford the upfront costs, build an intentional infrastructure, and make clear goals for this highly engaged segment there are clear wins to be had.

Who knows, maybe one day we’ll even look back on video marketing and brand storytelling with the same nostalgia that many of us hold for the television of our youth. This is a story that only time can tell. In the meantime, your brand likely has a lot to share that can help audiences pass the time until we get there.

Felix Kjellberg, YouTube’s top star who is more popularly known as PewDiePie, swore that he was going to delete his channel once it reaches 50 million subscribers, a feat that he recently achieved.

PewDiePie fans, who simply could not accept the possibility that their favorite content creator could soon be quitting, can now rest easy, as Kjellberg revealed that the threat of deleting his channel was just a joke.

PewDiePie Deletes Alternate Channel

After reaching 50 million subscribers on his PewDiePie channel, the YouTube star’s fans started to panic, with some even downloading his videos to save them from being deleted from the face of the internet forever.

However, as some have speculated, in the video that Kjellberg uploaded that would supposedly see him delete his PewDiePie channel, he instead deleted his alternate channel Jack septiceye2.

The alternate channel just had more than 1 million subscribers, which is a significant number but nowhere near as many as the 50 million subscribers that the PewDiePie channel now has. The now-deleted channel also posted only two videos.

« You know when you make a joke, and it just blows up way bigger than you ever imagined? » said Kjellberg in the video before he deleted his channel. He then shows various media outlets reporting that he would be deleting his channel after reaching 50 million subscribers, and then keeps the joke going by adding that he « will delete PewDiePie at 100 million » at the end of the video.

Was This A Simple Joke Or A Marketing Stunt?

While Kjellberg said that this was a simple joke that just blew up, there could have been a deeper agenda underlying what just transpired.

In his announcement that he would be deleting his channel after reaching 50 million subscribers, Kjellberg raised two issues. The first problem is that he believes YouTube is sabotaging his PewDiePie channel through means such as diminishing the rate of his videos appearing on the suggested videos feed of users and the second problem is that he thinks that the move is being done due to his race.

While the threat to delete his channel may have turned out to be a joke, his announcement garnered widespread media coverage that boosted his profile and brought certain issues that content creators are having with YouTube due to the changes that have been applied to the platform’s monetization and discoverability tools.

PewDiePie now has over 50 million subscribers, by far the biggest number for any YouTube channel. In October of last year, the channel reached 40 million subscribers after reaching 10 billion views a month earlier.

While Kjellberg only joked about deleting his channel, perhaps his stunt will lead to bigger changes to YouTube and its content creators.