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Welcome to episode two of honest answers. Today I'm going to try to

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demystify another aspect of the inner workings of Lionus Media Group about

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which there appears to be a lot of confusion. How do we make enough money

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to afford all the staff, studio space,

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and equipment that we have?

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Tunnel Bear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse privately and

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enjoy a more open internet experience. To try Tunnel Bear for free, check out

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the link in the video description below. So, it feels appropriate to open

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this discussion with one of the main ways that people think we make money,

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paid advertising videos disguised as reviews. While we actually couldn't be

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fined for that type of behavior here in Canada where the advertising guidelines

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and even then they are guidelines not laws here are only just now being

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revised for the age of social and influencer marketing for brands and

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agencies that want to market to Americans. So 40 to 50% of our audience

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hefty fines are quickly becoming commonplace with undisclosed influencer

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marketing. So no responsible brand would

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engage in this practice and we outright refuse to as well anyway because even

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with proper disclosure, what value does a paid review or even a video with a

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very similar structure to a review have to the

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viewer? Which getting into how we do make money then doesn't mean that we

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never do paid projects with hardware manufacturers. We absolutely do. Every

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entry in the obscenely popular build guide series is clearly sponsored by

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either Intel or by AMD. But in these and

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other product placement deals, we retain the right for our hosts and writers to

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have their own opinions with very tight restrictions on what a brand can alter

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about the finished video. We grant these sponsors no special rights to positive

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reviews in other videos or even space on

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our editorial calendar at all. For example, perennial sponsors Corsair and

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Cooler Master often promote products in pre-roll ads that we have never reviewed

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and a Pacer is an example of a sponsor whose products we have never reviewed at

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all. There's other baggage for LMG sponsors too. We have on multiple

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occasions canned potential sponsors for refusing our terms and even existing

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sponsors for not taking care of our viewers. Dbrand is a golden example of

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what we expect in this regard. If an LTT

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community member complains, they mobilize the robot army immediately and

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do what it takes to fix it. This is critically important for us because as

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I'm about to reveal in enough detail to make Nick and Ivon

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wse, no amount of marketing funding in

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the short term could possibly outweigh the long-term value of creating the best

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content we can while maintaining the trust and viewership of our audience.

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I'm not going to give exact numbers here. Firstly, because disclosing dollar

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amounts would violate some of our contractual agreements. And secondly,

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because exactly how much money I or Luke or Brandon or anyone else here makes is

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none of your business. But however much it is, here is where it comes from. A

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little under half of Lionus Media Group's revenue this year has come from

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sources that are basically directly affected by the number of views that we

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draw in. YouTube AdSense, you know, that little skip ad button you clicked before

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watching this. And Amazon affiliate links, that shout out at the end of our

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videos where you can buy the product that I'm reviewing or really anything

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else and we get a kickback, make up equal portions of this. And Vessel, the

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early access platform where you can watch our videos 7 days before they go

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live on YouTube, makes up a smaller but still very significant chunk. Of the

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remaining 50% in change, a quarter of that is the brands who sponsor us to

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cover events like Computex, the Samsung Developer Conference, NAB, the Polaris

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launch in Macau, and PAX East. Another

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quarter of it is pre-roll ads and what we call standard product integrations.

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You know how the Mastercase 5 has a variety of modular parts and MasterUp

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gets you great deals on genuine products over at drawups/ etc, etc. and we bake

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those into our Linus Tech Tips videos on YouTube. Techquiki and WAN Show ad spots

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get separated out in our books. So, I'll do the same for you. They combine for

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just under 15%. Then another 5% is

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t-shirt fan and hoodie sales. Another 2% is patrons and contributors and banner

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ads on the forum and.1% is one sponsored spot that we did

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over on channel Super Fund for ODS games. Man, that channel loses a lot of

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money. Anyway though, the remainder, so

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just about a third of it, is the dozen or so projects that we've done this year

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that fall outside of standard pre-rolls

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and integrations. Some of them are dedicated, disclosed, fully sponsored

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videos, like the recent tech then versus now video sponsored by Sage. Uh the my

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grandpa meets Google video sponsored by the Google store and the unbuild logs

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that we've done with some system integrators including I by Power and

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Origin PC. But many of them are things that probably wouldn't even occur to

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you. On the books for this year, we've got the sponsored Instagram posts,

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tweets, and Periscope streams that we did from the North America and New York

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auto shows with Ford and Toyota. We've got a series of retail staff training

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videos that we produce exclusively for Intel's Retail Edge program. We've got

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Dbrand's product placement and sponsorship of Scrapyard War season 4.

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Logitech's Daniel Boral Innovation Center tour and Nerd Sports, a series

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that Vessel contracted us to produce as an exclusive web series for their

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platform. With that being pretty much

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it. So then, why am I telling you all of this? Most YouTubers keep this stuff

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very carefully hidden. The answer is because I believe you guys have a right

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to know. And because I hope that it'll drive home once and for all why it's in

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our best interest from both an ethical and even a monetary standpoint to make

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the best content we can make. Whether that means working with long-term

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partners, products from non-sponsors, or

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even brands who can't be asked to reply to an email about a review unit. And I

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do all of this hoping, even though I realize that no degree of transparency

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will convince some of you, hoping that I can get across the point that we aren't

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in fact actually paid NVIDIA shills. Nor

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are we obligated to bow to any other manufacturer.

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All of these hardware vendors, the ones on this list and any miscellaneous

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smaller ones I might have missed, combined make up less than 15% of our

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revenue so far this year. If that business went away tomorrow, Linus Media

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Group would not only survive, but it would continue operating the way it does

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without needing to cut anyone's pay or downsize our workspace. And this is

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thanks to the partnerships we've built with non-h hardware brands who want to

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reach our audience like Squarespace, Dollar Shave Club, Ting, Soilent, Gamma

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Labs, VideoBlocks, Blue Apron, Tunnel Bear, and more. And more importantly,

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thanks to you guys. You, the audience, are in black and white terms in every

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measurable way worth more to us than

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anything that a sponsor can offer. And I hope that you can understand why that

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is. Now, to be clear, undisclosed paid

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reviews are out there. I'm not saying to put away your tin foil hats just yet.

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Some key ways to recognize them would be manufacturer links, especially tracked

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or custom ones, in the video description with above the fold being a dead

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giveaway or supporting social posts with weird hashtags that no one in their

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right mind would give a [ __ ] about. But I'm just saying that thanks to self

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flattery incoming careful planning on my part and my teams, you won't find them

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here. Lionus Media Group's integrity is not for sale. It never will be. And now

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purchase. So, thanks for watching, guys. If this

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video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was But if it was awesome, get

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subscribed, hit that like button, or even consider supporting us directly by

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buying a cool shirt like this one, or by joining our community forum where you

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can ask questions, answer questions, and basically talk tech with a bunch of

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other technofiles. Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably

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wondering what to watch next. So, click that little button in the top right corner to check out our latest video

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over on the money sync that is Channel Super Fun. I'll just like throw these at

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it. channel. Super fun.