On the plane to Austin I was reading an article on how so many companies have sunk billions of dollars into producing content online, hoping to build audiences around their brands. The problem is, the audience didn’t come. The article talked about how the Internet has transformed how culture works in that digital crowds have become powerful cultural innovators – a phenomenon that the author coined ‘crowdculture’.

And, a phenomenon that I was reminded of during one of the most unexpectedly memorable presentations I saw in Austin, made by one of the biggest Internet celebrities I’d never heard of, Burnie Burns, the Chief Creative Officer of Rooster Teeth.

Why unexpected?  Well I hadn’t heard much about Rooster Teeth (named after a play on the American insult, “cock-bite”) prior to the session and went along without expecting much from these sci-fi loving gamers turned filmmakers.  Turns out that  the company’s potent combination of massive reach, unique creative voice and insanely powerful community has resulted in them building one of the most influential media brands on the Internet.   Such is the strength of the Rooster Teeth community that the company has even produced a feature-length film, “Lazer Team,” funded entirely by their fans.

So what is it about Rooster Teeth that the community loves? Well, the company are known to be pioneers of the machinima art form – that unique film style made using scenes composited together out of video games.  The company’s flagship property, Red vs. Blue (created using the Halo game engine) is one of the longest running video series on the Internet and their latest animation platform, RWBY, has already garnered almost 100M views.

Still thinking that kooky sci-fi stuff’s only for the basement dwelling fringes?  Here are some more numbers on the power of the Rooster Teeth media platform:

• 150 Million Views Per month
• 5.5 Billion lifetime views
• 19 Million Youtube subscribers in network
• 2 million registered users on roosterteeth.com
• 3 million likes on rooster teeth facebook page The Rooster Teeth empire now encompasses sales of music, merchandise and videogames as well as live events, including Rooster Teeth Expo (RTX), an annual gaming and Internet culture convention that attracted more than 30,000 attendees last July in Austin, Texas. Asked what he put the success of the company down to, Burns talked about three core principles:
• Engage with people that share your values and culture
• Build a brand that stays true to these values
• Build a community, with an emphasis on owning your database (vs. leasing from someone else such as Facebook) Cultural entrepreneurs such as Rooster Teeth epitomize the types of businesses making life so difficult for brands competing for attention online.  But they all have one thing in common in that they’ve succeeded in part because they tapped into a cultural truth that resonated with their intended audience. To outsiders, the resulting ideologies, practices and art worlds might be seen to be as strange as Rooster Teeth.  But to their fans, these subcultures are part of what makes the Internet – and beyond that, life – so interesting. All this begs the question, what’s the cultural truth your brand taps into that makes it so interesting? Steve @steveofarrell