Nor would a watermarked Gif Ad, like the one I just saw for Netflix's "War Machine" provide much more than what amounts to CDN hosting fees for Giphy's platform. Minus any content licensing.
Hiring and developing Gif talent, building a Creators' Studio and marketing any resulting new IPs falls into the same conundrum: endusers copy, share and consume Gif images freely.
As for mobile ads, its the engagement, such as redeeming a Memorial Day promotion code for Lyft, that is monetized. Not the content.
We could hypothesize and analyze the remaining possible revenue models but unless Gifs can somehow be transmuted into some sort of cryptocurrency or other store of value, I am just having a hard time wrapping my head around this one.
How do you build Paywalls for Gifs? And aren't Snap and Insta Stories the new "micro reality entertainment" channels?
Wishing Alex and co. best of luck!