The Dia Estúdio channel has more than 395 thousand subscribers, more than 53 million views and several projects with brands
Dia Estúdio turned eight years old on April 7th and has several projects, programs and some of the biggest Youtube channels in Brazil in its portfolio. Over the years, the production company conquered its space on the internet and attracted the attention of brands, which started to sponsor Dia Estúdio projects, such as Corrida das Bloggueiras, which featured Avon, in addition to Casa Black Friday, a reality show made in partnership with Youtube and sponsored by Amazon Brasil.
Behind the projects and a channel with more than 395 thousand subscribers and more than 53 million views is Rafael Dias Machado, a 36-year-old businessman from Santa Catarina who also goes to the front of the cameras in several projects on the channel, such as Dia Cast and the VT Time.
How did you build relationships with brands in these eight years of Dia Estúdio?
Eight years ago, when we created Dia, we wanted to be recognized as a specialist YouTube producer. That was our wish. We were recognized by Youtube, which accredited us as a network, and this made us have several channels within the network. In this, we started to have a lot of audience and, for brands, having a company that had production quality and, at the same time, audience, was perfect and Dia started to deliver both. I am proud to say that we do not have active service, we do not have executives who go to the market to sell Dia. The sale happens 100% by word of mouth. People end up joining the project once, they like it and it happens in the most organic way possible. That’s how we got to the marks.
Dia has a very diverse and inclusive portfolio, and many brands go after it. How do you work this with brands?
As we already do projects with this bias, this is something that we always live. It’s our reality. For us, it’s very simple. Automatically, the brands that were already positioned, such as Bradesco, Avon, MercadoLivre, etc., worked with us. Today, it’s easy for us to see which brand is coming out of interest or because they actually want to support a cause, a project.
You are not just a businessman who stands behind the company. Was being in front of the cameras always a desire or did it happen naturally?
In the first four years of Dia, I didn’t do it because I didn’t have the space. It was a lot of work, we had to make it work and prove the business model. Today, it’s very easy for me to go in front of the cameras because the business is already validated, it works and we know there will be an audience. It was a natural construction, it wasn’t anything very planned and thought out, even out of a personal desire to fulfill a desire I had.
And do brands go after you, influencer, to close advertising?They go too, but I avoid them. There are some segments that I can talk a little more about, but I still find it difficult. Dia Estúdio works with several brands, even competing brands, so for me, personally, doing a campaign has a lot of meaning. I end up avoiding doing it.
What was it like to set up Casa Black Friday, with Amazon Brasil?
It was a big dream come true. Put a live hours on the air for several days… Only those who lived know. Seeing that Dia manages to put something of that size in the air is very gratifying.
I’m very happy to see the publicity result of that too. It’s nice to see that it’s not only an interesting project, that makes a buzz on the networks, but that it also has a sales conversion, which people are happy to have sponsored.
What about the Blogger Race? How was it thought and how did the brands decide to enter the project?
Corrida came from the boys of Diva Depression. We raised a budget to do the project on Youtube Space in Rio de Janeiro, because Dia didn’t have the structure to host a project of that size, and we went after brands that wanted to sponsor the program. At the time, we got very little money, because we didn’t have any examples to show and no audience reference, but we did the first season and the first episode had 1 million views, in a 100% original project, and the brands noticed. From there, they started asking to sponsor and today we have a commercial success of the project.
You have Thelma, winner of BBB20, on the team of the Day and she presents Triangulando. How did the invitation come about?
Thelma already had a YouTube channel and she already knew about Dia Estúdio, so when she left, we texted her and set up a meeting. When she was inside Big Brother Brasil, I was a big fan of hers, I voted for her to win and everything.
Inside the house, I already thought she was playing the role of Triangulating, listening to all sides. With that, I thought about creating the debate program with her, without giving a stage to crazy people, obviously, and at the time she agreed. Thelma is very dedicated, very studious and she shone on the show.
Dia is in both São Paulo and Florianópolis. How do you divide your time between the two places?
We opened our first São Paulo office in 2018, but it was very small. In 2019, we opened an office in Bela Cintra, which is where we broadcast the second LGBTQIA+ stop. In that, my life became crazy, because I needed to divide my life between São Paulo and Florianópolis.
We still have the structure in Florianópolis, which has a team of 20 people, but I had to move to São Paulo because everything happens here and I was very tired of not having a routine. Many of the influencers came to São Paulo, the partners of Dia Estúdio live in São Paulo, so it was easier for me to come here.
You guys have been running the LGBTQIA+ Parade live for a long time. What are the plans for this year’s broadcast?
The project became very big, so we want to show Brazil, not only São Paulo, but also in other years. We want to show more than just São Paulo. This is a very important project, even personally, because it was through it that I talked about my sexuality. We were the first company that made an audiovisual broadcast of the event and we managed to create the date on the internet, the date of Parada Ao Vivo, which is a project that people watch to see what will happen, to see the influencers and artists, in addition to being a day to discuss and debate topics that are important to our community.
In these two years of the pandemic, Dia invested in lives and created Dia Cast. How did this project come about?
Videocasts are things I love. DiaCast emerged from a desire to give space to people who weren’t going to the videocasts that we already know, like Katú Mirim, Amanda Mendes from “To de Crespa”.
That’s why we created our space to talk to these people and it’s an immense joy to see that there is an audience and that people want to watch these interviews. We did it to create this place that we knew wasn’t happening and to see that these people still aren’t called for further interviews shows that we’re on the right track. We are very careful with the agenda, what we are going to talk about, it is not random. Gabbie and I always talk about the person’s life before going on air. Today, people stop me on the street to talk about Dia Cast, it’s really cool.
