While Break is not the only one feeding the demand for bro fare, the L.A. company has done more than most to move these videos into the professional realm. In doing so, Break is also tapping into a deep pool of research to reshape perceptions about how brands should market to men — portraying them as “good guys” rather than doofuses or metrosexuals.

The result, on the surface, is thousands of clips about beer, boobs and bravery. More deeply, the bro video phenomenon is part of an emerging low-cost studio system that is changing men’s entertainment and advertising.

From college capers to consumer content

Break’s office, located in LA’s Miracle Mile, contains a small studio and employs 30 full-time content creators as well as numerous freelancers to feed its video content machine. The place has a few dude touches — a mustache wall and action figures scattered about — but otherwise is a serious business that, according to CEO Keith Richman, brought in $45 million in revenue last year.

The company is also attracting top level talent such as actor Christopher Walken, who recently riffed on trailer park toddler Honey Boo Boo. Last year, Break created a five-part series involving San Francisco Giants pitcher Brian Wilson and a Sasquatch; the show was a content marketing play by Beef Jerky, but the videos went viral all the same.

This star presence on Break is a considerable leap up the value chain for the company that, in its early days, relied almost entirely on homemade videos. ”We started with user-provided, lower quality content. As our audience and sales expanded, we started producing our own,” said Richman.

Now, Break is at the point where it’s producing its own weekly shows like “Man at Arms” in which a blacksmith shows how he makes famous weapons like Jamie Lannister’s sword on Game of Thrones or the lethal hat worn by James Bond villain Odd Job.

The shows, which are usually between five and 10 minutes, are cheap to make – Richman says the average price is $700/minute or $3,000-$5,000 per episode – and Break is able to make lots of them because of demands for the company’s male-based ad offerings.

Binders of Men

Marketing to women is a huge and sophisticated industry but, when it comes to men, brands frequently treat them as caricatures – one-dimensional clowns or louts. Break is trying to pitch a more subtle approach based on reams of survey data it collects on the site.

According to its research, men are more receptive to positive messages that show them as good guys, friends and fathers. Break has even published a “definitive guide to men” that cites an evolution from Bruce Willis type “guy’s guys” to self-aware types like Tim Allen to, last decade, metro-sexuals. And now?

“Today’s man is striving to be a “mensch” – a Yiddish word for “good guy,” or someone to admire and emulate,” says the report, which was produced by Break’s SVP Marketing, Andy Tu. He explained that many of the findings come from panels of men that Break consults on a regular basis.

Do all men really want to be mensches? Who knows. But Tu says marketers love using the surveys and data Break provides in designing their campaigns. Sony, FootLocker, Pepsi and Burger King are among their bigger brand partners.

For its campaigns, Break often produces original content for its clients and, on some occasions, as well. It also places display ads alongside videos across its networks (many of the videos are still user-generated or plucked from other sites).

A new studio economy

Research is one explanation for Break Media’s ability to make higher-quality bro videos. Another is the low cost of failure. Compared to traditional TV or movie studios, sunk production costs are tiny for Break and its competitors like College Humor. ”Video is a shots-on-goal business,” says Richman. “If you’re good, you’re going to score. We’re going to have big loser bombs at some point but it won’t kill us.”

In this sense, Break and its bro videos are part of an emerging online ecosystem in which smaller video companies are ramping up their production cycles and, like traditional movies and TV, even adding on-location shoots. The ecosystem is also rapidly expanding as distribution options proliferate (Break shows its videos on its own sites and on YouTube channels) and as consumers become connected to more devices with better broadband.

According to Richman, a tipping point occurred that means brands are now treating online video as a serious alternative to traditional TV. Richman credits the shift with Google’s decision in 2011 to invest $100 million in original YouTube content.

If you want to see an example, here’s a “Man at Arms” piece replete with blacksmith and power chords:

(Image by Anton Todorov via Shutterstock)

FileFront has been around since Dec 2001 as video games demo/downloads site, and was sold to Ziff Davis in 2005, added as part of its 1UP network. Then early last year when 1Up was sold to Hearst, Ziff Davis retained FileFront for some inexplicable reason, and then almost killed it a few months later, before the management of the site bought it back. And now, it gets bought again, this time by Break, who says it will invest significantly in building up the editorial content. It will also start dedicated ad sales for the site, which still gets about 9 million uniques a month; till now FileFront has only been using ad networks for its inventory.

In the coming months, Break will relaunch the site with a new design, refocus and expand the site’s editorial content, and build out the FileFront community, the company says. All ten edit employees of FileFront will be joining Break.

Down the line Break will also get into advertiser-driven gaming as well. The studio is working on about half a dozen original titles, all slated for this year. Alex Lien, formerly COO of Chinese game dev company Winking Entertainment, has been hired as GM, Greater China for Break Media and will manage the game studio and all other Break operations in the region.

I did a short video interview embedded below with Break CEO Keith Richman, when he was in NYC last week, about the launch of the new division and his hopes from gaming.

Best known for the YouTube-friendly series Hooking Up, HBOlab fared better than ThisJustIn, the comedy-centric video site HBO launched with Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) sibling *AOL* in 2007. Both companies abruptly pulled the plug on the site after it failed to gain traction, but HBOlab and Runawaybox’s shows have maintained solid followings.

Richman told NewTeeVee that production would continue on existing HBOlab shows; he also said Break would be churning out a number of new branded entertainment projects this year — and that the digital-media company was on the hunt for more acquisitions, though not necessarily another digital studio.

This acquisition, though seemingly outlying for the company that has focused on its young male demographic and feeding entertainment to them, is supposed to appeal to that demographic’s financial news cravings through a humorous take on it. According to the Blogger profile of WSF’s author, the writer is a 38-year old businessman living in Urbana, Illinois.

Break recently announced forming an online ad network called Break Media, and launched three new sites–Cage Potato, Chickipedia, Holy Taco– all focused on its audience.