CANNES – Movie, TV and music rightsholders already have a way to identify and monetize unauthorized YouTube uploads, using ZEFR’s Content ID service. Now marketers, too, can learn when their brands appear in unofficial YouTube videos.

Speaking to Beet.TV at the Cannes Lions advertiser conflab, where ZEFR was pushing its new Brand ID service, Chip Russo, global head of sales for ZEFR, says that unofficial “fans” upload videos containing brands as much as 98 percent more than brands do themselves.

Brand ID uses the foundation of ZEFR, Content ID,” Russo said during this video interview. “But, instead of pointing it toward movie studio or music content, we’re actually pointing it toward fan content.

“If you’re Coca-Cola or Procter  & Gamble and you have people using you products to create content – whether it’s unboxing or spoofs or simply just reuploading the commercial and being an evangelist – that’s happening at enormous magnitude.”

ZEFR rebranded from Movieclips when it raised $18.5 million in August 2012, pivoting from a business exploding movie clips. See TechCrunch article.