Due to a newfound obsession with reruns of Modern Family and Glee, I have become acquainted with the fascinating 0nline media platform that is Hulu. As a reminder to most of you, birthed in 2007 as a joint venture between News Corp and NBC, Hulu is an attempt at a competitor for Youtube. Although they experienced initial trouble raising advertising revenue in 2008 and 2009, the site has become a dominant advertising platform.
How did Hulu go from noteworthy struggles in 2008-9 (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090330_571175.htm) to kicking the proverbial advertising a*$ today?
What did they do?
From a quick perusing around their site for specifics on their advertising, it is clear that they decided at some point to invest a lot of effort into innovation and for adding value for them and for advertisers themselves.
Hulu created much smaller increments of videos during the shows on the site that are accompanied by Like / Dislike boxes that both attract viewer attention as well as supply a new and valuable metric for advertisers. When crossed with the sign-up information of the user, these likes/dislikes are valuable demo/behavioral info.
Hulu also created free content that can help advertisers use their services: there are case studies on the site.
The last thing that exemplifies the sleak style and technology of Hulu is their gallery and ranking system for this past year's Superbowl Commercials: http://www.hulu.com/adzone2011#50120562
Check it out
2 comments:
Timon, I agree with you that Hulu has made great strides in the last few years in terms of partnering with advertisers. This year they're expected to bring in $500MM in revenue vs. only $263MM last year, and much of that growth is due to an increase in ad revenue. However, compared to primetime network TV, which makes billions off of selling TV ads, Hulu still has a long way to go. An interesting article came out today actually regarding Disney and Comcast, (both part-owners of Hulu), striking new content deals with the website that entail running more commercials per program than they had previously. I understand that the content providers want to better monetize this platform. However, I also think that people enjoy watching videos on Hulu becaue there aren't a ton of commercials, so by increasing the amount of ads per show they risk alienating their core viewer base. It will be interesting to see if this does in fact have a negative affect on their viewership.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=153088
I agree with both of you, but I think we're also missing the part of the "Hulu experience" that is also important. The success of Hulu also speaks to the general public's desire to curate an experience, more and more. With Hulu, viewers can go online whenever they want and pretty much have free/unlimited access the shows. While the advertisements are providing valuable metrics, the like/dislike buttons are also contributing to this "curated experience". This experience is taken one-step further as it address the consumer, advertiser and owner of the content. (http://www.carnegiemellontoday.com/article.asp?aid=994&page=2).
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