The jury is out on whether advertising will ever work for online video sites as they strive to become real profit-generating businesses. Well, it’s worked for Hulu, but not in the profit-generating kind of way — at least not right away.
Hulu jumped to become the fourth most-watched video site in the United States last month thanks to a major advertising spot during the Super Bowl, according to Internet audience measurement firm comScore in this Reuters story. Those spots featured Alec Baldwin telling viewers about Hulu’s “evil plot to destroy the world” by turning people’s brains to mush.
Comscore said Hulu’s viewership grew 42 percent to 34.7 million unique visitors watching around 333 million videos.
The irony of Hulu’s “ratings” success on the back of a TV advertisement during one of the most watched events on the planet is not lost on us. Like many other Web video sites Hulu isn’t quite bringing in millions of dollars in profits for its owners yet, but this might be a start.
Google’s YouTube is also on the hunt for revenues and profits to match its huge popularity. We’re not sure if advertising on national television will help as it already has three times the number of viewers that Hulu does. YouTube’s issues might have more do with the reluctance of mainstream advertisers to make major commitments to advertising on its site which is dominated by user-generated clips rather than professionally made ones. Hulu, which only features TV shows and archive movies, has had more success with advertisers.
