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RSSIsn't the Internet's highly vaunted blogging and social network community enough to sell a product? Not this time.
Internet executives are always talking about how digital media will kill old traditional media. Why would anyone need the help of the big, traditional TV media to get people to find the coolest, best stuff on the Web?
Earlier this year NBC Universal/News Corp. spent some big dollars -- or lost some, depending on your point of view -- by running a sharp, funny 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl for Hulu.
More than a few industry observers said the TV ad helped Hulu to get some wind in its sails -- grabbing big consumer and advertising attention in recent months.
Surely, one TV ad can't be enough to make a business plan look good. But NBC Universal, realizing it was about long-term consumer awareness, sacrificed $3 million from a paying advertiser to get no immediate cash for a new, unproven digital video Web site. Not to be outdone by its own online research, Google executives said it was making the move to the bigger screen after seeing the popularity of its commercial on YouTube. The company says since it was uploaded in January, the commercial -- produced in-house by Google in Japan -- has been viewed 2 million times.
All that consumer attention can be just be too tempting. Sure, search and email marketing can work wonders. But traditional TV can give you 30 million viewers in just one 30-second period in "American Idol" - DVR issues aside.
The key difference is that a Google's Chrome and Hulu are big-name, broad-based consumer products. That's why they need big-name, broad-based media.
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NBC didn't give up $3 million running that Hulu Super Bowl ad. The network couldn't sell out the game, so at the last-minute gave Hulu the spot thru "media credits" that Hulu is entitled to thru its part ownership by NBC.