A swath of new shows premiering on sites like Hulu, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and YouTube as well as traditional broadcasters' summer replacement series has marketing professionals scrambling to reach viewers through advertising campaigns. It's a big change from what is normally a quiet season for advertisers.
Broadcast networks and cable channels are introducing 88 shows this summer, a New York Times article reports. And SVOD provider Netflix is already well into its slate of summertime releases, debuting Ricky Gervais' series Derek on May 30 and Orange Is The New Black in June. Supernatural thriller Hemlock will debut on July 11. Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Prime Instant Video is rolling out three original kids' series this summer: Tumble Leaf and Creative Galaxy premiered May 23 and June 27, respectively, and Annedroids will debut on July 25.
With all the options available for summertime viewing, advertisers have had to get creative, mixing traditional TV, print and billboard ads with social media campaigns.
Online advertising is seeing a boom alongside traditional ads. While still taking up a small share of the total ad market, online ad firms are gaining more traction. The late April upfronts saw much more focus on the online side of ad campaigns. This week, online advertising startup Yodle, which creates ads for small businesses, filed for an IPO with a proposed maximum offering of $75 million, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The potential data goldmine that online ads can offer has made online advertisers attractive acquisition targets as well. Comcast's (NASDAQ: CMCSA) purchase of FreeWheel back in April could give the cable giant massive amounts of data about viewers, information it can potentially use as leverage in carriage and retransmission fee negotiations.
For more:
- The New York Times has this story
- The Wall Street Journal has this story
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