Searching for your big break? So was Hollywood Girl, on this week’s #WebSeriesWednesday! Hopefully she didn’t break an ankle in the process!
At first glance Hollywood Girl stands out from other web series because of the overt way the show acknowledges its sponsors. The show occasionally foregoes youtube pre-roll ads in favor of ads featuring their sponsors. They don’t shy away from mid-roll ads either, or even go as far as to dedicate a few seconds to acknowledging a sponsor being featured in a scene. As an example they might show information about the restaurant the characters are eating in before the scene begins.
While this makes the show stand out from other series it is not really a unique approach. This sponsorship method is not all that dissimilar to the way a lot of television shows do things – particularly outside of the scripted arena.
If you go back far enough, to the early days of television, programs didn’t really have commercials, just sponsors. I’ve often thought we might see more of this on television due to the nature of time shifting and audiences moving their viewing to the web.
That said I’m not sure this movement is ready to take over narrative base web videos, since pre-rolls, mid rolls and overlays are all easily incorporated and ad blocking software has not completely taken hold.
Audiences are not used to seeing this type of sponsorship on web videos either, as evidenced by a large number of thumbs down on what we some pretty hysterical episodes.
At the same time working out customized deals with sponsors on your own could yield greater benefit to your production than the pennies youtube ads will get you.
There still needs to be some work done to smooth out the edges, particularly in terms of providing cues for the audience so that they know an ad is coming before it actually appears.
This method has worked to get Hollywood Girl several great locations and some really good music. While it does not pay the bills, eventually, were the show to become popular enough, I could see some the show’s producers being able to persuade a sponsor or two to dole out some cash for this level of exposure.
I don’t mean to leave out a discussion of the show’s actual content from this article – I just found the sponsorship’s particularly interesting. The show itself is quite well done. The ‘Profylaxative’ bit was probably the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on a #WebSeriesWednesday. When our protagonist’s love interest said he needed to use her bathroom I was in stitches. The show is worth a watch for that bit alone.
You can find Hollywood Girl at her website http://hollywoodgirl.tv – season 2 is underway and season 1 is available for viewing in its entirety, so check it out!