Exploring the Digital Marketing and Distribution of Online Series

Historically, television was based on forty years of hitting the “reset” button every week. While jokes can be episodic—such as your standard sitcom—an ongoing narrative must be serialized. Viewers unable to regularly tune-in week-by-week and those joining a serialized show late would often abandon the series, resulting in lowered ratings and potential cancellation. With Netflix’s season-long release model (beginning in 2013 with their original, House of Cards) you can watch the entire season immediately, which challenges whether the customary marketing campaigns appropriately serviced finding new viewers, or if the efforts adversely resulted in lower ratings.
Through the internet, long-established customs in traditional distribution and marketing are quickly becoming obsolete as audience expectations of content delivery are shifting within the digital age. Online distribution and marketing have proven to be viable models for Hollywood and independent filmmakers alike in building, refining, developing and retaining audiences. This paper examines digital distribution platforms (from open-access to streaming), revenue models (VOD “Video-On-Demand), SVOD “Subscription VOD”, AVOD “Advertisement VOD” and TVOD “Transactional VOD”), the digital shift and future of consumption patterns (the rise of mobile viewing and streaming), release models (appointment viewing vs. season-releases), the transition from episodic to serialization, as well as various practices and advancements in digital marketing.
From this study, I detail a marketing and distribution plan for my own project, “Kiss, the Chef” an eight-episode online series. I present potential distribution platforms to host the content, optimal release models for my serialized narrative, phases of revenue models to maximize windows of monetization and methods of digital marketing utilizing interactivity and social media.