I found an interesting interview with YouTube's CMO, Suzie Reider, in Wall Street Journal. Suzie talks about the success of the participatory ad unit (one that people choose to watch) on the site and how brands are trying to entertain people and interact with them in new ways. Many brands are finally realizing that you have to target the right niche in order to have a viral hit. When asked why some brands' viral efforts work (think Smirnoff's Tea Partay) and others don't, Ms. Reider's response stood out to me:
"Marketers really have to think about the niche content for the individual user and not the huge hit as they approach these environments."
I'm not sure to what extent the days of the "huge hit" are numbered, but there's no denying the power of The Niche these days. We're probably still in the beginning stages of seeing a bunch of niche-oriented social sites pop up everywhere. Even the Arena Football League has its own social network--more importantly, does anyone care?
I wonder if the rise in The Niche is due to demand or just because we can find it, since we have so much information at our fingertips. Probably some of both.
What's really interesting to me is that despite the abundance of niche-oriented media, there are a few Huge Hits, which are the opposite of niche--for example, American Idol, which is still popular as ever. I wonder if there's still a place for the Huge Hit or if they'll become less and less frequent and eventually die out, because the amount of options we'll have will continue to increase, leaving us with more niche choices and less time for the Huge Hits.