Professor Henry Jenkins, “The godfather of transmedia…” -Lisa Hsia, evp, Bravo Digital Media

CableFAX: 5Qs with Bravo’s Lisa Hsia

Bravo is a forerunner in digital initiatives, recently running a digital-only series to complement its “Top Chef” series. It went down as the most-streamed NBCU video series ever. Now BravoTV.com is headed for a revamp to make the site more of a social experience. Lisa Hsia, evp, Bravo Digital Media, gave us the inside scoop.

How did you attract on-air viewers to watch your digital-only show, “Last Chance Kitchen?”

When contestants got eliminated from the show they found out they were actually going to compete in a digital-only series to get back into the on-air show. So as the on-air show ended, viewers were directed to check out “Last Chance Kitchen” online, on mobile, on tablets. To really find out what happened, you had to go to another platform. Then we built all these other things across platforms to drive usage. There was a fan favorite component and a really deep social media plan to drive fans to watch both the on-air and the digital series. And the whole thing was sponsored by Toyota.

How much effort and planning went into it?

I would say the planning took almost a year, because you have to shoot it at the same time the [on-air] series is shot, long before it’s on the air. The results were phenomenal. There were 8mln streams across multiple platforms, across Web, mobile, tablet, iTunes, Hulu, etc. Honestly, we’d never had a Web series that even hit a million. By the end of the series, 26% of the on-air viewers were watching “Last Chance Kitchen” on digital platforms.

Will you do similar initiatives with other shows?

It’s been such a success that we realized we really need to do this with many shows. The next iteration will be for the “Real Housewives.” We’re taking it to the next level, the co-creation of content by fans. It will start with “Real Housewives New York” this summer, then after the show you go into a social game. You’ll enter into the wives world—you’ll interact with them at parties, get dressed to go out, go to restaurants, shopping, and you go on weekly quests related to the show.

Will there be a sponsorship with this, too? How will you monetize it?

With most social games there are micro-payments involved, but we’re also looking for sponsorship.

How do you meet the challenge of monetizing digital initiatives?

I think monetizing digital continues to be a challenge. I hope to look back to this and say we were in the Stone Ages in terms of social media analytics and cross-platform measurement. We will get there. Obviously we’d like to grow scale. And social is going to be a huge tool in helping us outreach and grow our audiences and… keep our audiences coming back for more. It’s just fascinating how sophisticated analytic tools are becoming. It shows you how important social is to our business going forward. The godfather of transmedia, professor Henry Jenkins, said, “If it doesn’t spread, it’s dead.” We need to take whatever we have and turbo charge it through social and multi platforms to get the ultimate reach for the content, wherever it is. [Head over to CableFAX.com to find out how Bravo is using Pinterest].