Over the last ten years a number of sites including Heavy, Funny or Die, Super Deluxe, BudTV, My Damn Channel, Crackle and This Just In have tried to stake a claim in the online original comedy video category. Having worked at Turner Broadcasting’s noble-yet-fatally-flawed Super Deluxe, I know firsthand the seemingly easy yet realistically difficult category very well.
So many have tried but only one site has found branding, marketing, creative, and financial success — College Humor. Started in 1999 by three college friends who were looking to make some money online, College Humor has grown to encompass their dot com, a t-shirt company, an MTV TV series, a Paramount Pictures development deal, a few national tours, and two published books. Along the way, their success has earned them millions of fans, a few haters, and a nice fat check from Barry Diller’s IAC when he bought a majority stake in College Humor in 2006.
How did College Humor do it while others have floundered? By staying true to and being one with their niche audience. By keeping their spend and staff under control. By taking their time to grow and mature. And by offering up a multitude of staff-produced and user-submitted irreverent and funny original content (video, editorial, articles, photos, and contests) that went beyond just funny videos. While other sites threw gobs of money, crafted houses-of-cards, and ran sporadically funny videos on their sites, College Humor took their offering up a notch by fully engaging their audience with more than just short-form video snacks. They created a destination and sandbox to play in.
The lesson to be learned is that with time, religious devotion to your niche, spot-on creative and content, and a smart and realistic growth arc, success in the category is possible. College Humor’s devotion to their core promise and audience has resulted in a distinct and well-known brand, a large online fanbase, a growing offline audience, multiple brand extensions, and most importantly to the future health of their business — a healthy advertising and licensing revenue stream. Not too bad for three guys who started the site on a lark.
