Bulldog DM Racks Up 61M Views, CEO Says Livestreams ‘The Holy Grail’ For Advertisers

With an average watchtime of 41 minutes per unique viewer on Bulldog-powered streams, Petrocelli says music content provides a unique attraction for advertisers, which help offset costs and reduce ticket prices for live events of all sorts.

“We’re definitely in an attention economy and that’s the holy grail for these brands.,” Petrocelli tells Pollstar. “They care less about the size of the audience, but more about is the audience engaged and paying attention. You might walk by a logo at a festival, but a stream can be brought to you by AT&T or Hyundai or these other brands we’ve worked with. 

“Their big concern is they can’t get attention for seconds, I think the average consumer attention span has fall from 12 seconds recently to 8 seconds and probably less than that.  When livestreaming, especially for music, is done in a best practices manner, you can really unlock super impactful engagements and watch time, and that speaks for itself. That helps the music industry.”

While the livestream opportunity has long been talked about as a potential ticket-seller for fans who can’t attend events, Petrocelli stresses the importance of advertising and branding for streamed and regular in-person events, given the state of those industries — with disruption caused by chiefly by AdBlock programs and cord cutting trends.  

“I think pay per view is awesome and helpful and will generate revenue, but the advertising industry is a $500 billion industry in the throes of this multi-year destruction,” Petrocelli says. “It behooves us in the tech space and frankly the music space to have that conversation, to go to these brands and say we have ta great methodology here. Especially when we’re back from the pandemic, the shows are happening, they’re ticketed, the artists are booked, it’s easy for a brand to finance and say great i want to turn this on and get involved and it will be a great return on their investment and they can do this on a regular basis.”   Petrocelli noted the impact of events aligned with a cause, including the #SOSFest that benefited the NIVA Emergency Relief Fund, with high-profile performances from Miley Cyrus, Foo Fighters, Brittany Howard and more from local indie venues. 

“You really see it on the social stream,  they’re less filled with rhetoric and nonsense and polarizing commentary,” Petrocelli adds. “The conversation is more about the shows, the artist and the cause and how meaningful and important this is.”

With many considering livestreaming a stop-gap back to live in-person events, the abundance of streaming platforms and services means consolidation is likely as the world opens back up.  However, Petrocelli says that doesn’t mean the livestream will go away.