The best competitive defense a web publisher has is its brand.  A web site’s brand power is directly responsible for user loyalty and word-of-mouth distribution, two critical factors in building a large, high-quality user base.

It’s interesting to consider how brand power will influence the Hulu vs. TV Everywhere battle that’s emerging.

While Hulu has been building a generation of passionate loyalists (similar to Apple), Comcast has a brand its users are trying to escape.  Over the last 9 months there has been a lot of buzz in the press about “cord cutters” canceling their cable subscription in favor of Hulu, the free-to-watch model. 

Advantage, Hulu.

But to be fair, it’s not entirely Comcast’s fault.  Consumers love to hate their carrier, be it Comcast, TimeWarner, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, you name it…  I think the source of this hatred stems for the sense of powerlessness.  Cable co’s operate in a semi-monopolistic environment: consumers usually only have one choice for cable operator in their region.  On top of that (or because of that), cable subscription prices are very high for what many consumers feel is a marginal quality content product.  Lastly, the TV broadcast model now feels like “force-fed content” in our Internet culture.  All of this strips consumers of their sense of power.  And that has huge influence over the Comcast (or TimeWarner, AT&T, Verizon…) brand.

I believe this is the primary challenge for the cable companies in the Online TV battle, where it will be largely a battle for the hearts and minds of consumers. 

Brand matters.  Big time.  More on this in future posts…

How important do you think brand power will be in the Online TV battle?

UPDATE: case in point, look at these strongly opinionated comments from the June Wired.com article on TV Everywhere: