Hidden Revenue 21#
The logic that the user is responsible for the income of the business is abandoned. Instead, the main source of revenue comes from a third party, which cross-finances whatever free or low-priced offering attracts the users. A very common case of this model is financing through advertisement, where attracted customers are of value to the advertisers who fund the offering. This concept facilitates the idea of 'separation between revenue and customer'.
Examples: Iconic Cases
How they do it: Brainpool’s video-on-demand platform MySpass is available for free but financed with video advertising (comparable to traditional TV advertising).
Learn more about Brainpool →
How they do it: JCDecaux allows its customers to advertise in the public space. This includes street furniture, public transport and billboards. The audience of JCDecaux’ products are the people who use these services. However those people don’t pay money to JCDecaux. On the other hand JCDecaux markets the people’s attention to its clients who pay money to the company to advertise to the people. This money generates revenue for the company and pays for the physical infrastructure.
Learn more about JCDecaux →
How they do it: YouTube’s platform, website and mobile apps are all free to use. In fact, over 5 billion videos are watched every day. In the absence of paying customers, advertisements on YouTube cross-finance the vast infrastructure needed to support YouTube’s operations.
Learn more about YouTube →
How they do it: Mozilla doesn’t charge its users for the download or use of the software. However by using the software, Mozilla gets access to the users data and searches, which the company can then market to search engine operators and other advertisers.
Learn more about Mozilla →
How they do it: SlideShare was acquired by LinkedIn in 2012. It then started to offer advertisers the opportunity to run Content Ads, which enabled them to reach a targeted audience of professionals on LinkedIn.
Learn more about SlideShare →
Below, the top industries for the pattern "Hidden Revenue" are displayed, in order to get insights into how this pattern is applied across different industries. We've collected data from 5 firms using this pattern.
Top Industries
67% of firms using pattern
26% of firms using pattern
18% of firms using pattern
All Industries
Below, the pattern "Hidden Revenue" is analyzed based on co-occurrence, in order to get insights into how this business model pattern is applied in combination with other patterns within the firms we studied.
Top Co-Occurrences
11 pattern co-occurrences
7 pattern co-occurrences
6 pattern co-occurrences