Trust Issues? Hulu’s Oscars Fail Proves Customers Have a Right to Be Skeptical

You’re sitting on your couch late at night. You’ve endured three hours of awards, ads, and Conan O’Brien. Your popcorn has long since disappeared, leaving only a few kernels at the bottom of the bowl. Your stomach warns you that it’s time to get up and eat something, but you ignore it. Hunger doesn’t matter right now. The moment you’ve been waiting for all night has finally arrived. Emma Stone announces the nominees for best actress. Movie clips flash across the screen with each name. Will Cynthia Erivo take home the award? Or Demi Moore? What about—?  

The screen flickers, and it’s gone. No more awards, no more Conan. All that remains is a message from Hulu saying that the stream has ended. Torn between outrage and disbelief, you pick up your phone and search for the winners yourself. After checking the results for Best Actress and Best Picture on a much smaller screen than you had originally intended, you go to bed, dreaming of all the things you could have done with the time spent watching a wholly anticlimactic awards show.   

This was the sad reality for many Hulu subscribers the night of March 2. For the first time, Hulu’s coverage of the Oscars was available to all subscription levels, but that quickly went south when the stream started having significant issues. With about 19.7 million people watching the Oscars that night on Hulu and ABC, Hulu’s technical issues caused a world of hurt.  

After the disastrous finale, many people flooded the virtual streets of social media, demanding that the streaming service take accountability for ruining their night. Some argued that their subscription for the month should be free, while others exclaimed that they would never return to Hulu again. Whatever the sentiment, it seems like most were confused and upset that a company as successful as Hulu encountered such significant technical issues in the first place. Unfortunately, this is beginning to become a pattern with streaming services in recent years.  

In 2023, Netflix’s Love Is Blind reunion was delayed for over an hour due to technical issues. In 2024, Paramount+ streamed the Super Bowl but encountered constant glitches, earning complaints from many viewers who subscribed just to watch the game. In the same year, Netflix’s coverage of Jake Paul’s fight with Mike Tyson also faced significant streaming issues, and the company is currently in the midst of a class action lawsuit because of it. Due to these consecutive problems affecting sports events, reality TV, and awards shows alike, consumers are fed up.  

Social media has given millions of people the opportunity to share their opinions at any moment with countless others. When paired with the swarms of negativity infecting every corner of the internet, this creates a perfect storm for any brand that dares to slip up. Consumer trust is already fragile, but the ability for customers to commiserate online about how brands have wronged them makes it significantly more challenging to regain it once it has been lost.  

The solution? Make a good product in the first place, and maintain that quality and performance. Set high standards to minimize the risk of a recall or bad review. Then continue to strengthen your infrastructure—quality control is just as important after launch as it is before your product hits the market. Be transparent about how your company operates, and try to keep your consumers as informed as possible so they don’t feel blindsided if something goes wrong. Being committed to sustaining a quality product or service will make it that much easier to create a good relationship with your consumers. Instead of scrambling to conduct damage control after an issue comes to light, do all you can to prevent losing your customers’ trust in the first place.  

At BSM Partners, we have a qualified team of formulators and expert food safety and quality assurance experts. Combined with our consumer strategy practice, our team can ensure that you bring a quality product to market, confident that we’ve done the testing and research necessary to keep you and your consumers satisfied.  

Do you want your brand to stand out for a good reason? Let’s talk.  

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About the Author

Cady Wolf is an Analyst Intern at BSM Partners. She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in English from Brigham Young University-Idaho, and she currently lives in Rexburg, Idaho with her husband, their two cats, and pet tortoise. She loves animals and learning about how to help pet brands and pet parents alike.