Hoopla Digital’s Cat Zappa Reveals Their Edge Over Netflix, Prime Video, And Hulu

Courtesy of Hoopla

Times change - and in order to meet the needs of patrons in the modern age, libraries have to as well. Hoopla is a streaming platform that is looking to help with that. Founded in 2013 and now available in just about 11,500 libraries, the end user only needs a library card to gain access and features over 2 million titles in various formats - yes, besides books, e-books and audiobooks, that also includes a wide variety of movies and television shows at your fingertips. Hoopla prides itself on bringing that old-school exploration vibe that would fill all of us upon entering a library - but now through the digital landscape. Filling The Movie Nerds in on everything Hoopla has to offer as well as bringing us into the marketing side of things, VP of Digital Acquisitions Cat Zappa brings it all to a fireside chat - including what sets them apart from other powerhouse streamers.

Salvatore Cento: While doing research for this interview, I came upon a press release from December 2024 detailing the most borrowed titles of that year. It’s a mix between award-winning movies (like Brendan Fraser’s The Whale and director Celine Song’s Past Lives) and tv shows that I haven’t heard of but want to check out now (like AMC’s Dark Winds). What factors come into play when acquiring content for Hoopla Digital?

Cat Zappa: That’s a really great question, Sal. Thank you for asking. When we’re acquiring content for Hoopla - we’re looking at how we can meet the needs of the diverse variety of library patrons that come in. It’s one of the reasons why you’ll see award winning films, international content and documentaries - the docs being really great and unique tie-ins to relative pieces. It may not even be content in the English language. We're really trying to go out there and see what those current gemstones are that we feel like library patrons are going to want to watch.

A couple of years ago, Oppenheimer came out and was just a huge deal in theaters. We knew we probably wouldn’t be able to get the actual movie but we found this amazing documentary around it. That same doc ended up being one of our top titles for that year. So a lot of the time, we’ll really try to lean into what’s happening from a fandom perspective. We try to do that not only in the movie space but we try to do that across formats when we can.

If you love Wicked, we have a lot of content on Hoopla that’s going to get you excited. There are documentaries around Wicked on the platform - as well as the original e-books, audiobooks and some comics that will lean into the whole story of Oz. We try to look at all of this from that perspective. Does that specific IP have that type of opportunity on Hoopla? We just may have more content for you in the movie space, television space or other areas.

Cento: As a digital content provider whose goal it is to connect with public libraries, there has to be some tremendous hurdles that Hoopla has to jump over. What are some of the biggest challenges in growing such a service?

Zappa: One of the things that we’re always looking to go after is meeting the needs of a diverse audience - trying to find unique titles that can help set their digital library apart. We want to make sure that we have an offering that’s different from what’s in the usual consumer marketplace. Many of the amazing Digital Service Providers out there have a lot of great content - but there’s definitely that niche content which we’re trying to bring forward from both the entertainment and educational spaces.

As an example, we are constantly curating Documentaries that tend to be more challenging to find in the consumer space but have excellent appeal to patrons that want to dive deeper into exciting subject matter. “Oppenheimer: The Real Story” which we distribute for Trinity Creative and “Wicked: The Real Story” which we get from Alliance are great examples of this. Even though we have an infinite amount of space in the digital world - we want to make sure we can provide patrons access to quality pictures that they’re looking for in the case that the actual, physical library may be limited by shelf space and their budgets.

Cento: For a moment, I want to look into the behind-the-scenes workings of Hoopla Digital. You are a streaming platform yes but come from a much different angle in terms of capturing that dedicated audience than other powerhouse streamers. Your mission is to connect with patrons of a library - could you explain where the money is to be made in such a space?

Zappa: Well, libraries are businesses just like anything else - but their funding just so happens to come in a little bit differently. When providing content to libraries, we’re trying to do it in a way that’s fair to what their library budgets will allow. We have to be really mindful of that and work with them to make sure that the offering we’re providing is one that they can afford. They usually end up allowing all of their patrons throughout a certain area this opportunity.

Every library system is going to be different on what they can afford so the number of borrows could vary throughout the various library systems. That’s one of the things that help them manage their budgets. The other is us being mindful of what those budgets look like. We’re making sure to place a priority on that without devaluing the content we receive from content providers. Having over two hundred direct partnerships in the video space across all television and film opportunities, we just really have to make sure that we’re coming in with a fair offering both to the libraries and our content providers at the end of the day.

Cento: I was very surprised to learn that Hoopla Digital has far more content than Netflix, Max or even Prime Video. A piece of data on the official website states that there are 25,000 movies and 55,000 television titles available on the service. In a world where people sometimes spend more time browsing than actually watching, how is all of this presented to the viewer without them getting to the point of feeling overwhelmed?

Zappa: Our extensive sized marketing team  - which is broken up into different areas - works night and day on this particular goal. They focus on having expertise in each of the individual formats that we offer. Every marketing team starts off with the same question: “how do I get the attention of that particular patron?”

The great thing about these teams is that they do a lot of cross collaboration - when they can - in order to hit those fandom types of opportunities. One of the things they have in each format is having their own landing page. When you go to a landing page, you’re going to find various marquees across the top for that format. Our team will switch out those marquees just about every week and a half to two weeks. This is based on what’s hot in the market, new things that are coming to Hoopla or even things that patrons may not realize that we have.

We’ve also got a variety of carousels underneath that. Some are algorithm driven, based on the popularity of content. Those will give you the hottest titles on any given day. You’ll have others which are going to be featured carousels - that’s where our marketing team makes specific selections. You will always see new content there. We’ve also got thematic ones that match our calendars - let’s say it's back to school. We would highlight movies or educational content that are back to school. Right now, it’s going to be more spooky since it’s coming close to that time of the year. This is my most favorite time of the year laughs. It might be thrills and chills. We’ll do different focuses like that!

These carousels will usually be 25 titles that we’ll rotate around on a pretty regular basis. We also have email blasts that we do where we create watch lists of titles that we want to be sure are on our patrons’ radars - this may be seasonal related or not, but we want to bring that level of visibility to them.

Cento: Which option in your opinion works the best?

Zappa: Honestly, the featured carousel for us works really, really well. I think one of the things that we’ve determined - speaking on the expertise of our marketing team members - they really do know which patrons gravitate to which individual formats. From that perspective, our marketing team really understands the diversity that they have and what they might want to watch. They are really good at bringing things in, moving things throughout the carousel, throughout the week and this is actually done by humans. This isn’t any type of -

Cento: A.I?

Zappa: Yea, we’re not doing anything like that. This is a human component coming in and saying we know who this library patron is, we know what excites them and we feel like this just might be a hidden gem that they might be missing. You’re going to see a really great variety of reflected content in that carousel that’s just really interesting to that user. I haven’t seen that anywhere else. I haven’t seen that on Netflix. I haven’t seen that available on Amazon Prime. I haven’t seen that available on Hulu. Hoopla does allow us to stand out a little bit differently in that perspective.

Cento: One of the most interesting aspects of Hoopla Digital that I’ve come across and that you’ve talked about in the past is the BingePass - which is also free. Could you explain what that is and how it helps patrons of the library in obtaining content?

Zappa: The library does still have to make a payment whenever that patron still accesses a BingePass and we do share a portion of that over to the content provider, of course. That’s actually no different than if a patron goes in to borrow one unique title and they have to use one of their borrows - which is essentially their currency. The library’s still going to make a payment for that. I always want to be careful to not necessarily say it's free because the budgets of libraries are very serious, obviously. They are making a payment for it.  But yea, one of the things that definitely make it special is that we may be hosting the content ourselves. It’s a little bit like a channel.

In other instances though like with Curiosity Stream or Hallmark+, we are actually taking our library patrons and sending them over to the partner svod’s [Subscription Video on Demand]. That could be really exciting - because all of a sudden - those patrons are getting an extremely authentic experience as if they are a subscriber themselves to that svod when they really aren’t. They’re going to be able to get in for a seven day experience to engage with any of the content that they would like to engage with.

Cento: Now when you send them over, do they have to make an account there or still use the Hoopla account?

Zappa: They’re coming on over through the Hoopla account and ultimately, for example - let’s say Curiosity Stream - they are able to identify that this is a unique Hoopla library patron that’s coming over. They cannot identify who the patron is other than the fact that they came from Hoopla. This is for privacy reasons. The patron can then get in there and explore. They can reborrow that too - they can go back in after it expires by using a borrow again. The library would then have to make that payment to us and we would therefore make that payment all over again to the content provider as well. In this case, they would just happen to be leaving our experience and getting a truly authentic experience by being on the other side. You can feel like Hallmark is talking to you when you are in the Hallmark+ experience because you are. It’s truly that other brand and content provider.

Cento: If you would, walk me through the process of how Hoopla is incorporated into a library’s already working ecosystem. Are there any challenges towards having both sides satisfied in the partnership or is it moreso the library just saying - here are the keys to kingdom go for it?

Zappa: On the marketing side, we do have what we call a vertical. Our marketing team will specifically be speaking to the librarians about Hoopla - new developments, enhancements. We also have that vertical around patrons that I mentioned. We do email blasts to them. We’ve got the in-app experiences of merchandising. One of the things that most libraries do is have their own website. Within that website, there’s communication to the end user that Hoopla Digital is available and that the only thing you need for entry is a library card.

You can then go on in and explore all the content that we have. There’s a lot of different ways by which the library is communicating to the patron. We’re communicating to the library and the patrons that Hoopla exists for awareness purposes and teaching them how to better use us to their advantage - and for search-and-discover purposes of content that they might not be able to find elsewhere.

Cento: In an interview you had last month, you talked about certain fandoms and dedicated communities of any one subject being popular enough in the moment to warrant Hoopla finding a unique piece of media that would pique their interest. You used Wicked as an example, providing viewers with a documentary they might have never seen before. I love the idea of bringing something unique to the table in order to compliment what’s already out there. Have there been any other recent events like this for Hoopla that you can talk about?

Zappa:One of the things that we really do lean into is that whole opportunity of discovering all the more content around those franchises. We get obsessed with certain stories and universes. We just want to engage with more content around it, right? The Walking Dead is another great example. We love our relationship with AMC. We’re so grateful that we can get access to a lot of content in the Walking Dead universe - but it doesn’t necessarily have to end with the show. You can be a huge fan - watch the programming - but you can also read the comic books, listen to the soundtrack, find the ebooks and the audiobooks. You can kind of find all of it here. We find that what’s happening in broadcast cable and other sod’s - is having an impact on the indexing of content on Hoopla.

For instance, The Librarians is really popular with us here on the video side of things. Librarians: The Next Chapter was the spin off of the original series. We were able to gain access to that shortly after the finale aired. Maybe some people missed watching some of the episodes - they came to Hoopla and they were able to catch up on that. It was a super hot buzz item within that short period of time when patrons found it on Hoopla. We just love leaning into audience opportunities like that.

Cento: For my final question, I wanted to ask - what does it mean to have Hoopla Digital as an app on Rokus, Smart TVs, etc - that’s a recent development, isn’t it?

Zappa: We’ve been expanding our Connected TV [CTV] opportunities and other device opportunities in a big way for sure. It’s definitely been a big focus of ours and I think over the course of the next few years, we’re only going to see that expansion continue.

For us, it’s about meeting the patrons where they are. For some, maybe their library isn’t that close by or it’s just hard for them to get there. It could be due to their work hours. It could be anything holding them back - as long as we are able to meet them and make it easy and convenient … that’s what is important to us. CTV’s are a very big part of that. Smart TVs are just becoming more of a commonality in US homes today. In saying that, they still have to have that library card to get on. The library card is your point of entry. Hopefully, this will mean more people going out and getting a library card for easy access to content.

Cento: Alright, that is it, Ms. Zappa! I have a lot of information here that will be great for readers over at The Movie Nerds. Thank you so much!

Zappa: Thank you Sal!

For more information on Hoopla Digital, please visit https://www.hoopladigital.com/ or download the app from your device's preferred app store. You can also contact your local library to see if they offer Hoopla Digital and get more info there