Youku Original, Philips Premiere "One Step Away" to 2 Million Single-Day Views

BEIJING, August 22, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Youku.com, Inc. (NYSE: YOKU), China's leading Internet television company, recently premiered "One Step Away," a new Youku Original web movie series produced in partnership with Philips and Dong Music. The series marks the latest effort by a major brand to create themed content targeting Youku's audience.

The title of the web movie series comes from the phrase "happiness is just one step away", a slogan coined by Philips to emphasize the optimism and positivity that its brand embodies. The series explores the meaning of happiness in today's China as interpreted by six Chinese opinion leaders in the fields of music, literature, and advertising. One of the directors, Zhang Yadong, produced the web movie "L. I." last year, which received 3.5 million video views.

"One Step Away" debuted on August 18, 2011 with "Love at the Crossroads" by well-known commercial director Lv Huizhou. This web movie examines the beginning of happiness and how decisions can influence people's lives - through the story of a young designer trying to win his girlfriend back from a wealthy man. Over the next five weeks on every Thursday, Youku will premiere a new web movie, with contributions by music producer Zhang Yadong, magazine chief editor Miao Wei, Taiwanese music producer Pao Hsiao-po, Theatre Company Happy Sesame, and professor and blogger Luo Yonghao.

"Love at the Crossroads" was viewed 2 million times within 24 hours of its premiere, since then it has topped Youku Index's Most-Viewed Movies list. By the morning of August 22, the movie amassed a total of 5.2 million views, and nearly 70,000 Sina Weibo posts. More than 770,000 Youku users either retweeted, favorited, commented, or voted on the movie.

"'One Step Away' is Youku Original's latest foray into serial web movies," said Stella Pan, VP of Youku Original. "With 'One Step Away', we're working with creative leaders across a wide range of fields to build on the success of Youku's '11 Degrees New Media Film Project' last year in producing high quality branded programs that will strike a chord with viewers across the Chinese Internet."

The "11 Degrees New Media Film Project", which ran from August to November last year, was a series of 10 web movies produced by Youku Original in partnership with General Motors. With live-action and contribution from young and independent Chinese directors, the series proved wildly popular, and leading all Youku films by total video views (79 million), total comments (126,000), upvotes (1 million thumbs-up), and social media retweets (more than 24 million).

Youku Original is a key part of Youku's content strategy, which features a combination of licensed professional content, in-house production from Youku Original, and user-generated content.

About Youku:

Youku.com Inc. is China's leading Internet television company. Our Internet television platform enables users to search, view and share high-quality video content quickly and easily across multiple devices. Youku, which stands for "what's best and what's cool" in Chinese, is the most recognized online video brand in China. Youku's American depositary shares, each representing 18 of our Class A ordinary shares, are traded on NYSE under the symbol "YOKU."