October 30, 2008
Hulu, the increasingly popular online video site, turned one year old this week. Much of the attention it is garnering is focused on its innovative approach to advertising: offering interactive games during ad breaks, allowing viewers to choose the types of commercials they can see, employing a Pandora-like thumbs up/down system to rate ads.
The site displays a small number of ads -- only ad is shown per segment break. Hulu's rationale for this: fewer ads are more memorable and the site uses this premise to charge higher fees to advertisers.
"While Hulu was not the first site to serve up full-length television shows or create new advertising units, it now dominates the emerging market for ad-supported TV and movie streaming," writes Brian Stelter of the New York Times.
"I’ve been waiting for this for 10 years,” said Greg Smith, Neo@Ogilvy's COO. “Hulu takes TV content, which is the best long-form video content there is — the Web has yet to come up with something as good — and it just breaks it out of the tyranny of the schedule."
Comments | 5 Total
October 30, 2008 at 12:12pm by Rachel King
There will be higher prices, for sure, but not fewer ads. Not when we're in a financial crunch. Design and creativity tend to go out the window first when times are tough, so I'd expect to see the ads packed into the pages, even at higher prices.
October 30, 2008 at 12:26pm by Sean Ludwig
I agree with statement because when online video has too many ads, people don't want to watch it. Hulu's approach works especially well because as a Hulu user, I don't get fed up when I have to watch a targeted 30-second ad for every 13-15 minutes of high-quality video. I've been telling my friends since Hulu's launch that this model is the future.
October 30, 2008 at 1:57pm by Dale Thompson
Higher prices due to the use product placement in content versus actual ads (just like in the movies or on TV). Fewer ads? Depends on the marketplace and overall ad revenue from product placements.
October 30, 2008 at 9:57pm by David Mullings
I don't think ad prices will be higher just because there are fewer ads, there will be better targeting.
Hulu does have less ads than standard television showing the same show and that does make it far easier to actually recall the ad, which makes the spot more valuable.
But a spot served to the wrong target market is still worthless, no matter how much you paid for it.
October 31, 2008 at 5:04am by Fethi Uluak