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Hulu Announces Ad Experience While Pausing Content

February 1, 2019 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris
Hulu

In an official statement on its website, Hulu has announced what it’s calling a new “pause ad experience.” Hulu is calling Pause Ad an experience that “provides a non-intrusive, viewer-initiated ad experience that is both delighting to viewers and effective for brands.”

Basically, when a user is streaming a video or content on Hulu and hits pause, an ad will appear on the pause screen until the user resumes play on the content. Hulu claims that this is a “viewer-initiated ad experience that is both delighting to viewers and effective for brands.” Per the official statement:

“Because a viewer-first ad experience is Hulu’s priority, we conduct extensive user testing before rolling out product features. Our pause ad research found that consumers generally preferred ads that were subtle and non-intrusive, and that extensive audio and video when pausing was considered disruptive. These insights led us to take our current approach to pause ads, and the research so far has shown a positive response from viewers.”

“With Hulu’s new pause ads, advertisers no longer need to interrupt the storytelling experience to get their message in front of the viewer. The pause ad takes advantage of the natural behavior exhibited in streaming TV viewing today. It is non-disruptive and viewer-initiated, and appears when a viewer pauses the content they’re watching. This high-impact ad execution currently consists of two elements – ad creative supported by contextually relevant messaging along with a background gradient to distinguish the ad from the content scene. We are testing our new pause ads with two national brands, Coca-Cola and Charmin as our beta advertising partners. Hulu expects to introduce this new format in Q2 2019 for select content within the Hulu streaming library.”

Hulu is a service that already runs ads on its pay service. Hulu is currently testing the pause ad experience with Coca-Cola and Charmin as a beta with advertising partners. The current plan is to introduce the pause ad format in Second Quarter 2019 for select content in the Hulu library.

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Hulu, Jeffrey Harris