Many know that Hulu is a website that plays some pretty cool TV shows and movies for free. Few know Hulu’s meaning. According to the company blog,
“In Mandarin, Hulu has two interesting meanings, each highly relevant to our mission. The primary meaning interested us because it is used in an ancient Chinese proverb that describes the hulu as the holder of precious things. It literally translates to "gourd," and in ancient times, the hulu was hollowed out and used to hold precious things. The secondary meaning is "interactive recording." We saw both definitions as appropriate bookends and highly relevant to the mission of Hulu.”
Aside from holding precious things and being a place for interactive recording, Hulu’s mission is also to make money. I had been scratching my head at their advertising (read: monetization) efforts in the past. Public service announcements? Advertisements for other TV shows? This is the path to lucrative monetization and overwhelming success?
More recently, I have been noticing more targeted advertisements, and one struck me as particularly clever.
Usually, Hulu plays a 15 to 30 second ad spot immediately before the credits at the end of a show. I can only imagine that a small percentage of people actually watch the ad in its entirety as 1) they don’t like to watch ads, and 2) they like closing credits even less than ads.
As I finished up an episode of The Office, I was getting ready to click away and there it was. FedEx displayed a 5 second ad of a 30 second commercial in fast forward. The voice over was “We understand your time is valuable, so we’ll let you get back to your show.” And, the tag line was “Access to the tools you need to connect your business.” It was over before I could click away and it left an indelible impression.
The extremely short duration of the advertisement added value to an otherwise worthless commercial spot during which users would have clicked away. Store that knowledge in your hulu, Hulu.
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