To be able to watch videos on Hulu without ads was once something that could only be achieved through various hacks and tricks. But now it seems that Hulu’s previous attempts at presenting shows without commercials must have been a success. The online streaming service is starting to sell advertisement space in a very non-traditional way: advertisers can, instead of showing ads, choose to present shows without commercial interruption. For the early adopters of this strategy such as Visa (pictures above), this could bring in a lot of customers who would otherwise turn their heads. But bragging about not showing ads loses its novelty value if it becomes commonplace.
For a while, the best commercial on Hulu had been a four second FedEx advertisement (versus the standard 15 to 30 second ad) which had a voice over saying “Get back to your show. We know your time is valuable.” This was interesting and memorable in contrast to the other ads on the site. Likewise, it is memorable that Visa is the company which allows me to watch episodes of House or The Simpsons without waiting on ads. So companies purchasing ad space need to be weary that they keep their more interesting ads sparse.
One way in which Hulu can attempt to make up for the potential of advertisers’ missing this lesson is to charge more money for less advertising time. This may seem unintuitive at first, but the argument above outlines why this would make for a sensible practice. It’s possible that Hulu is already doing this.
