Commercials of the Future
Recently my fiancée and I moved in together, and as a way to save a few bucks we decided to get internet, but no cable TV. As a result of this, I’ve spent a lot of time exploring different media outlets on the web. This led me to discover Hulu, which is a 100% free ad-supported platform for watching tv shows and movies online.
I’ve been really impressed with both the selection and the video quality, but what I’ve found really intriguing is the way that hulu advertises. Basically every five to ten minutes, they insert a VERY short commercial from their sponsors (they’re typically less than 30 seconds long). They’re so short and unobstructive that I actually find myself WATCHING them. In fact I would bet that they’re the first commercials I haven’t tuned out since the advent of DVR and TIVO.
So it seems that hulu has done a great job, but I do think they’ve missed the boat in one critical area. In order to watch videos on hulu you have to create an account and submit your email and a password. My problem is that this is the only information they gather. Why not give users a short survey to find out what they’re interested in and then show them ads based on that information.
For example, when I go to watch episodes of ‘The Office‘ they show lots of ads for ‘Obama for America‘. While I’m sure that lots of Office viewers are also Obama supporters, I’m equally confident that a lot of them are hard-core republicans who would never vote for Obama no matter how many ads you throw at them. A simple survey could make sure that those people see ads that might pursuade them towards another organization that they might actually be interested in. Consequentially, the ad time would be that much more valuable, and therefore Hulu would be able to charge more for their services.
I’d definitely like to give big thank-you to the folks at hulu for creating such a great site. I hope that someone out there will find this idea useful.
