Hulu announced recently that they will be introducing a new system of advertising that will reward people for binge watching episodes in one sitting. They packaged it as a reward by offering a special deal through Hulu or allowing the episode to be ad free because of a specific sponsor. Because the Hulu revenue model relies on ads, Hulu is giving an incentive to make the ads more palatable while maintaining support from the advertisers. Hulu announced they will be partnering with advertisers like Kellogg’s, Maker’s March, and Georgia-Specific for this new system.

Hulu will use data on viewers to predict which shows are about to be binge watched and will serve, “contextually relevant messaging from our brand partners that acknowledges a binge-watching session has begun.” For example, Cheez-It Snap’d will show an ad that corresponds with the binge watch session by saying, “Another episode? Snack it to me!”

In 2007, all the major media companies owned a share of Hulu, but now Disney owns a majority of the company. Comcast handed over operational control to Disney and plans to sell 33% of their stock to Disney by 2024.

I find this interesting because I totally agree with this method of advertising. The biggest annoyance when binge watching shows is the constant interruption from advertisements. Personally, I like the idea of getting the longer ad out of the way and experiencing the whole episode uninterrupted instead of short periods that occur every 15 minutes. I think this is a really smart thing and will be very beneficial to the platform. I wonder how the platform will change now that Disney will own Hulu in the future as networks pull the shows, but the new advertisement system is interesting nonetheless.  

Article: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/12/hulu-new-ad-type-will-reward-binge-watchers.html