Hulu is unveiling a new ad unit today, which it’s calling GatewayGo. The idea is to give viewers a way to directly interact with the advertisers and receive personalized offers.
This makes good on Hulu’s statement at the beginning of the year that it would be rolling out ads that are more transactional — so viewers can act on an ad right away, and advertisers get a concrete measurement of an ad’s impact.
When someone sees a GatewayGo ad, it will include an option to receive more information or offers delivered to their phone or tablet via push notification, email or QR code. Initial advertisers include SmileDirectClub, The RealReal and Sweetgreen.
The announcement is coming at Hulu’s virtual NewFronts presentation for advertisers. The Disney-owned streaming service is pitching this as an extension of an ad strategy that tries to find new viewer-friendly ways to advertise, for example with ads designed specifically for pausing or brand-sponsored, ad-free “binge watch” episodes.
“For our brand partners, the power of this ad experience lies in its ability to give viewers a simple way to engage with brands and take action on their mobile device,” said Laura Nelson, senior vice president for cross portfolio solutions at Disney Advertising Sales, in a statement. “Ultimately, this helps advertisers get closer to their conversion goals with Streaming TV.”
Hulu says it will also be integrating with Nielsen Media Impact to help advertisers measure the reach of their campaigns, and that it plans to launch something called Disney Hulu XP in October, which will give advertisers a way to buy video campaigns across Disney properties.
And Hulu is using the presentation to highlight early data from a behavioral study of streaming audiences. It says streaming audiences tend to be younger, more affluent and more likely to be college educated than an average audience. It also says streaming audiences divide into streaming only (37%), streaming most (47%) and streaming also (16%) — and that three-quarters of streaming audiences want some degree of personalization from advertisers.
