Hulu Unveils New Pause Ad Experience

By Jeremy Helfand

Part of becoming the #1 choice for TV, both inside and outside the home, means building the most innovative ad experience for consumers and brands.

We know that viewers’ expectations of advertising have changed; brands and advertisers alike are in a race to meet these new expectations and engage their target audiences. Viewers don’t want an irrelevant, intrusive ad experience and appreciate when brands tell their stories in authentic, organic ways. Brands need to step up to the plate and flex their creative muscles to go beyond the traditional 30-second spot to stand out.

Enter the pause ad. Currently in beta with two clients, Coca-Cola and P&G, Hulu is launching this new format in Q2 2019.

The pause ad unit is a non-disruptive, viewer-initiated ad experience that appears when a viewer presses pause when watching content. The creative consists of two parts - a static ad creative that has contextually relevant messaging and a background gradient to make the pause ad distinct from the pause content scene.

Because we’re focused on building a viewer-first ad experience, we conduct extensive user testing before rolling out product of ad features like the pause ad. We won’t roll out features that receive negative feedback from our viewers.

What we found in our pause ad research is that users generally preferred ads that were subtle and non-intrusive, and in particular had a positive response to the pause experience. and. Many viewers found audio and video when pausing disruptive, which is why we created an ad unit that is static without sound.

We’re excited to bring this new, unique opportunity for storytelling to the market in the next few months and are looking forward to more feedback from our viewers and advertisers throughout the beta period.