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Hulu Ads Are More Memorable Than YouTube’s

November 17th, 2008

Recent post at Wired speculates that Hulu has been more successful at monetizing their content than Google / YouTube. I’ve been watching a lot of Hulu in the past few weeks since installing Boxee on the Apple TV, and can say without a doubt, Hulu’s ads are more effective than YouTube’s. Several reasons why:

  1. Content is king. Hulu = decent TV shows and movies – longer form content that Im in a mindset to dedicate at least 20 minutes to. YouTube = user generated content which sustains interest in short burst of a minute or less. It’s kind of rude to have a 20 second ad attatched to a 1 minute video clip.
  2. The TV show content on Hulu is designed with advertising in mind. Meaning, the episodes of Kitchen Nighmares I’ve been watching are broken into segments that leave me hanging for the next part, with a commercial break between. TV shows have done it this way for decades and it’s very effective.
  3. There’s only one ad during any one commercial break on Hulu, and that same ad is usually repeated several times during one show. One advertiser per show = many more viewings and only one sponsor to remember. This is opposed to broadcast television where there are maybe four or five ads for different products during one commercial break.

As a result of Hulu’s ad strategy, I am all too aware that Chrisitna Aguilera has a new greatest hits album and a Target sponsorship, AXE cologne has a dude resembling a giant chocolate statue, and Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t like ads and tries extremely hard to forget them.

So that’s three ads I remember from Hulu after a few weeks of dedicated use. I can’t recall a single ad I’ve seen on YouTube after using that site for several years.

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  • Mike
    I block banner ads via AdBlock, so I haven't even seen an ad on YouTube. I think I'm better off because of it.

    Chocolate statue? Christine Aguilera? Uh...

    But hey, if Hulu works for you...I probably wouldn't use it if it were the only thing around, anyway, cause I'm like that. :)
  • Heh, I'm definitely not proud of my new found awareness of Christina
    Aguilera. I was just pointing out how I was made aware, against my will, by
    the Hulu ads. They stick.
  • The thing is Google is not really trying to monetize YouTube. They bought it just to expand their network of services & software applications which are used to track the Internet visitors. That's all.
  • Google IS trying to monetize YouTube. It's just not working. :)
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