New Hulu Ad Will Appear When You Pause

Hulu may have cut the price of its ad-supported plan recently but it’s now announcing the launch of a new ad unit. Majority of its subscribers are on the ad-supported plan so ads are an important source of revenue for the streaming company. The new ad unit will come up when the user pauses whatever they’re streaming. The only good news is that it won’t be a video ad.

Hulu’s ad-supported plan displays TV-style commercial ads before and during content streams. The company didn’t want to play a similar ad when the user presses pause so they came up with a new ad unit. The company also found in its tests that viewers were open to this ad unit “if the ad is subtle and relevant.”

So the Hulu Pause Ad is not a full-screen image that pops up whenever you press pause. It’s actually more of a translucent banner as it still shows the content underneath. The ad unit will pop up until several seconds have passed since you’ve paused, this is to prevent ads from coming up if you pause for a second to rewind or adjust the video.

If you adjust the controls in any way during this period, the ad unit won’t show up at all. Hulu says that the first Pause Ads will be launched in the second quarter of this year with advertisers like Coca-Cola and Charmin.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: hulu