Data-Labor-Technology

“One of the things we’ve heard is it’s really difficult to advertise on TV or too expensive. We thought this would be a great way to help change that,” said Faye Trapani, director of self-service platform sales at Hulu. She would not directly state Hulu’s minimum spend requirement outside of the self-serve tool, but she said, for the ad-supported TV market in general, it can vary from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. 

Whatever the actual amount, the $500 minimum is low enough to enable new advertisers to try out Hulu without making a significant commitment. That’s especially valuable for small businesses that lack large advertising budgets. But as Hulu expands Hulu Ad Manager’s availability, the minimum spend requirement and the tool’s autonomy will provide greater flexibility for the larger advertisers that have been calling for greater flexibility in TV advertising following the economic downturn. That flexibility and control will also appeal to advertisers like mid-sized marketers and direct-to-consumer companies that prize being able to pull the levers on their campaigns to ensure they are getting the most bang for their bucks.

Self-serve ad buying tools are “what Facebook and Google have become behemoths on the back of,” said Potbelly CMO Brandon Rhoten. 

The upside of self-serve

Initially, Hulu’s self-serve tool would likely pull money away from traditional channels like local TV and radio, but over time, the tool could help Hulu to siphon money away from other video platforms like YouTube, said Rhoten. If Hulu opens up its self-serve tool to more advertisers this year, “I’m going to spend money on it, and I wasn’t going to put any money into Hulu this year,” he said.

“Having the self-service model allows us to bring that TV buying in house and cut out the middlemen and make sure every dollar we invest in the marketplace is a true dollar, not the disappearing dollar that you see a lot of times when you leverage agencies,” said Rebecca Traverzo, vp of marketing at ThirdLove.

Without a self-service tool, advertisers like ThirdLove cannot be as nimble with their streaming campaigns as they are accustomed to being with their search and social advertising. “Whether it be linear or streaming, you’re beholden to your agency to deliver reporting to you, and that reporting comes two weeks post-campaign. If you have a self-service tool, you’re able to go in on a daily basis and see how you’re performing,” Traverzo said.

ThirdLove has already advertised on Hulu, most recently working with its media agency Horizon Media to sponsor two of Hulu’s original shows, “Little Fires Everywhere” and “Mrs. America.” The company plans to continue to buy Hulu ads through its agency later this year, but as Hulu expands the tool’s availability, ThirdLove would look to use “probably 20%” of the money it would spend on the streamer to test the self-serve tool “to see if it is as sophisticated as needed,” said Traverzo.

A basic buying tool

However, Hulu will first need to further develop its self-serve tool to ensure it is powerful enough for advertisers accustomed to Facebook’s and Google’s tools. The initial version of Hulu Ad Manager being tested is pretty basic:

• Advertisers can buy 15- and 30-second spots, but their ads cannot include interactive elements, like call-to-action buttons. 
• Advertisers can only use one piece of ad creative per campaign, rather than uploading multiple ads that can be shown in sequence or based on programming category.
• Advertisers can target their ads based on people’s age, gender, location and interests as well as programming genre, but they cannot use their customer databases to target existing customers or Hulu viewers that share similar characteristics with those existing customers. 
• On the reporting side, advertisers will only be able to see hourly updates showing how many impressions have been delivered and how much money they have spent, but not detailed breakdowns, such as the specific programs that carried an advertiser’s ad.

Hulu plans to further develop the tool during the testing phase before eventually opening it up to more advertisers. Trapani said the company does not have a timeline for when it will make Hulu Ad Manager available to all advertisers.

Hulu is not the only streaming company to debut a self-serve tool this year. Roku has rolled out its OneView ad buying platform that stems from its acquisition last year of ad tech firm Dataxu. However, Roku’s OneView is aimed at ad buyers inside agencies or brands, not small businesses, according to a Roku spokesperson, who declined to say what the minimum spend requirement is for advertisers to use OneView.

Dealing with a demand deluge

When Hulu does expand access to Hulu Ad Manager and bolster its capabilities, it will need to manage the potential influx of demand against its existing advertiser base. Hulu has historically had a reputation for its ad inventory being regularly sold out, especially in the fourth quarter. That supply-demand dynamic has abated somewhat as its viewership has grown over the past few years. But bringing more advertisers into the fold could make it difficult for advertisers to secure enough impressions. That would be a particular issue for the upfront advertisers that commit to spend millions of dollars with Hulu in exchange for a guaranteed number of impressions.

“If my upfront deals start underdelivering, Disney is going to have a big effing problem before they’re going to let the self-service people come in and take away from the enormous amount of money we’re spending in an upfront fashion with Hulu,” said one agency executive. 

Hulu has configured Hulu Ad Manager in way that should mitigate that risk. When advertisers configure their campaigns in the self-serve tool, they will set the dates for when they want their ads to run. Hulu Ad Manager will take those dates into account as well as the campaign’s other settings, such as its budget and targeting parameters, and advertisers will receive an error message if not enough inventory will be available for that timeframe, said Trapani, who noted that self-serve advertisers will receive the same priority as direct advertisers.

“I would find it hard to believe that they’re going to deprioritize their very, very large-spending upfront advertisers,” said the agency executive.

Now, Requidan, CEO and founder of adtech firm Media Tradecraft, and Cooper, svp of global marketing at email marketing company Liveintent, are both in leadership positions and they’re looking for ways to help other underrepresented employees in the media and advertising industries find their path forward. Requidan is Guatemalan and Filipino, while Cooper is Black.

To do this, two years ago they created the Minority Report podcast, an interview-style show that speaks with other people of color in the industry about the accomplishments and struggles that they’ve faced from cutting their teeth to leading companies. 

Both Cooper said that through these interviews, he and Requidan wanted to create a catalog that could serve as a resource for people of color, women and people in the LGBTQ+ community as they entered the industry.

“I found a lot of similarities in other peoples’ stories,” said Requidan. “What if I rewound back to when I was much earlier in my career? What kind of impact would [these stories] have had?” 

In the latest episode of Digiday’s show The New Normal, Cooper and Requidan talk about how the podcast has not only served that purpose of being a resource for employees, but it’s provided instructions for businesses to make real, impactful changes within their companies for diversifying and creating a positive environment for minority employees.

Having frank and honest conversations

The guests on the podcast come from a variety of companies and backgrounds, some of whom work at very large, global companies. Despite that, Cooper said that most of the guests are willing and able to have very open discussions about their experiences coming up through the industry.

One of the first guests on the podcast, Ashley McGee, said that she is vocal about her experience because as she climbs, she knows she’s opening doors for the people coming up behind her. “I want to continue to succeed so that … I am representing a group of people who might not fit in if you just look at the landscape of the industry,” said McGee on a 2018 episode.

Advice for up and coming employees

“It’s your job to speak up,” said Cooper. For younger staffers who are ready to take on more responsibilities, or want their company to sponsor them to take a class, or they want a mentor, they need to ask for it.

A former guest on the “Minority Report,” Semande Agosa, said the worst thing that can be said back is “no.” The other options could be that you get the career development that you desire now, or it could manifest itself down the line. Either way, make your wants known.

How companies can start making effective changes 

“The first step is understanding your starting point,” said Cooper. The only way that companies can improve is if they understand their jumping off point from the level of diversity that they currently have.

“This trips up a lot of companies too because it’s ugly. Let that data stare at you and burn a hole in you,” said Requidan. That data will serve as a guidepost for which improvements should and can be made.

After that, they can set some benchmarks for themselves for change that make sense for the company, Cooper said.

It’s not just about hiring

In an episode with Desiree Tunstall, she said that businesses who have a diversity problem cannot rely on their same recruitment tactics. The wheel is obviously broken.

Companies with this issue cannot rely on the referral model for getting new candidates in the door, Tunstall said. Asking an all white staff to refer their friends will likely result in more of the same staffers with similar backgrounds. She also said that companies also should not fall back to recruiting from the same colleges and universities. They need to branch out.

Hiring a diverse staff is just one piece of the puzzle, however. Cooper said that retention is just as important for ensuring that the company environment is comfortable and supportive of people of all backgrounds.

He added that from a retention standpoint, high retention equates to better business. “A revolving door leaves you in constant mode of training,” said Cooper. But the longer an employee stays, the longer they can contribute to the company’s bottom line.  

It’s a change from a few months ago, when coronavirus-response ads from advertisers were all the rage, as everyone sought to tell the audience that we were in this together.

The initial response ads varied by brand. Buick told you they were “here to help” during “these unprecedented times.” Walmart, meanwhile, celebrated its employees as “heroes.” Nike pitched working out and playing sports at home as a move for the greater good.

But it’s changed, four-odd months into this pandemic. For advertisers, it feels like customers are sick of being reminded of the virus, so creating new spots that directly address the pandemic could prove difficult even as it continues. That means marketers now have to figure out a new approach.

In early June, I spoke to marketers about moving past coronavirus messaging. They said that doing so was out of necessity as “people don’t want brands to constantly remind them of the circumstance they’re in anymore,” said Chris Sojka, CCO and co-founder of Madwell at the time. Getting back to marketing products was necessary not only to be useful but to help boost the economy, agency execs said at the time. 

Now, as it’s become increasingly clear that any return to whatever “normal” may be won’t happen this fall, marketers are working to figure out how to continue to advertise amid continued uncertainty and fallout due to the virus. If you ask agency execs and employees how marketers are managing that task, they’ll tell you that it’s a balancing act as marketers don’t want to appear “tone deaf” but they also don’t want to overdo it with messaging like the initial response ads. 

“It’s hard to acknowledge Covid directly and then gracefully pivot to selling something,” said Mark Pytlik, CEO of Stink Studios. “The best Covid advertising I’ve seen has acknowledged the pandemic implicitly rather than explicitly.” 

Using implicit nods to the pandemic in copywriting — i.e. pitching clothing as “comfy” rather than perfect for working from home — has been popular in recent months, according to agency execs. That approach is likely to continue as doing so allows marketers to address what’s happening without directly mentioning it. 

Some marketers are looking for ways to address the pandemic with “Covid response light” marketing as one copywriter put it. What that looks like will vary by brand but agencies are looking to avoid showing big gatherings of people in ads as consumers in much of the country are still unable to do so. 

Of course, the coronavirus isn’t the elephant in the room simply because people are sick of hearing about it. As the response to the pandemic, especially whether or not to wear masks, has been polarized politically addressing the coronavirus directly could risk a brand getting swept up into a political conversation, according to agency execs, who say that the risk is not worth the trouble. 

“The bigger the brand and the more people they appeal to, the more likely it is going to be polarizing to their audience,” said one agency exec of why some brands would rather not address the coronavirus directly in ads any longer. 

Avoiding directly talking about the coronavirus isn’t entirely about politics. Marketing that addresses the pandemic head on isn’t easy and people don’t respond well to ads that are depressing, according to agency execs, who say that some still hope for a return to normal by early next year as it’s easier to manage a few months of uncertainty. 

“People want something to look forward to and believe in,” said one media buyer. “Saying the world is back to ‘normal’ in a few months is something to believe and make life easier.”