HULU INITIATES SELF-SERVICE AD MANAGER FOR SMALL AND MID-SIZE BUSINESSES

Hulu’s Ad Manager will now allow small and mid-size businesses to have direct access to buying advertising time on the platform, pricing a media campaign at as little as USD 500. "We understand that small and medium-sized businesses are faced with mounting challenges," wrote Faye Trapani, Director of the Self-service Platform Sales at Hulu, in a company blog on Wednesday. “It’s critical for these businesses to have a way to get in front of their customers and communities.”

Hulu says it has signed advertising deals with the top 200 brands in the country. The company intends to launch the add manager as a “beta effort” to test results. The platform will enable advertisers to buy without the help of a sales team, but will still have access to support at a more cost-effective price than typical Hulu ad buys on Hulu. The deals also open more sponsorship opportunities for the platform. The company said advertisers and ads will run through a series of automated, human review processes. 

The company offers a premium subscription video platform. According to an analysis of Walt Disney’s yearly 10K filing for 2019, it garnered USD 670 million in paid advertising revenue and USD 1.27 billion in subscription fees. Bernstein Research recorded a net loss from continuing operations of USD774 million for Hulu in 2019. Previously, eMarketer projected Hulu’s gross advertising revenues to be USD1.89 billion in 2019, climbing to USD2.7 billion in 2021.

Hulu’s announcement was released on the same day as Comcast’s NBCUniversal launches Peacock, which will compete Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, and Disney+. The service has a free, ad-supported tier.  Giant online advertising platforms like Google and Facebook have allowed small businesses to buy directly for years. Snap last year attributed the opening of its self-serve ad platform, which it launched in 2017, as a factor in its accelerating revenue growth as the company saw increased engagement.