Hulu is now trying to get you to go to the movies.
Lately, the streaming platform has been serving up trailers for the new Warner Bros. Tomb Raider movie, debuting March 16, through which viewers can purchase tickets to see the show at a local theater, as reported by Variety. The ad leads interested viewers to a separate page where they can look up different theaters and show times. However, those who want to purchase tickets will have to do so through their phones. After picking a specific Tomb Raider viewing time and place, users then get a link sent to their emails through which they can actually buy a ticket.
“We are definitely trying to connect the experiences of watching a piece of content to buying a piece of content—a movie ticket,” explained Warner Bros. executive VP of marketing and chief data strategist, JP Richards, to Variety. This seeks to tap into the interest people might feel when seeing a new trailer for the first time. It’s easy in that moment for viewers to think, “I should see this when it comes out.” But if the movie doesn’t come out for weeks, or even months, it’s even easier to forget about that initial interest.
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Hulu executives don’t see a trip to the movie theater as a threat to the time their audiences spend on the streaming platform. It’s another product they can sell—one that could simultaneously strengthen their ties to certain producers. If Hulu helps get people into theaters during a movie’s opening weekend, it could influence the studio to put that movie on Hulu’s platform once it’s had its initial run.
These ads are also, in a sense, an extension of Hulu’s earlier interactive ad plays, where viewers could select their preference from two or three different ad experiences. This kicks the interactive element up a notch by adding a purchasing component, what Peter Naylor, SVP of Hulu’s ad sales, refers to as a “transactional commercial.”
No other streaming platform has done anything quite like what Hulu’s currently experimenting with, although YouTube offers interactive video ads from which viewers can click to a brand’s website. Brands have also experimented with interactive display ads. Emirates Vacations, for instance, just started putting chatbots in its banner ads. These chatbots can offer consumers specific vacation packages, and then those interested consumers can go on to purchase those packages through the Emirates website. This isn’t too far off from the format with which Hulu is experimenting. It brings users a step closer to purchasing items through the ad itself, but isn’t quite there yet.
Hulu plans to use this ad format again, ahead of the debut for another upcoming Warner Bros. movie, Rampage, starring Dwayne Johnson. Naylor insinuated to Variety that there could be more ads like this even beyond the Rampage trailer, also noting that the TV ad game “is changing, and we have to run new plays.”
