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Huluween is Back to Haunt Your Streams

October 3, 2019

The air turns brisk. The wind billows, ripping the once-beautiful fall foliage from the trees and scattering it across the pavement. The daylight hours dwindle, leaving only the flickering jack-o’-lanterns to illuminate the streets.  

Don’t be scared – this sounds like the perfect setting for Hulu viewers to stay home and binge their favorite Halloween content! And if you’re a marketer looking to reach consumers tuning into spooky content, we’ve identified three insights to help you tackle this tricky (or treaty) marketing opportunity.

 

October Viewership Continues to Increase

With the summer months behind us, Fall TV premieres bring everyone back to the living room to watch their favorite shows. Hulu has these shows available the next day – it’s part of what makes us the industry’s largest streaming content library.

At Hulu, we’re seeing tremendous year-over-year growth during the month of October. More specifically, we’ve seen +62% increase in overall minutes watched. However, consumers aren’t just spending more time on Hulu, but they are also exploring more content. In fact, there is a +64% increase in total videos streamed by Hulu subscribers over the past year. 

This consumption continues to increase as we move throughout the month. When looking at weekly Hulu performance, the last week in October had the highest overall engagement. It’s no coincidence that Halloween takes place during this time period, and Hulu has no shortage of scary content to keep viewers entertained.

 

Hulu Has the Creepy Content That Viewers Crave

Whether it’s eerie shows, scary movies, or thrilling documentaries, Hulu has it. And viewers are taking advantage of Hulu’s “monster-ous” selection – last October, the Horror & Suspense genre saw a +192% YoY increase in total minutes viewed.

Additionally, the top shows within this genre include:

 

Huluween Partnerships Drive “Scary-Good” Results

Throughout October, Hulu transforms into a fan-first viewing experience filled with moments of fright and delight, featuring over 200 premium Halloween titles and over 5,000 episodes of new and classic shows. It’s not Halloween…it’s Huluween!

Last year, more than 75% of viewers engaged with the Huluween hub. That’s a considerable amount of attentive eyeballs, all who share an interest in the same genre. For marketers, partnering with Hulu provides a unique way to reach these consumers. These partnerships drive serious results too – when aggregating four Huluween campaigns in 2018, we saw the following lifts :

Additionally, viewers understand the value of these relevant partnerships. In fact, 78% of Hulu viewers think it’s smart that advertisers partner with Hulu during Huluween. Interested in partnering with Hulu this Halloween season? Good news, there are still opportunities available! 

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Source (1): Hulu Internal Portal, October 2018 vs. October 2017.

Source (2) : comScore Video Key Measures, Multiplatform, October 2018, Base: Total Audience.

Source (3): Hulu Internal Portal, 2018

Source (4): Source: Kantar Millward Brown, 2018. Results include all sponsorship flight video placements across 4 campaigns.  

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Crossing Swords

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Solar Opposites

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Shrill

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The Dropout

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Marvel's Helstrom

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Nine Perfect Strangers

Academy and Emmy Award-winning actress Nicole Kidman will produce and star in a new drama series for Hulu based on the New York Times best seller Nine Perfect Strangers, from the author of Big Little Lies. This series will be produced by Emmy Award-winning producers Bruna Papandrea and the incomparable David E. Kelly.

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The Great is created, written and executive produced by Tony McNamara (THE FAVOURITE) and executive produced by Marian Macgowan, Thruline’s Josh Kesselman and Ron West, Echo Lake’s Brittany Kahan Ward, Doug Mankoff and Andrew Spaulding, Elle Fanning and Matt Shakman, who also directed the pilot. The project is produced by MRC.

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Ramy

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Reprisal

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The drama series stars Spencer, Rodrigo Santoro, Mena Massoud, Madison Davenport, Rhys Wakefield, David Dastmalchian, W. Earl Brown and Gilbert Owuor. Reprisal is created, written and executive produced by Josh Corbin. Warren Littlefield, Barry Jossen and Jonathan van Tulleken, who also directed the pilot, serve as executive producers. Ann Johnson and Graham Littlefield serve as co-executive producers. The series is produced by A+E Studios in association with The Littlefield Company.

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Dollface

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The 10-episode series will star actress Kat Dennings (2 Broke Girls), who is also set to executive produce the comedy alongside Creator and Writer Jordan Weiss (Harley Quinn) and Showrunner Ira Ungerleider. Additional executive producers include Margot Robbie, Brett Hedblom and Tom Ackerley for LuckyChap Entertainment; Bryan Unkeless and Scott Morgan for Clubhouse Pictures; Nicole King and Stephanie Laing (Vice Principals). Matt Spicer (Ingrid Goes West) will executive produce and direct the first episode.

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Family Style

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In a new, multi-year, multi-show partnership, Hulu will partner with Vox Media Studios, David Chang’s Majordomo Media, and Chrissy Teigen’s Suit & Thai Productions to develop and produce a slate of premium food-centric programming for the platform. As the founder and chef of the Momofuku restaurant group, Chang brings a profound understanding of global food culture, while Vox Media Studios lends its world-class storytelling capabilities and a wealth of experience built through its food and travel network, Eater. New York Times bestselling cookbook author Teigen will co-produce and headline a diverse cast of compelling and knowledgeable personalities—from household names and celebrated chefs to everyday home cooks—who will entertain and provoke viewers with a variety of inventive new shows.

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Castle Rock

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Wu-Tang: The American Saga

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Veronica Mars

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On living room, mobile, and tablet devices, the color gradient overlay is dynamic and will change based on the cover story art. It is not something we can control on our end.

Q: Why do you prefer PCM codec?

A: PCM codec is lossless audio quality, so whenever possible, please deliver PCM audio.

Q: Why do you ask for progressive?

A: The Hulu player, unlike traditional broadcast, does not play back interlace scan, so we require that all videos be delivered with their scan type set to progressive. If your video is natively interlaced, you must de-interlace it to progressive and you must employ a de-interlace filter that does not result in blending or ghosting artifacts. We recommend an auto-adaptive de-interlace if available.

Q: What does native frame rate mean?

A: Native frame rate refers to the frame rate the source footage was shot. Whenever possible, we require all videos to be delivered in their native frame rate. This means that no frame rate conversion should be performed, which includes adding 3:2 pulldown for broadcast.

Q: Should the bitrate be constant if delivering ProRes codec?
A: No, since ProRes codec is built to be variable, this is waived.

Q: Can you accept bitrate higher than 30 Mbps?
A: Yes, we can accept bitrate beyond the recommended range for H.264 and ProRes. In the case of ProRes, bitrate will often exceed 30 Mbps due to its variable setting.

Q: When is letterboxing allowed and not allowed?

A: When the native aspect ratio is 1.78:1 or 1.33:1 throughout the entire program, there should not be any letterboxing (black bars on top and bottom), nor should there be any pillarboxing (black bars on either side). We should should see an active picture take up the full frame. If the aspect ratio is wider than 1.78:1, such as 2.35:1, matting on the top and bottom is permissible. Additionally, if there is a creative choice to add matting or if there is a mix of native aspect ratios, this is usually waived, but please reach out to your Hulu representative to confirm.

  • No symbols such as registered marks, copyrights, etc.
  • If symbols are required, they will be presented in standard text such as" Brand (TM)".

On living room, mobile, and tablet devices, the color gradient overlay is dynamic and will change based on the cover story art. It is not something we can control on our end.

If the tagline/date messaging doesn’t fit within the 11 syllables max, it can be included as text.

Stress mark should be marked with [capitals] to indicate the primary stressed syllable, as in: news・pa・per [NOOZ-pey-per] in・for・ma・tion [in-fer-MEY-shuhn]

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The Handmaid's Tale

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The Handmaid’s Tale is an adaptation of prolific author Margaret Atwood’s influential and acclaimed novel. The special event drama series will take place in the dystopian society of Gilead, a former region of the United States that has been transformed by revolution and religious fundamentalism. Golden Globe® winner Elisabeth Moss (Top of The Lake, Mad Men) is set to star as the lead character, Offred. The series will be created, executive produced, and written by Bruce Miller (The 100) with Ilene Chaiken (Empire, The L Word) serving as executive producer. Atwood will serve as Consulting Producer for the series.

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Into The Dark

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This summer, join in the fun as Mindy Kaling returns to Hulu as Executive Producer and writer of Four Weddings & A Funeral – an anthology series based on the iconic 1994 romantic comedy.