I recently happened upon Hulu's new commercial called "Hello From Hulu" and immediately loved it. The spot is well written and fun with good pacing, high energy and excellent delivery from our Hulu hero. But the reason I like it is because it could be the building block for a larger brand idea for Hulu.
Here's the latest spot that broke this week:
For the love of TV.
It's one thing to put the tag line "For the love of TV" at the end of a TV spot. Whenever I saw line that on past communications, I honestly didn't think much of it. I internalized it as "for the amount I love TV" - as in, me. Hulu was reflecting back to us our own love of TV.
But there was a line in this new spot that, to me, brought this ad to another level.
Our Hulu hero says, "The shows you love, we love."
Because I over-analyze all advertising (it's a curse), I now believe one of the reasons I like this ad so much is that it gave me a window into Hulu's soul. Or evidence of Simon Sinek's "WHY?"
No longer was the tag line just about the consumer's love for TV. With that one line, I now get the impression that it's about Hulu's love for TV.
That's a much biggger idea.
Hulu's love for TV suddenly evident throughout the spot.
It's impossible to go back and experience something again for the first time, but I'd wager that if our Hulu hero did not say "The shows you love, we love," the rest of the spot would have felt like more of a typical pitch.
But because he did say it, his high five to Kenny from Southpark, his announcement that The Mindy Project was coming back, and his exaggeration that Hulu has "roughly a gajillion shows," were proof of Hulu's love for TV.
Also because he did say it, his over-the-top, high energy, ironic delivery came off as real enthusiasm from the brand.
Gives Hulu a strategic leg up.
Given the competitive nature of Hulu's category, streaming entertainment, the shows are an important differentiator at any point in time. Netflix is constantly advertising their original content, movies, and TV shows under the banner "Only on Netflix." Hulu does the same types of things in some of their own ads.
Not a bad strategy, but those are rational differentiation points. And fleeting ones.
What is more durably differentiating is a brand idea. And to get us couch potatoes to believe that Hulu not only has all this great content, but that the people at Hulu love TV indicates to us which horse to back in this streaming race.
The consumer decision evolves from "who has the best content right now" to "who do I believe will have the best content now and in the future."
But is it a line of copy in an ad or a brand idea?
That's the big question. I'm not even sure Hulu meant for the line "The shows you love, we love" to be anything more than a throwaway line in this one TV spot.
But if I were them, I'd build upon that line, institutionalize it, and continue to prove to us how much the brand loves TV.
Because in the end, consumers will buy into a brand with dramatic passion for what they do before they will buy into a brand with more dramas.
