As Northeast cable giant Cablevision Systems completes the rollout of dedicated channel access to Hulu across its entire subscriber footprint, it’s another step in the evolution of data-driven advertising delivery.
Since the deal was announced a year ago, Hulu has been available as channel 605 only in select Cablevision service areas. Now that all of the cable provider’s approximately 3 million customers will be able to access Hulu content without gaming platforms or streaming devices, it’s a very big deal for Hulu.
“What’s great about Cablevision is it’s in the number one market in the country,” says Peter Naylor, SVP of Ad Sales at Hulu, while attending the annual PeopleFront event conducted by Simulmedia.
Hulu has done similar deals with companies like Suddenlink Communications, the seventh largest cable operator in the U.S. with some 1.4 million customers in the South and West. The more that linear TV intersects with digital, the more consumers control their experience and the more data will inform how best to target them with advertising messages.
“You’re seeing people taking control,” says Naylor. “Marketers can overcome that challenge with great creative.”
Naylor believes that consumers don’t hate advertising but they do hate irrelevance, and that data makes advertising more relevant.
“The promise of data is that you’re serving ads that are entertaining or informational to the right audience,” Naylor says. “So all of a sudden it’s not intrusive. It’s seen as a welcome experience to a viewer.”
We interviewed him in New York at the Simulmedia PeopleFront conference where he was a speaker. Please find more video interviews from the PeopleFront event right here.
