Sleep Number is the first marketer to use BrightLine’s new single-click-contact advertising offering on Hulu for viewers who want to receive product information via email. “It’s exciting because it’s in line with the way that direct-to-consumer brands operate in the marketplace,” says BrightLine Founder & CEO Jacqueline Corbelli.
The new solution is a “seamless overlay” on ads “so the creative does not need to be touched or modified in any way,” Corbelli explains in this interview with Beet.TV. “If you are interested in the product, you click one button and information on the mattress company, products, a weekly newsletter can come your way.”
For the past several weeks, Sleep Number has run a commercial allowing viewers to request a promotional offer from the advertiser be sent to the email that is associated with the subscriber’s Hulu account, as Variety reports. According to Hulu research, interactive ad units result in a 50% increase in ad recall and a 45% increase in purchase intent.
Until now, brands that wanted to use television for direct response “really had to deal with technologies that were not in sync with a kind of seamless digital experience that we’re after as consumers,” Corbelli adds. It replaces “the cumbersome, on-screen keyboard for entering your email address with email addresses that the content provider can use with the viewer’s approval. That creates that seamless opportunity for a brand to connect and actually move down that funnel with a customer.”
The overlay can be applied to a host of other direct to consumer interactions, according to Corbelli. Examples include scheduling an appointment with a tax advisor, a new product offering or planning a vacation.
“We’re really excited to bring it to the marketplace with Hulu as our launch partner and I think the market’s going to be pretty excited about it too.”
BrightLine works with all of the major TV networks as they navigate the expanding OTT marketplace while trying to provide brands with non-traditional advertising opportunities.
“What we’ve seen, and which will probably be a part of this equation for a while is that these types of interactions, or the ability for a brand to provide an audience a new kind of experience and seamless interaction, is a premium experience for a brand. Many networks that we work with approach it that way,” says Corbelli.
“How those deals ultimately get struck is very much up to the content provider, but the prevailing CPM pricing model is in play here as well.”
The launch with Sleep Number and Hulu as partners marks the start of “an incredibly exciting year” for BrightLine. Corbelli cites the company’s ability to bring household targeting across the national footprint of all OTT devices “and programmatic and how targeting works in that programmatic context and the role we play.”
