Success Stories

The Truck Stops Here: Hulu Ad Manager

TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® Gets Innovative with Franchisee Advertising Using Hulu Ad Manager

Franchised moving company TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® may have gotten their name from simpler times and humble beginnings back in 1985, but today with over 350 locations in the U.S. alone, they are more than just “two men and a truck”. They proudly state that they are the “Movers Who Care®” with a core purpose of moving people forward.

Recently, we sat down with Franchise Marketing Specialist Bill Barrett and learned that people aren’t the only thing they are moving forward with; lately, they’ve taken their franchisee advertising to the next level by using Hulu Ad Manager to advertise on Streaming TV.

Hulu: How did you learn about Hulu Ad Manager? What made you want to try it out?

Bill: My colleague and I follow the industry by reading blogs and publications, and when we heard about a new way for businesses of all sizes to advertise on Hulu, we signed up for the beta to try it out. With Hulu’s subscriber count continuing to grow, it’s something we couldn’t ignore. Our audience tends to be made up of 30-50 year olds who fall into a higher income level and we felt Hulu Ad Manager was a good opportunity to expand our brand and reach new viewers that we weren’t necessarily reaching before with just network or cable advertising.

Disney is such a respected brand and the association makes the Hulu brand even stronger.

We also know that Disney is continuing to invest in Hulu which leads us to believe that the user experience is only going to get better. Disney is such a respected brand and the association makes the Hulu brand even stronger. In turn, we feel that the positive association we will get advertising on Hulu will be useful in helping us to continue to grow our brand.

Hulu: What other advertising channels are currently in your media mix? What are some of the challenges you have experienced?

Bill: At the corporate level, we have initiatives to help local franchises understand options for spending their local marketing budget. Up until now, the spend has been focused on social media, search and display, and network and cable television.

While we provide information to the franchises, they mainly manage their marketing spend themselves. One of our challenges, specifically with TV buys, has been our inability to help them if they get stuck, since we don’t have a lot of insight into the campaigns they are individually managing. One of the benefits that were appealing to us about Hulu Ad Manager is the ease with which we can buy and manage Streaming TV ads on the franchisees’ behalf.

Being able to log into a dashboard at any time to look at performance is something that we have never had before with linear TV campaigns. The targeting capabilities offered by Hulu Ad Manager allow us to reach our specific audience.

Hulu: What has your experience been like using Hulu Ad Manager?

Bill: Hulu Ad Manager is the first time we have had a simple, effective, efficient way to purchase and manage media, such as Streaming TV, for our franchisees. Being able to do that is a game-changer for us and it allows us to bring new and innovative advertising methods for us, not just at corporate, but for all franchisees, and bring them into the streaming TV future. Some of the benefits that have really stood out to us are:

EASE

It’s very simple. We’ve only had a few questions to ask customer support and they have been very responsive. We haven’t run into any major hiccups — it’s really user-friendly overall.

The webinars that Hulu has produced have been super helpful as well. In addition to answering common questions, they are helping us keep up on streaming tv and viewership trends!

TARGETING OPTIONS

To put it simply, the targeting capabilities offered by Hulu Ad Manager allow us to reach our specific audience. Using targeting options to reach people in-market, by purchase behaviors, interests and those that are experiencing recent “life events” (ie – recently married) are targeting capabilities you don’t have on cable or network. In our experience, network and cable TV allow you to target by show but we are more focused on reaching the right audience regardless of what they are watching.

REPORTING

We like the ability to see the campaigns in real-time to break down the number of impressions by day/device/genre of shows. Being able to log into a dashboard at any time to look at performance is something that we have never had before with linear TV campaigns. This type of transparency allows us to have more clarity around performance.

MEASURING SUCCESS

We ran a few test ads in the fall of 2020 before opening it up to all locations at the start of 2021 and found that we can gauge the success of an ad by looking at our Google Analytics for increased web traffic, since visiting the franchisee website(s) is the call-to-action in the ads we place on Hulu. We know the ad impressions are good, so although we can’t directly attribute the increase in traffic and form fills to Hulu, we believe that we will be able to make a reasonable assumption over time.

LEARN MORE

Advertising through video can be powerful, effective, and perhaps the best option for your business. It’s easy and affordable to get started on our self-service platform, Hulu Ad Manager. Learn more and see how you can boost your business and engage customers through video.