When Hulu launched a couple of weeks ago, one of their big promises was to give users choice about how they want their advertising. While this was not available immediately on launch, Hulu is rolling out this capability now on certain content.
Giving users a choice in how they view ads makes for a really great experience. Many people come from the philosophy that ads spliced into a movie ruin the flow, so they would rather watch the pre-roll trailer. Others don't mind the break that the short advertisements provide when scattered throughout the movie. I personally really like the idea of watching a movie trailer before a movie on Hulu. It's an experience that we are all very familiar with. Regardless of your preferences, at least Hulu is giving you some control here.
Hulu has been very creative with their advertising and I really applaud them for that. On the whole, most people would classify advertisements as being annoying. Combining this new user choice style of advertising with their overlay advertising and more traditional forms provides an experience that is more engaging than annoying.
I'm not sure how long this feature has been on the site, but I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere and Hulu was unavailable for comment, so I thought that I'd bring it to everyone's attention.
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