2021 SHORTLIST

hashtagsportsawards

HULU DOESN'T JUST HAVE LIVE SPORTS

Entrant Company: Hulu

FINALIST

Best Use of Culture, Music, or Entertainment

Hulu Doesn't Just Have Live Sports

ABOUT THIS ENTRY

In 2019, Hulu launched the award-winning “Hulu Sellouts” marketing campaign to garner awareness for its Live TV offering. The campaign takes a humorous look at influencer marketing and features high-profile athletes telling fans that “Hulu Has Live Sports.” The campaign, and signature tagline, quickly found success among press, viewers and the industry at large.

How does this represent “Excellence in Engagement”?

In many ways, the Hulu Sellouts campaign has become its own cultural moment, which Hulu Doesn't Just Have Live Sports leans into even more heavily by expanding the campaign into a new medium: music. Many sports fans are already familiar with the Hulu Has Live Sports ad spots, and the song has provided more ways for fans to engage with the campaign, and in turn learn about everything Hulu has to offer. With over 170,000 streams on Spotify, and comments on the TikTok ads featuring the song including “this song is actually rly good” and “is it just me or is this actually kinda ?,” the spot helped met our goal of reaching new audiences, and in turn, driving more organic engagement for Hulu.

 

Objective: The campaign has been instrumental in increasing awareness for the sports offering on Hulu’s Live TV service, and when it came time to drive viewers to the platform’s other content features, we asked NBA superstar and rapper Damian Lillard (aka Dame D.O.L.L.A) to help us share this message - Hulu Doesn't Just Have Live Sports.

Hulu Doesn't Just Have Live Sports is a three-minute original song and music video rapped by Dame D.O.L.L.A about everything Hulu has to offer in addition to sports. The goal was to create a song that highlighted the value propositions of Hulu + Live TV, but it was also important to ensure the spot was authentic to the themes of the Sellouts campaign as a whole, including humor and transparency, as well as Damian and his rapper persona.

 

Strategy & Execution: Hulu Doesn't Just Have Live Sports points to the various value propositions of Hulu + Live TV, including over 65 live TV channels and Hulu’s entire streaming library, while still appealing directly to sports fans with the trademark Hulu Sellouts branding, sports terminology, and of course, Damian Lillard himself.

Once Hulu identified Damian Lillard for the new spot , the creative process was extremely collaborative, and together both teams worked through several iterations of the lyrics before landing on the final version, including nods to basketball and Lillard’s career. The Trail Blazers point guard then worked with his producer to compose the beat and craft other elements of the song. The end result was an incredible custom rap, currently available on Dame D.O.L.L.A’s Spotify and SoundCloud to stream.

The song is featured in Hulu’s most recent Sellouts commercial, which shows the “behind the scenes” that went into making the three-minute track, and also doubles as the song’s official music video. Hulu also tapped into platforms like SoundCloud and TikTok to amplify the campaign to sports fans across multiple channels.

Results:

Hulu Doesn't Just Have Live Sports has proved to be extremely successful in promoting Hulu’s Live TV service as well as engaging sports fans.

Within the first twelve hours of launch, the official music video received over one million views across Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter, all driven organically. Many people expressed positive sentiments, like “This is the only commercial I can’t skip” and “This ad and song is ?.” The campaign has generated great reception across social media with A-list celebrities and athletes like Dwayne Wade, Lil Dicky, Reggie Bush, and Spice Adams, organically commenting on Damian’s first post.

A month after the song release, the official music video has accumulated over 14 million organic views, driving awareness for Hulu as a destination not only for sports, but also for a wide selection of content and premium entertainment.

PRODUCTION

Hulu

 

CREDITS

Marketing Team
 

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