Hulu Summer Film School was a promotion I put together on Hulu to teach users about film and filmmaking through the Hulu Movie library. The goal of the promotion was to draw viewers, increase subscriptions, and foster an appreciation and awareness towards film and filmmaking.

2. The Face Behind
Hulu Summer Film
School
-Film Studies graduate from UC
Berkeley with an interest in writing,
design, and all things film.
-Coming into Hulu, I had three
goals:
1) Take ownership over a long-term
project.
2) Collaborate cross-functionally
with different teams at Hulu to
better understand their roles.
3) Improve my design and writing
abilities

3. Business Goals
1) DRIVE AWARENESS TO HULU MOVIE
LIBRARY. There is an increasing
array of high quality features
in the Hulu Movie library. Yet
viewers may be unaware of the
existence of these titles or
still assume that Hulu has a
limited selection of quality
features.
2) Drive Awareness to the
Criterion Collection. the
Criterion Collection is a
textbook standard for Film
Students. And most are unaware
it’s on hulu.

4. Audience
Mainstream Film fans + aspiring
filmmakers
The goal was to provide users
with a broad overview of
filmmaking techniques and not
overwhelm them with detail.
Benefits to audience: No tests
or quizzes, class from the
comfort of your couch, And FREE!

5. Project
Components
1) Spotlight Page - Each week, page
was updated with a new playlist of
films related to a filmmaking
technique.
v Story Structure &
Screenwriting (7.18)
v Cinematography
v Color Theory and Lighting
v Soundtrack, Score, and Sound
Design
v Costumes and Set Design
v Animation
v Post-Production (8.29)
2) Weekly MH – ran Friday>>Sunday, 7
times in total.
v P1/2/3 for movies masthead and P4
and above for homepage.
3) Blog – 2 blog posts a week.
v 1 post introducing the technique
and featured films
v 1 post providing in-depth focus on
individual film.

6. Teams
Involved
Content
recommended films, secured
stunts, fostered Criterion
Collection partnership, and made
films Classic avail.
Creative Services
designed cover art + weekly
masthead art
Editorial
recruited writers and editorial
partners for blog posts.
Marketing
produced the email newsletter.
Filmmaking is all about
appreciating the
talents of the people
you surround yourself
with and knowing you
could never have
made any of these
films by yourself.
- Steven Spielberg

7. Spotlight

8. C O N T E N T
At the start of the promotion, I coordinated with the film content team
to select films for our weekly playlists. Our goal was to feature a blend
of well-known hits and smaller critical darlings to both celebrate the
technical achievements of mainstream films and introduce audiences to
lesser-known classics.

9. C O N T E N T
Another goal was to feature both Classic and Plus features to drive views and
subscriptions. With the help of the Content team, we were able to stunt
Ghostbusters as a Classic avail during the opening week of Film School.
We were also able to partner with the Criterion Collection to make their films
Classic avail.

10. C R E A T I V E
Each week, I’d attain art from editorial, the content partner, or in some cases
the video file itself. I would then pass the assets to Kevin to create the
masthead.

11. C R E A T I V E
A lot of the films that we were planning to feature on the mastheads were cult
classics. Through the saturated colorings and grain of the masthead design, we
sought to foster a mood of nostalgia towards these films.

12. C R E A T I V E
The grain on the images also emphasized the behind-the-scenes quality of the
promotion and the promotion’s focus not only on the films, but also on the
stories behind their creation.

13. E D I T O R I A L
The Blog:
• At the start of film school, we recruited a
couple of talented and enthusiastic
Hulugans to write blurbs about each of the
featured films.
• The blurbs provided overviews of the
featured films as well as explorations of
how each film exemplified the theme.
• Each week, we supplemented the blurb
with a different piece of multimedia. Some
weeks we would feature a clip from the
film. Other weeks we’d incorporate an
animated gif or still.
• The blog provided me with the
opportunity to hone my skills in design and
writing. The next slide showcases a
sampling of that work (contains gifs
that might not be viewable in pdf).

14. E D I
T O R
I A L

15. E D I T O R I A L
Partnerships:
Throughout the project, we were able
to secure four different editorial
partnerships with Indiewire, Criterion
Collection, No Film School, and
Rookie respectively.
Value of Partnerships:
• Built positive connection of Hulu brand
with other brands respected on the
brand love scale
• Made Film School content visible to
target audience.
• Provided much needed social support
for project.
Agreement:
As part of the partnerships, we were able to
get writers from each of the publications to
pick a film from the Hulu Movie library and
write a guest post about how the technique
of the week functions in that film.

16. M A R K e T I N G
Email Newsletter

17. M A R K e T I N G
• Released to 3.7 MM
movie-watching
subscribers.
• Open rates were slightly
below average (12.4%)
but engagement was
high—click through rate
(% click over delivered)
and click to open rate (%
click over opens) were
extremely high. CTR was
at 0.7% and CTOR was
at 6%. Consumption was
comparable to The
Great Beauty campaign.

18. O R g a n I c
S O C I A L
Twitter Engagement – Each week, I sent out tweets from my personal
Twitter account promoting the blog posts to cast and crew members
involved in the various featured films.
Reddit Engagement - I also posted blog articles using my personal
Reddit account to sub-Reddits that I felt would be relevant for the
content.
Cold Email – Finally, I took to Outlook to email various film news
sources to let them know about the week’s content.

19. METRIC NUGGETS

20. METRIC NUGGETS
63,390
uniques page views
on hulu.com/film-school
from 7/18 until
8/28.
77,405 non-unique page views
on hulu.com/film-school from 7/18 until 8/28.

21. Users Not only
Visited the page,
but also Came
Back. They wanted
to learn more!
Key
Learning #1

22. Comparing Hulu Summer Film School
to other Spotlight pages
(# of page views in the first 40 days of campaign)
HULU SUMMER FILM SCHOOL – 63,390 unique/77,405
non-unique
Summer TV - 67,118 uniques/77,660 non-uniques
Fall TV - 162,172 non-uniques/129,153 uniques
Considering the masthead placement and
content, The performance of the Summer
Film School Spotlight Page was
comparable to other spotlight
campaigns. The number of non-uniques
was comparable to SUMMER tv!

23. METRIC NUGGETS
Since its promotion on 8/15,
Earth Girls are Easy has
received 17,761 views, making it the
highest-viewed Summer Film School
feature.

24. Key
Contributors
1) Feature in Email Newsletter
A. “Earth Girls Are Easy” had the highest consumption for
both Plus and Classic lineups
2) Rookie’s article from Marie Lodi
A. Republished on HuffPo Ent- 300 LIKES, 29 FB SHARES,
and TWEET FROM Candy and EGAE screenwriter, Julie
Brown
B. Rookie publicized Marie’s article on their Tumblr page.
Received 296 notes.
3) First time featured on MH.
A buried treasure made relevant again!

25. Comparing Editorial Partnerships
Across Hulu Summer Film SChool
1) Valley Girls and Alien Hunks: The
Cool Costumes of EartH girls Are easy
(ROOKIE MAGAZINE)
Blog - 141 likes/8 tweets
HuffPo – 300 likes/29 shares
Tumblr – 296 notes
2) Lighting Persona (CRITERION
COLLECTION)
Blog – 1,400 likes/30 tweets
Criterion FB page – 952 likes/142 shares
3) Learn Film Techniques with
Ghostbusters (Indiewire)
Blog - 6 positive comments on blog.
19 re-tweets /22 favorites
4) Hulu’s Summer Film School is Now
In Session (No Film School)
748 likes/69 re-tweets/7 comments
By aligning with these highly-regarded editorial brands, Hulu is able to
increase its visibility and brand love.

26. Key
Learning #2
Editorial partnerships can
influence Video views and
increase brand love.

27. METRIC NUGGETS
With little marketing support, Hulu
Summer Film School received 785
spotlight page likes, 152 reddit upvotes,
30 blog comments, and 4 filmmaker
tweets.

28. Spotlight Engagement
785 likes,
12 comments
and none are
complaining about:
-Ads
-Our (lack of) content
-insert complaint here

29. Blog
Engagement
30 comments
This the total number of
comments received on all blog
posts throughout the promotion.
My goal was to create an active
dialogue between Hulu and the
users to foster a positive user
experience by personally
responding to blog comments.

30. Case Study:
New site content was released each Friday morning
around 11 am. This blog reader was ready to receive it!

31. Twitter ENGAGEMENT
Over 200 Twitter mentions.

32. David Gelb, director of Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Tomm Moore, director of The Secret of Kells
Colin Wilkes, costume designer for Computer Chess
Filmmaker
ENGAGEMENT

33. Case Studies:
99: This was
the percentage
of comments that
were positive
about Hulu Film
School across all
social networks.
This sampling of
comments is a
testament to the
campaign’s
ability to start a
favorable
conversation
amongst viewers.

34. Key
Learning #3
Grassroots Marketing
is time-consuming, but
Can foster
Brand Love.

35. Challenges of hulu summer
film school
1) Working with the Hulu
Timelines – Initially I
wanted to make changes to
the spotlight page’s site
design as well as work with
the Ad Promotions team to
secure sponsorship for the
page. Due to the timelines
of the Site team and the
lack of sponsorship options
on the page, I was unable
to move forward with these
ideas.
2) No Social Support – I was
unable to receive mentions
from any Hulu Social
channels. This forced the
undertaking of grassroots
methods to promote the
project.
3) Maintaining Editorial Partnerships – The lack of
social and financial support made it difficult to offer a
value proposition to potential editorial partners.

36. Achievements of
Hulu Summer Film SChool
1) It starts with the user
By creating a multi-faceted
user experience through
curated playlists, editorial
partnerships, and staff-written
blog posts, Hulu
Summer Film School
promotes Hulu as smart,
fun, and helpful. Hulu
Summer Film School wants
to help users do more than
just watch, but actually
learn. Furthermore, through
regular response to
feedback, Hulu Summer
Film School fosters an
ACTIVE user experience
where users feel that they
are being heard.
2) IT Redefines TV- It recreates the bonus feature
experience on DVDs and brings it to our users.
3) It makes us a must-have brand - Users felt like
they needed Hulu Summer Film School and were mad
when they couldn’t have it. No Film School readers
actually had a discussion on how to use a vpn to access
film school content outside of the United States.

37. Credits J
Marketing Team
Team
Naveen, Chris,
and Jonathan
Katz
Editorial
Team
Film
Content
Sheila!
Creative
Services
Team