Consumers made the 30-second non-skippable ad a success decades ago. Viewers knew they could settle in to watch their favorite shows and enjoy bite-sized doses of marketing content along the way. Catchphrases, jingles and iconic campaigns became part of pop culture.
Because of this, television has always played a powerful role in impacting commerce. Currently, TV-inspired purchases contribute $145 billion annually to U.S. retail sales and 63% of U.S. viewers take action—anything from search to purchase—after seeing an ad on TV.
Today, television continues to lead the way in driving consumer conversions: first-party data and rich media make connected TV advertising more relevant and engaging, and advanced measurement capabilities offer greater transparency and insights into effectiveness. The next iteration of culturally relevant TV advertising—one that is already showing incredible results—is a fully curated, interactive, shoppable viewing experience.
Shoppable television experiences in action
New innovations have made live ads shoppable, measurable and targetable. Users want easy, frictionless shopping experiences, and brands who want to deliver on-the-spot, interactive commerce options are turning to retail media platforms.
One such platform, Paramount Advertising, engages audiences with second-screen digital storefronts curated around their programming. These digital stores—of which they’ve launched 11 to date—let viewers seamlessly shop for sponsored products tied to their favorite shows, tentpoles and sports programming. In partnership with Shopsense AI, Paramount launched this capability in April at the CMT Music Awards, and have since continued to deploy it during the PGA golf tournament broadcast, the VMAs, on the soccer-specific Golazo Network, and during the weekday airings of The Talk, The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful.
This Thanksgiving, during the NFL game between the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions on CBS, Paramount delivered shoppable opportunities on a mass scale, giving the roughly 50 million football fans watching the ability to shop products from Kohl’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods and more using an on-screen QR code.
Another successful ad format that Paramount launched, this time with Innovid, was the first-ever Shop Connect video ad, which allowed viewers to use their remote control to browse products and opt in to receiving an email to continue shopping. This interactive ad showed a 2.2x higher engagement rate, while the email had +32% higher CTR versus benchmarks. And as part of Paramount’s partnership with the artificial intelligence video company Kerv.ai, they also launched interactive shoppable holiday ads for multiple partners, including L.L.Bean.
“We can show advertisers how to get better reach, yield and performance out of more optimized allocation, including more CTV,” said Steve Ellis, chief operating officer at Paramount Advertising. “And we now have different sets of units that allow for a variety of viewer engagement options.”
The CTV shopping format also proved successful during primetime dramas. The hit show Yellowstone provided a culturally relevant marketing platform for in-show integrations, custom content and merchandising. Ram trucks, Coors Banquet and Fritos, as well as western-wear brands like Ariat, Tecovas and Filson, were just some of the advertisers connecting with audiences both on- and offscreen through the show’s popular Dutton ranch.
And it works. In 2022, when Filson ran an ad during the season premiere, they saw an 8.7% increase in year-over-year website/incremental visitors, leading to a 7.5% increase in gross revenue. This year, after November’s season premiere, Filson saw a roughly 300% increase in revenue compared to the previous premiere.
The power of engagement
Even on social channels, engagement is not usually about shopping and conversion in the moment. It’s about easy, frictionless engagement at the right time, in the right place, in the right way. Maybe the consumer adds an item to their cart and saves it for later, or perhaps they engage two or three times before finally purchasing. Now, publishers can measure those user activities and show the power of engaged ad units, even on a TV during long-form programming.
“Our intention is to make it easy for advertisers to understand the unmatched effectiveness of the 30-second, non-skippable spot,” said Ellis. “By leveraging our extensive data and advanced targeting capabilities, we can show both immediate engagement and long-term ROAS across all client marketing efforts. The power of TV makes all marketing perform better.”
Consistently positioning brands at the intersection of culture and commerce via an array of shoppable ad formats is the way to drive advertiser success in this new era of shoppable television. CTV owns the living room, and a publisher’s ability to inspire moments of discovery can truly change the retail game, getting both the brand and its product off the screen and into the hands of the consumer.
