Paramount strikes deal with shoppable ad startup ahead of upfront

Shoppable TV continues to gain prominence as a buzzy item on media companies’ upfront menus. Over the past few years, companies including NBCUniversal, Roku, AMC Networks and Disney have invested in efforts to connect brands with consumers’ wallets directly through content. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Now, Paramount is joining the fray as the inaugural partner of Shopsense AI, a tech platform aiming to create a one-stop shop for media companies to activate retail opportunities for brands. Shopsense AI was co-founded by the minds behind Amazon Publisher Services and the Klarna Retail Media Network, and seeks to shake up the shoppable TV model with a mobile commerce experience that can be picked up and activated by any TV company within weeks. Paramount’s partnership with Shopsense AI will debut during the red carpet pre-show for Sunday’s CMT Music Awards. Throughout the event’s coverage, viewers will be prompted to visit a custom landing page with curated collections of red carpet and country-themed fashion and home decor. The first outing is sponsored by Walmart. Key to Shopsense AI’s product is browsing rather than being presented with a small set of sponsored items, as many shoppable TV products currently on the market do. Bryan Quinn, president and co-founder of Shopsense AI, said that in his time at Amazon, during which he led the development of shoppable ads through Amazon’s Alexa assistant, he found that 90% of users browse additional items and collections than the one that prompted their visit to a retail site or experience. “Shopsense AI is giving publishers their own retail platform so that users could start the shopping journey based on the inspiration from what they see on their screen,” said Quinn. More from Ad Age: What to know about shoppable TV More broadly, shoppable TV is one way for traditional media companies to get in on the retail media craze. In 2024, spending in retail media is projected to grow 11% in North America while investment in TV is projected to decline 5.1%, according to GroupM. Shopsense AI has purposefully created a product that can live on media companies’ owned websites and platforms, including checkout, so that they can control the real-time purchase and search data that advertisers are eager to gain. Quinn suggested new possibilities that creating mini retail media networks for TV could create for media companies. In addition to new display ad inventory on the commerce landing page, the retail data could be used for addressable advertising both within the shopping experience and potentially on the TV screen. “Media companies already have insights into what their consumers are watching,” said Quinn. “But they lost out on the retail media insights that Amazon and TikTok are building. Now they have the ability to understand the user at an entirely different level because they not only know what the user is watching, now they know what products users are interested in and buying.” Paramount will take opportunities with Shopsense AI and additional interactive and shoppable experiences to its upfront pitch, said John Halley, president of advertising at Paramount. “With the emergence of retail media, what we have now is the opportunity to understand consumer behavior at a very granular level,” said Halley. “We’re just getting started here. Step one is creating access for viewers to these experiences. We will innovate from here, and there’s going to be a wide variety of opportunities for sponsors, interesting ways to drive engagement and ways to move upstream through content integration.” Shopsense was a key launchpad for shoppable and Paramount because it allowed Paramount to integrate the tech into its own platforms. “It’s a light lift so that we can focus on the execution elements,” said Halley. The ad chief added that when considering building out ad formats and technical in-house, “we have to evaluate the scale of return over time and be confident we’ll be able to reap the rewards of that engineering for a significant period. And sometimes those are tough calls.” ‘Snap and shop’ In addition to curated and sponsored collections, Shopsense AI intends to roll out a feature tied to users taking photos of on-screen talent using their phones. AI will analyze the photo and match items to the exact one being worn, similar offerings or a mixture of both. Through 750 retail partnerships and millions of product units, according to Co-Founder and CEO Glenn Fishback, Shopsense AI can automatically generate collections or results based on the “snap and shop” function, and it opens the opportunity for Paramount and other media partners to sell additional sponsorships. Fishback said the partnership with Paramount was pitched, signed and live within 83 days. After the CMT pre-show on April 7, the partnership will extend to CBS Sports’ soccer-centric Golazo Network beginning April 9 and CBS’s “The Talk” daytime talk show beginning April 12. Those latter opportunities don’t currently have sponsors finalized, but “will be set soon,” according to Halley, who said that the future editions are being thought of as continuous activations that sponsors can rotate in and out of as content matches an advertiser category. Shopsense AI utilizes viewers’ phones rather than on-screen product prompts that could be purchased with one’s remote based on consumer research that shows young viewers typically watch with their phones or a tablet in hand. In fact, 85% of Gen Z TV watchers do so while using a second screen, according to research from measurement company Samba TV cited by Shopsense AI. The phone also supports Fishback’s aim to provide supplemental content for users to browse throughout a live event or show. It is not beneficial to any of the partners for a consumer to have a one-and-done experience in shoppable TV, said Fishback. “How do we create a companion experience for the networks and streamers?” Fishback said. “If we can curate shopping experiences next to their content and embed that within their apps, they can create stickiness … Google and TikTok are leveraging content with all these shoppable moments—why can’t we get the power back to the people who actually spend billions a year building content?”

Paramount strikes deal with shoppable ad startup ahead of upfront

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