“How cool would it be if you could buy dresses right off the red carpet?” wondered Pam Drucker Mann, Condé Nast’s global chief revenue officer and president, during the publisher’s NewFront presentation this week. 

The ability to shop directly through on-screen marketing has been a focus for video publishers in recent months. AMC Networks announced shoppable ad integration as part of a new suite of marketing tools during its upfronts pitch last month, and the trend has continued into the NewFronts.

Condé Nast announced a new service for marketers called Condé Nast Shoppable. It will build shoppable content directly into the company’s digital series that air across numerous platforms. The publisher showcased a beauty-themed video playing from Vogue at its presentation. The products featured were shown at the bottom of the video with the capability to link out to an e-commerce site. Condé Nast positioned the new advertising format as a way to directly monetize partnerships with the publisher.

Roku announced a similar offering through its connected TV programming, the caveat being that viewers would need to join Roku Pay, a digital wallet similar to Apple Pay. The streamer is looking to use its programming, which spans lifestyle, décor, food and reality genres, to integrate products for viewers to purchase, with Roku’s Alison Levin, VP of ad revenue and marketing solutions, suggesting one could “purchase a product right off of Martha Stewart’s holiday table-scape.”

YouTube is also testing its ability to pair shopping with its digital content. Earlier this week, Netflix hosted a “Bridgerton” themed livestream on the platform that included a “view products” tab on-screen. When clicked, a panel of products, including their prices, appeared on the right side of the stream and clicked out to a purchasing site. YouTube hasn’t yet announced plans to broaden this capability to more brands but told The Hollywood Reporter that it is pursuing options to make brand partnerships with content creators more direct than affiliate links.

NBCUniversal pitched multiple ways for brands to embed their products into its programming on Peacock. These commerce-focused offerings included inserting advertisements into shows in post-production in non-disruptive ways, such as on a billboard shown in the same frame as characters, as well as through ads that would appear around the border of the service as a program plays inside it. Breaks for the streamer’s ad-supported tier offer opportunities to showcase products alongside QR codes that direct viewers to purchase options.

Amazon is taking a slightly more interactive approach on its livestream platform Twitch. It announced a new roster of shoppable shows, including “Pog Picks” and “Drops with Swagg,” where viewers will be able to interact with presenters in a game-show-like competition to win products featured in the stream. Chatbots can then drop links to viewers that connect them to purchase sites.

A report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which hosted the NewFronts, found that surveyed marketers ranked shoppable ads fourth for delivering on upper-funnel KPIs, and first on delivering lower-funnel KPIs, based on the percentage who rated the format in the highest percentile for connected TV ad formats. However, on the panel “Bringing the Store to the Screen,” MikMak Founder and CEO Rachel Tipograph said the effectiveness of shoppable ads hinges on the quality and instructiveness of the ad’s creative.

“Commerce is still new in [the CTV] environment,” said Tipograph. “The way that we’re being served up is if there was a QR code on the ad or you had a call to action to text a code where you then get a link—that's where we could be enabling commerce. And what we've noticed is that it still takes around 30 seconds for the consumer to be like, ‘Oh, I can actually shop this. Let me go get my phone.’”

She went on to explain that recent pushes toward a cookie-less internet have made the effectiveness of traditional, targeted digital advertising less effective, creating a necessity for brands to showcase products directly to consumers.

“The CMO’s role is no longer just brand affinity, it's also sales,” said Tipograph. “Because technology is enabling essentially all media to be attributable, the CFO at the CPG company wants to know how every media impression is driving dollars at places like Amazon, Target and Walmart.”

While shoppable ads are still in early phases, and their effectiveness is still being tested, the numerous announcements this week suggest enthusiasm from brands to create a direct line from product to viewer. Viewers’ willingness to learn new methods of shopping, ranging from the simplicity of a click to Roku’s Roku Pay requirement, remains to be seen.

TV Upfronts and Newfronts 2022 calendar