Disney Introducing Shoppable Ads Sent Directly to Viewer’s Phone or Email While Streaming
The new ‘Gateway Shop’ format will purportedly offer Disney a way to reach customers with ads without interrupting their watching.
Streaming has offered a number of innovations to its customers over the years. The ability to watch video on demand was a revelation to many, especially those who didn’t grow up with cable. Watching content without ads was another new feature of streaming, and though ads have made their way onto essentially every streaming platform nowadays, that partially means there are more opportunities for streaming providers to innovate the way they deliver ads. At this week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Disney announced just such an innovation.
- Disney is launching a limited beta test of a new ad format it calls “Gateway Shop.”
- This format will deliver ads to user’s phones or emails while they stream Disney content, so as not to interrupt their viewing.
- Data shows that audiences are more likely to engage with interactive video, including shoppable ads.
What Do We Know About New Ads Coming to Disney Streamers?
The new advertising format Disney revealed at CES this week is called “Gateway Shop.” It will send personalized advertisements to Disney streaming customers via their mobile phones or their email. Gateway Shop is entering a limited beta test now, so some users of Disney’s ad-supported streaming tiers will begin to notice the new ads soon.
“Gateway Shop is a prime example of the holistic approach we take to building viewer-first ad experiences and formats,” said Amy Lehman, Disney SVP of Advertising Platforms. “Audience behaviors have changed, and advertising should reflect that and serve both viewers and marketers in new ways. Gateway Shop provides viewers with choice and control, in an engaging and non-disruptive format.”
What was not included in Disney’s announcement of Gateway Shop is the scale at which the new ad format will be deployed. Will it only send users ads while they’re actively streaming? Will it be employed for customers of Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+? Will the push notification/email ads take the place of traditional ads shown during commercial breaks while viewing, or will they be in addition to those ads?
All of those questions have yet to be answered, but it’s clear that Disney is at least thinking of ways to deliver more ads to users (thus helping the still-soft advertising market) while making those ads as unobtrusive to customers as possible.
Is Gateway Shop a Good Idea?
It’s fair to say that Disney is taking a bit of a risk with its new ad format. Utilizing the second screen would seem like a wise tactic on Disney’s part; data released by Samba TV in October showed that 85% of millennial viewers engaged with a second screen like their phone while streaming TV. Disney’s own press release cites a study conducted by Lucid which shows that 75% of viewers would rather see an interactive TV ad versus a static commercial.
But if Disney is planning to roll out these ads without making meaningful cutbacks in the number of ads it shows during streaming commercial breaks, it could be playing with fire. Streaming customers are still sensitive to ads, and while sending notifications to the viewer’s phone or email might be seen as unintrusive from Disney’s perspective, audiences might well feel that they’re now being bombarded with more ads in a formerly ad-free space.
A recent survey conducted by Hub Research showed that viewers are more likely to engage with shorter ad breaks, so if the new Gateway Shop program does lead to fewer traditional ads on Disney streamers it will be a boon to customers. If it does not, however, users could well sour on ad-supported Disney streaming tiers, which is the last thing the company needs as it attempts to make streaming profitable.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”