Amazon, which has added commercials to Amazon Prime Video, is rolling out new interactive ad formats that will enable advertisers to engage streamers and sell stuff to them.

A week before its upfront presentation, Amazon introduced its Shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads and interactive brand trivia ads.

“Amazon Ads continues to reimagine the streaming TV experience with interactive ad formats that are seamlessly shoppable and help advertisers meaningfully connect with customers,” Alan Moss, VP, global advertising sales for Amazon Ads, said. 

“We are developing innovative experiences to help brands better engage with customers, as we work to transform streaming advertising through our differentiated combination of reach, first-party signals, and ad tech,” Moss said. “Ads in Prime Video provide an unparalleled experience for advertisers to deliver on any full-funnel marketing objective — whether it’s awareness, consideration, or conversion.”

Amazon increased the number of ads appearing on Prime Video earlier this year. Instead of asking subscribers if they were willing to watch ads in exchange for a cheaper subscription, Amazon decided to add the commercials and offer viewers who don’t like commercials an option to keep their service ad-free by paying an extra $2.99 a month.

According to Hub Entertainment Media, the strategy resulted in 85% of Prime Video subscribers being available to see commercials in entertainment programming, much higher than other streamers that have launched ad-supported tiers. 

Prime Video said it has an average monthly ad-supported reach of over 200 million global customers. 

Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football telecasts have always been ad-supported.

The new formats introduced by Prime Video are:

• Shoppable carousel ads enable brands to present a sliding lineup of products that customers can explore on Amazon and add to their cart using most living-room remotes. The ad automatically pauses so that customers can browse, and automatically resumes play when ad interaction has stopped.
• Interactive pause ads enable customers to discover and engage with brands when they decide to pause the show or movie they’re streaming. When viewers press pause on their living room remote, they will see a translucent ad featuring brand messaging and imagery, along with an “Add to Cart” and “Learn More” creative overlay.
• Interactive brand trivia ads entertain potential customers with factoids about their product while giving them the opportunity to shop on Amazon, learn more about services and products, and even unlock rewards. Customers can use their living-room remote to add a product to their cart, request information via email and claim rewards like Amazon shopping credits with the purchase of eligible items.

Amazon says its research shows that interactive ads are more effective in boosting engagement rates across the customer shopping journey, driving 10 times more product page views and conversions than non-interactive formats.

"Amazon's engagement with consumers throughout the funnel is unique,” says Geoffrey Calabrese, chief investment officer for Omnicom Media Group North America. “With the ad innovations we are seeing from inside of their streaming offering, our clients are now able to test and learn at scale the true power of streaming TV."

Interactive ads on connected TV are being made available programmatically to clients of The Trade Desk and Magnite.

CTV has been growing as viewers shift to streaming from traditional TV. Advertisers are also finding new ways to take advantage of streaming technology to put capabilities available in digital advertising available on TV screens.

Also read: Magnite to Buy SpotX For $1.17 Billion

“Advertisers and networks have realized the evolution that is happening in CTV advertising – in scaling first party data as well as the next generation of TV ad formats and creative potential,” said Jon Tabak, GM, TV Partnerships, The Trade Desk. “What’s more, CTV has the capability to customize ad experiences, which is something our clients crave in order to execute more precise digital advertising campaigns.”

Also read: Trade Desk Sees Advertisers Shifting Dollars to CTV 

The new capability is made available via technology from Innovid.

Innovid’s software development kit (SDK) powers personalized and interactive experiences in CTV through direct integrations across over 50 publisher apps. 

“The ability to leverage first and third-party data across CTV is critical, however, it’s only one piece of the puzzle," said Todd Randak, senior VP of strategy and partnerships at Magnite. “We are working directly with Innovid to take CTV to the next level, enabling publishers to provide enriching ad experiences to complement their premium inventory.”

Verizon Media said it is teaming up with Innovid and BrightLine to offer marketers interactive ads on connected TV. 

Amid the pandemic, CTV has been hot, with impression volume growing 66% in August, compared to a year ago.

“There’s no question that audiences have altered their consumption behavior, perhaps for good, as a result of the pandemic. Innovation is now at a premium as brands adapt to new ways of reaching audiences, with interactive ads leading the way in meeting consumer expectations,” Verizon Media said in a blog post.

Verizon said that interactive ads are already six times more engaging than standard pre-roll ads. Interactive ads layer on additional targeting capabilities to reach viewers that are most likely to lean in.

According to the company 71% of CTV viewers use their mobile devices to look up related content while watching TV, creating an opportunity for advertisers to make connections with target audiences.

The two companies Verizon is working with have long backgrounds in interactive TV.

Innovid in 2008 filed the world's first patent to insert interactive objects into video. It delivered an interactive ad for Pringles during the 2019 Super Bowl.

BrightLine’s technology inserts enhanced ad format for CTV across a large footprint of TV partners and OTT technologies. During the 2018 Olympics BrightLine delivered a unique ad experience. It also worked with Hulu to allow shoppable video for Hulu.

HSN’s Shop By Remote app will become the first interactive shopping network app to appear on Amazon Fire TV devices in the U.S.

The app allows users to buy more than 50,000 products and watch live HSN programming and on-demand product demonstrations.

“We are pleased to add Amazon Fire TV to the roster of partners offering HSN’s Shop By Remote app,” said Peter Ruben, executive VP, affiliate relations for HSN. “This is an important step in our effort to advance the practice of ‘boundary-less retail’ whereby consumers can watch HSN programming and shop.”

The HSN app is also available on Apple TV, Roku, TiVo, Google Play, Comcast Optimum, FiOS, Verizon and other platforms.

Read more at B&C. 

Watchwith has struck a deal with marketing analytics firm Moat to measure and authenticate in-program advertising.

Moat said the integration will expand on its measurement capabilities to include Watchwith in-programming advertising for desktop and mobile video apps.  Under that arrangement, it will report on the aggregate audience time spent with advertiser messages while viewing a video and other details on how users are interacting with the in-program ads.

The partnership follows Watchwith recent launch of an in-program ad platform for IP-capable  set-tops, smart TVs and mobile devices, holding that it could open up a new revenue stream for programmers.NBCU’s Bravo is among the early adopters  of the new in-program ad capability. Other Watchwith customers include CBSi, Fox Broadcasting and Viacom.

“The video ad landscape is increasingly complex, with brand engagement happening in different ways, on various devices and platforms, and it’s important that Moat is aligned with the companies enabling these new ad experiences,” said Jonah Goodhart, co-founder and chief executive officer of Moat. “Our partnership with Watchwith ensures we can capture in-program activity from the TV networks and top-tier publishers”

“As TV networks introduce advanced ad products like Watchwith, the industry needs a third-party system to verify viewer engagement no matter where or how it takes place,” added Watchwith CEO Zane Vella. “Now advertisers can buy in-program advertising with even greater confidence”

Watchwith recently closed an $8 million “B” round that included help from existing investors Rogers Venture Partners and Samsung, as well as new investor, Arris, the maker of video, ad-tech and broadband gear and software.

The new round takes Watchwith’s total funding beyond $13 million.

Watchwith, founded in 2012, said it landed the new funds as it helps its TV network and programming partners build “new premium video advertising inventory” without beefing up the pre-roll or mid-roll ad load.

The investment comes on the heels of Watchwith’s intro of an in-program, “contextual” ad platform that can be delivered to IP-connected set-tops, TVs and mobile devices. Watchwith developed the platform, which enables programmers to offer interactive ad avails within shows at pre-set trigger points, amid a trend in which viewers have increasingly become “trained” to have access to ad-free content.  

Watchwith, which views this as a new type of ad inventory, has integrated that cloud-based system with technology from Arris that suggests the best spot to place these interactive, in-program ad overlays.

Watchwith’s customers include Fox, NBCUniversal and Viacom.

“Watchwith is trailblazing a significant net-new revenue opportunity for premium TV programmers,” said Mike Lee, general partner, Rogers Venture Partners, in a statement. “And at the same time, the company solves a critical problem for short-form video content owners in need of alternatives to pre-roll advertising. The company is at the forefront of native video monetization”

An addition to the fresh funding, Watchwith also announced that Brendan Moorcroft, a programmatic advertising pioneer and former CEO of Cadreon, has joined its board.

Opening up a potential new source of revenue for programmers, Watchwith has launched an in-program, "contextual" advertising platform that can be delivered to IP-capable set-tops, smart TVs and mobile devices.

Watchwith, which has developed a national platform for enhanced, companion TV content, said its new program will enable programmers to offer interactive ad avails within shows that would appear at pre-set cue/trigger points.

While most programmers have been monetizing digital video using a pre-roll and interstitial ad model, this in-program approach will open up new opportunities for programmers and their advertisers in a world in which viewers have becoming increasingly “trained” to have access to ad-free content, Zane Vella, founder and CEO of Watchwith, said.

This, he added, will provide a new set of avails within the program itself, as opposed to traditional ad models that interrupt the show.

“This gives programmers a new revenue stream and a valuable new inventory that they can actually monetize,” Vella said, noting that the rule-of-thumb/best practice is to offer one such avail per program segment.

Technically, the new system will allow programmers to select or approve when the advertising message would appear and where on the screen it would appear, Vella said, noting that Watchwith’s system works with existing ad servers from companies such as Google’s DoubleClick.

Watchwith has honed its technology to control when interactive elements such as polls would appear in a program, and can now apply it to in-program advertising. He said Watchwith system has also been integrated with “machine-vision” tech from Arris (Arris is also a Watchwith investor) that suggests the best location to place the in-program ad.

And the approach is multiplatform, as it can be offered on IP-capable set-tops, smartphones, tablets, laptops, and smart TVs with ACR (audio content recognition) technology, the company claimed.

Watchwith said network partners are in active trials today, with NBCU’s Bravo among the early adopters (the new in-program ad capability example shown above is running in Bravo’s Best New Restaurant).

Other announced Watchwith customers include CBSi, Fox Broadcasting and Viacom.

Cognitive Networks, a company that has developed a cloud-based automatic content recognition (ACR) platform for smart TVs, has locked in a $14.5 million “B” round as it looks to expand its footprint to 20 million “active” connected TVs in 2015. 

Cognitive Networks, a San Francisco-based company founded in 2008, said existing investors Rogers Venture Partners and DCM Ventures and three new investors (Hearst Ventures and two still-undisclosed strategic investors) joined the $14.5 million round. Cognitive, which also disclosed the new funding round in this SEC filing on November 20, has raised $21 million so far.

Cognitive said it will use the funds to support the expansion of its proprietary, HTML5-based ACR platform, called ENGAGE, which is used to trigger and deliver interactive elements, such as polls, quizzes and advertising, that sync up with TV programming.

Among some of Cognitive’s early activity, LG is using the company’s ACR platform in newer model smart TV models to support “SHO Sync,” an app from Showtime Networks that delivers interactive features that sync up with live, on-demand or DVR-recorded versions of original series. Cognitive has also customized a show-reminder app developed by Visible World for the National Geographic Channel.

In July, Cognitive announced that it had secured a patent for its “smart client” technology, which followed a patent it received last year for its core ACR technology.

Cognitive Networks said it will demo its technology at January’s International CES (booth 15126a at the Las Vegas Convention Center Central Hall), and will exhibit at CES Unveiled on Sunday, Jan. 4 from 4:00 until 7:00 p.m. at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino.