Disney Debuts New ‘Advergames’ and Shoppable Ads Across Its Portfolio

Disney has debuted two new ad products across its streaming portfolio, reflecting the new capabilities available to marketers in the world of connected television (CTV).

According to Jamie Power, the senior vice president of addressable sales at Disney, the products fall into two broad buckets: advergames and shoppable ads.

“It is our goal to push the limits of what is possible while making the ad experience as impactful as possible for our viewers,” Power said. “With these products, we are pairing the interactivity of streaming with the premium nature of content.”

The two advergames, Quiz Show and Beat the Block, are launching on Hulu and ESPN and are powered by the adtech firm Brightline. 

Meanwhile, the shoppable ad product was created by the adtech firm Kerv and is available across the Disney portfolio. It comes in three formats—Sync, L-Bar and Impulse—and uses QR codes to enable viewers to shop specific products on their phones.

All three products are in-market now and—while they are debuting on Disney—are also available on other streaming platforms, part of an initiative to hasten their adoption.

The new offerings reflect the pace of innovation within CTV advertising. In recent years, streaming services have unveiled ad experiences that were never possible in linear programming, such as ads that appear during pause breaks or home screen ads. 

According to analyst Mike Shields, these new capabilities, coupled with the targeting that CTV enables, have opened up new possibilities for marketers looking to engage with viewers. 

Advergames and programmatic shoppability

With both of its new ad products, Disney is looking to increase viewer engagement and drive more conversions.

Its first new offerings, the advergames powered by BrightLine, take viewers from a leaned-back experience into the attentive mindset of gamers.

For instance, Quiz Show is a multi-question, multi-answer trivia game that users interact with through their remotes. The second offering, called Beat the Block, allows viewers to participate in a themed game. 

In June, Disney launched Beat the Block with the inaugural advertiser Topgolf. Much like real-life Topgolf, the game allows viewers to shoot golf balls into specific targets; however, instead of a club, viewers use their remotes.

Though the games are customizable, BrightLine uses some basic templates to avoid having to develop each experience from scratch. It has different formats based on factors like advertiser categories and trending events, such as March Madness or the holidays. 

Once Disney delivers the ad assets, Brightline takes between three to five days to develop the advergame, according to Power. This enables the product to scale, which is critical for spurring adoption. 

Rather than gaming engagement, the shoppable product focuses on converting viewers into customers. These new formats, powered by Kerv, showcase specific products and feature QR codes that users can scan and be transported directly to the retailer’s website.

Critically, these shoppable formats are available programmatically, which reduces the barrier to entry for brands looking to experiment with them. The formats launched with Disney in April, although the company declined to provide specific engagement data.

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Further CTV ad innovation

These new ad products are part of a broader initiative from streamers to offer advertisers and consumers a variety of ad experiences.

Advergames increase user engagement, and shoppability turns ads into direct-response channels. Both are priced competitively now, but if they generate above-average engagement, they could command higher CPMs in the future, according to Power.

Products like these are rapidly transforming the world of television advertising, which has—until relatively recently—been limited to standard video formats in varying lengths of time. 

With streaming, the ads are both targeted to viewers and can be more closely integrated into the content, such as the sponsored billboards now on view in Roku City.

“These kinds of ads are certainly going to be more memorable, especially because they are still pretty unfamiliar to most people,” Shields said. “They will definitely stand out, at least at first.”