Recent findings have called into question the widely accepted idea that users naturally appreciate and engage more with well-adapted marketing. Evan Shapiro, CEO of ESHAP, discusses this topic with Smriti Sharma, Consumer Insights Manager at Publishers Clearing House, and Matt Farina, Senior Vice President of Content Distribution at NBCUniversal, in this Streaming Media Connect 2023 video.

Many companies have invested so much in recent years in personalizing their things. But when we conducted the study, 54% of people did not care about ad personalization, 35% did not appreciate personalization, and 11% appreciated personalization. So even though the vast majority of people did not care, they watched ads when they wanted to or did not watch them, but they did not care about personalization, which was surprising.”

How important is personalized advertising in streaming?

Personalized advertising is still important but is not the only approach to optimizing the user experience. Scale is essential, he says, but even more important is “making it easier for buyers to transact on our inventory,” he says.

“There are many things that go into this piece, but on the personalization side, in addition to data and care for an ad for an individual user, there are all these enhancements where we can use the opportunity from an advertising standpoint to delight the consumer. Things like ‘pause ads’…

What are pause ads in streaming?

They are ads that come up when you pause your TV and want to go get a drink or something, in the background, you get a brand experience card, which is actually an ad spot. It’s an interesting new technique to avoid the disintermediation of advertising. And it’s a bit like the first-screen experience. Samsung gets a huge advantage from it. I don’t think Roku gets enough, to be honest.