Today, millions of people will power on their VIZIO TVs to search, discover, stream, and increasingly, shop. And VIZIO is designing every step of that experience to be simpler, more intuitive, and more engaging.
Streaming now accounts for 63% of all viewing time on the VIZIO platform. But consumers aren’t just viewing. They’re exploring, interacting, and deciding what to watch and what to buy.
For Adam Bergman, VIZIO’s Group Vice President of Advertising & Data Sales, that creates an opportunity to design experiences around the entire customer journey—from the moment the TV turns on through discovery, viewing, and purchase—while creating more meaningful ways for brands to connect with consumers.
So, what does that look like in practice?
Collections and AI-powered Voice Search
One of the key approaches to content discovery is VIZIO’s content collections. These collection pages don't just help brands align with seasonal and cultural tentpoles, they give viewers more options while driving time spent, clicks, and brand favorability—”all the right metrics,” as Bergman puts it.
And in the future, he adds, all you need to say is, “Got any Oscar movies?”
VIZIO’s new AI-powered voice search is built on natural language models, meaning VIZIO users can simply speak into their remote and receive more contextual results—with the bonus of unlocking new opportunities for brands to show up in meaningful ways.
VIZIO is constantly refining the customer experience, and we believe voice will play a major role in making discovery more seamless, more intuitive, and more personalized.
Scoring Big With Live Sports
Live sports are an enormous part of consumers’ lives and, just like the rest of entertainment media, are scattered across myriad networks, channels, and apps.
The fractured nature of sports rights can lead to some understandable frustration from viewers, Bergman says. “Where to find my game? Where’s my home team?” VIZIO Sports Zone brings every sport, every team, every game under one roof so viewers can stop scrambling and start streaming.
This means a chance to connect with viewers before the game even starts, Bergman pointed out. The Sports Zone has hubs for every major sporting event, including coverage for major leagues like the NBA, the WNBA, Major League Baseball, the English Premier League and more.
“Sports Zone is one of the most dynamic experiences on-platform,” Bergman says. "And these experiences include plenty of opportunities to reach some of the most passionate, engaged viewers out there."
Growing FAST
Bergman reveals that VIZIO’s WatchFree+ is now the number three app on the platform by viewing time, up 55.6% year over year. That momentum is driven by a massive content library that includes more than 30,000 movies and shows. It’s not just VOD, WatchFree+ has more than 350 live channels across the news, sports, entertainment, kids and families, Spanish language programming and more.
What does this mean for advertisers? Opportunity. Ad formats range from traditional :15s, :30s, and :60s to pause ads and interactive formats—all built with the ability to drive shopping experiences. “When you pair ad supported video with home screen activations, advertisers get big lifts in everything from awareness to purchase intent,” Bergman says.
And with VIZIO and Walmart Connect’s suite of measurement tools, advertisers can see exactly what they’re getting. “Because when we say smart TV, we mean it.”