Pause ads pay off on streaming, according to research

Pause ads may be the key to upping consumer engagement, according to new research.

Around half of streaming viewers have taken some action upon seeing a pause ad, according to a report from the Video Advertising Bureau, a trade organization that represents major media companies including Disney+, NBCUniversal, and Paramount+.

Pause ads, which appear on screen when a consumer halts a TV show or movie to, say, run to the bathroom or grab a snack from the kitchen, have become increasingly commonplace across the streaming landscape, and platforms including Max, Hulu, and Peacock (which are all VAB members) have all incorporated pause ads as they focus on increasing revenue.

We broke down some of the VAB’s other findings below:

A rise in live sports viewing: Of 1,600 TV consumers surveyed, 50% reported using a subscription streaming service to watch live sports in the past 12 months. Streamers are looking to invest in live sports, and particularly women’s sports, according to Danielle DeLauro, EVP of the VAB.

“Obviously [women’s sports have] gotten a lot of media attention in the last month because of Caitlin Clark,” she told Marketing Brew, but investment in women’s sports has been growing for years, DeLauro said, and sporting events like the 2023 Women’s World Cup and women’s March Madness have smashed viewership records.

“The question moving forward is, what other sports are under-invested in that women participate in?” she said. “That’s probably where a lot of programmers at this moment are looking. Where can they potentially be the first movers?”

Content preferences: Beyond sports content, more viewers (73%) said they preferred all episodes of a streaming show to debut at once, versus receiving new episodes weekly (52%), the report said.

Older consumers prefer free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels because of their “cable-like experience without the commitment,” the report found.

Shop smart: Certain shoppable ad formats received more engagement from viewers than others, according to the report. Of those surveyed, 67% said they’d interacted with an ad that they could click on to receive information via an email or device, while explorable ads and “click to buy” ads also saw high engagement, at 62% and 58% each. QR codes, meanwhile, were less popular: just 36% of survey respondents indicated that they’d interacted with one.