“The challenge in branded content has always been, ‘How do I get this great piece of content to the right audience?’” Bergman said. “We have the audience and scale; we have the distribution with the unique nature of our smart TV platform. And then we’re uniquely informed by our TV viewership data.”
A host of other committed sponsors will be announced shortly, but Monday, Vizio plans to unveil four upcoming shows to the VBCS, which will serve as a demonstration of possible content for future advertisers.
Other big hits
The Home Screen is set to take center stage on Monday, with a sneak peek of a reimagined and immersive design that Vizio says will deliver more intuitive, relevant and personalization features. That includes enhancements for media and entertainment companies to promote content, including auto-play video, content deep links, trailers, storefront links and QR code activations.
Additional sponsorship opportunities include thematic hubs, custom carousels, programming sponsorships and timely activations.
The presentation will also heavily future Vizio’s Inscape ACR data introduced during last year’s upfront, which formed the basis of the Vizio Analytics tool. Five of the seven leading measurement companies utilize Inscape data, and Bergman wants to show how Vizio has transformed from a hardware company into a fully-integrated platform.
“Every advertiser in the room is losing scale in cable, and they need to regain eyeballs,” Bergman said. “Using our TV viewership data, we can find households in which brands have lost reach, lost frequency and close that gap for you.”
That also comes into play with the idea of moving beyond the traditional 15 and 30-second ad pod formats. Vizio will add enhancements to its Interactive Ads and Household Connect offerings, which it said drive a greater lift in brand metrics and extend TV-first campaigns to additional devices within a household.
“We can analyze week-by-week reach frequency metrics, conversion metrics; prove that real people are buying real products; and quantify the impact of the investment,” said Bergman.
The Vizio Bus returns
Those that attended last year’s upfront may have checked out the interactive Vizio Bus, which demonstrates all the features highlighted at the presentation.
The bus returns in 2023 outside the venue and will be spotted at various locations around New York during the week.
For Bergman, the bus provides an opportunity for brands and marketers to experience the company’s smart TVs hands-on.
“Buyers tend to forget that they’re customers as well, so putting a real-live remote in their hands and standing them in front of our televisions—showcasing the speed, the intuitive design, the organic fluid nature of our platform—brings everything to life,” Bergman said.
“So much of the ad business and so much of the media business is this strange amalgam of PowerPoint decks and PDFs,” the exec added. “We’re talking about real people who stand in front of real products and watch television.”
