- After early engagement and brand recall results, Samsung Ads expanded its interactive gamified CTV ad offering GameBreaks with four new titles
- Samsung wants to make CTV a full-funnel vehicle and designed the GameBreaks brand value prop on three elements of ease, repeatability and scale
- GameBreaks are expanding into the UK and to Samsung mobile devices
Gamification and interactivity for connected TV advertising is on the rise and Samsung is ready to play.
On the heels of early results, Samsung has expanded efforts to gamify the CTV ad experience on the electronics giant’s smart TV (and soon additional) devices and make it easy for brands to creatively engage with consumers through new additions to its portfolio of interactive mini-game ad formats called GameBreaks.
StreamTV Insider sat down with Samsung Ads Global Head of New Product Solutions Travis Howe to discuss the GameBreaks strategy, initial results and expansion, and how Samsung is overcoming hurdles for brands to employ new gamified formats as it seeks to reimagine the TV ad break.
First introduced in 2024 with games like The Six, GameBreaks have a dual aim for Samsung.
One is upping engagement and fun for consumers as they watch content on Samsung smart TVs’ built-in free streaming (FAST) service Samsung TV Plus by serving up “snackable” branded mini-games that can be played with a remote at the start of a commercial break – turning the TV ad experience from passive to active.
A second but primary reason for GameBreaks and the expansion is to provide brands and advertisers with multiple options for interactive, playable ads that are not only easily customizable and repeatable but deliver engagement and mid-funnel results at scale.
The effort comes amid a backdrop where Samsung and other CTV and smart TV makers such as Roku, Vizio and more have created respective built-in free ad-supported content offerings and related ads businesses to drive growth as OEMs in general see device margins shrink. Viewers, meanwhile, are tuning in to free streaming or FAST options, which across services and platforms now collectively reach about two-thirds of US TV viewers, per Hub Entertainment’s TV Churn Tracker. But the share of those using FAST has somewhat plateaued, Hub noted, and platforms at large are looking for ways to deepen viewer engagement and encourage habitual use while also trying to monetize those audiences by generating new advertising opportunities and revenue.
Samsung TV Plus itself boasts 88 million monthly active users as of 2024 and engagement with the service in Q1 2025 surged by over 30% year-over-year.
On the ad side, IAB projects CTV ad spending overall to grow 13% in 2025 to reach $26.6 billion – with 68% of ad buyers citing CTV as a “must buy” for media plans, ranking higher than all other video channels.
Still, there’s room for more ad dollars to flow to CTV and as advertisers or their agencies decide where to allocate and try to maximize the value and efficiency of media spend, Samsung sees GameBreaks as a piece of its strategy to turn TV – long known for its upper-funnel brand awareness and reach benefits - into a full-funnel vehicle for brands, including for consideration that’s driven by interactivity.
Beyond adding new mini-game titles, Samsung intends to further expand GameBreaks into international markets, starting with the UK later this year, as well as to Samsung mobile devices.
What are GameBreaks?
Samsung first disclosed GameBreaks during its 2024 NewFronts pitch advertisers and kicked off the effort with inaugural title The Six – a natively-built gamified ad break featuring themed daily trivia that spans entertainment, history and current events.
The initial aim and expectation for GameBreaks was to drive engagement through simple user actions that get viewers to participate in interactive gamified experiences that are centered around a brand.
“The idea of GameBreaks was to really reinvent ad time,” Howe told StreamTV Insider. “It was to drive mid-funnel engagement and interactivity, and it was to provide a snackable way of engaging consumers between pieces of content.”
A key aspect for GameBreaks, which are all powered by Samsung’s own tech, is that the format is templatized. So regardless of the mini-game, the ad experience always follows the same structure.
These “fun-sized” ad experiences run in the first ad slot of premium commercial pods on Samsung TV Plus (think something along the lines of “Take a break with us”), then a countdown clock appears with the introduction of a branded game and ends with that advertiser’s typical commercial spot.
Below is an example of what The Six looks like, which brands can tailor.
GameBreaks show early results, expand to four new titles
Ahead of the initial launch, Samsung expected the format might do well with consumers to drive engagement.
“What we didn’t anticipate is the significant results that it delivered,” Howe said, both in terms of user response and benefits for brands.
To illustrate, The Six on average boasts a whopping 98% completion rate, meaning consumers are engaging with the mini-game all the way through. And initial research by Samsung Ads and MediaScience found the GameBreaks format delivers a 53% lift in unaided brand recall and 1.5x boost in engagement over standard video ads – validating that the format works in creating a leaned-in mid-funnel experience. Another promising stat: 89% of viewers say they prefer the interactive game break format over traditional commercials.
Taken together, “all signs clearly indicate that this innovative format works. And works far greater than a traditional ad spot,” commented Howe.
With early success under its belt, Samsung during its 2025 NewFronts pitch disclosed plans to expand the GameBreaks portfolio with eight new titles this year – four of which have been announced and just became available in June.
Here are the latest additions:
Ripplash – a customizable word-guessing game with animated water effects – imagine a blurry picture and as users guess words the images are revealed and become clear over time.
Pop Off – a fast-paced, trivia-style game that’s tied to cultural moments like holidays and movie releases.
Finish Line – a fill-in-the-blank challenge featuring iconic slogans, lyrics and taglines that increases in difficulty over time.
Eye-Q – a visual memory test game based on short clips meant to boost repeat exposure, brand visibility and retention.
Adding new titles helps create diversity within the format for both consumers and brands.
For viewers, new titles help keep them interested with different mini-games to interact with and not be bored by continued exposure to the same one. It also offers a portfolio for brands to choose from to determine what the best engagement technique is based on their logo, product launch, slogan or other brand-specific elements, Howe said.
Upping interactivity and gamification in the CTV ad experience and driving results for brands with new ad formats is a tactic garnering increased interest in general – including at Samsung. GameBreaks are just one of the interactive formats it’s investing in. At NewFronts it also announced ShoppingBreaks with creator-hosted, short-form content and has partnered with BrightLine on other interactive ad units.
But the area is one where Samsung believes its approach to GameBreaks solves for certain brand needs through a home-grown format that’s designed with advertisers and users squarely in mind.
Brand value prop of ease, repeatability and scale
Beyond the need to prove results to advertisers, Samsung believes the GameBreaks strategy tackles some hurdles that exist for interactive ad implementations in general, such as heavy custom integration requirements, activations that are only one-and-done and scalability.
As mentioned, Samsung isn’t the only platform looking to capture ad dollars with new and interactive ad formats – but sees its mix of hardware, tech and data (including audience) as helping GameBreaks stand out.
To address barriers and up the appeal for brands, Howe described how the suite was created based on three value propositions for advertisers: Providing a very easy way for consumers to engage with brands and for advertisers to integrate, delivering an interactive format that’s repeatable, and the ability to scale.
“We knew that was going to give us the competitive advantage in the marketplace,” he said. “Light lift, scalability, repeatability. And the only way to make it repeatable is to give brands new experiences they could come back and experiment with to drive engagement.”
Easy lift
With a more robust portfolio and a Samsung-designed customizable template in place, Howe categorized integrations and the process to tailor the mini-games as an “easy lift” for brands – where the turnkey nature is part of the appeal.
Again, Samsung isn’t relying on third-party vendors and with a template in place, brands can know what to expect when tapping into any or all of the mini-game options.
For example, for the advergame Rip Lash, brands can integrate with as little as just a logo or a product photo, which serves as the blurry picture that viewers uncover as they play. For The Six, Samsung has collections of questions that brands can choose from or opt to draft their own. For Eye Q or Finish Line, a wide variety of pictures, logos and icons can be used to customize the game around.
The idea is for all GameBreaks to have off-the-shelf integration options as well as the ability to tailor them to a brand’s desired level.
Rinse & Repeat
Importantly, brands can repeat the format.
They can select different games from the suite or update the same mini-game with new customizations for ongoing and fresh interactive engagements, which can also tap into contextual relevance for campaigns.
Howe emphasized the repeatable nature as particularly key. He noted historical challenges, citing a lot of gamification efforts in the industry in Q4 but said they largely centered on a single game.
“It required a significant amount of customization to integrate the brand, and ultimately, it was one and done. It lived on the media schedule once,” he explained.
What Samsung realized going into 2025 is that full-funnel advertising is a critical component of all brands’ objectives, so a one-off engagement driver might not whet the ad spend appetite.
“Interactivity allows a brand to go from awareness into that consideration set, but what they want to do is to be able to consistently drive consideration,” he noted.
That’s where options like GameBreaks could attract, as they’re consistently repeatable and allow brands to have consideration on their media schedule 12 months out of the year. Again, this is doable, according to Howe, because of the light lift nature and diversity in games that advertisers can choose from.
Building out the portfolio of GameBreak titles “creates the best of both worlds, and a very turnkey solution that delivers scale and is repeatable month over month, quarter over quarter,” he noted.
And while television at large has long been known for awareness and reach benefits, getting brands to see it as a consideration vehicle and potentially move consumers further down the marketing funnel is another strategic aim.
Making TV a mid-funnel vehicle with potential to push further
So far, Howe said people have only dabbled in TV as a mid-funnel or consideration driver, so believes it’s far from an expected advertiser experience in the channel at this point.
But the GameBreaks effort does comes as ad buyers themselves expect more results out of video investments.
IAB’s 2025 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy report found US buyers increasingly see CTV as a channel that’s expected to drive key business outcomes – where guaranteed outcomes ranked as the fifth (35%) most important criteria that buyers say determine where they spend TV and video ad dollars. And in what could be good news for Samsung, 30% of buyers cited “innovative placements” among their top five criteria for deciding where to invest video spend.
Just over a quarter (27%) cited digital video (including CTV, social and online video) as most likely to be used to drive “consideration or purchase intent” business outcomes, although it didn't break CTV out specifically.
However, that’s what Samsung is “looking to pioneer” with GameBreaks, Howe said, “changing the way in which people engage with ad breaks and moving them beyond just awareness to a true mid-funnel experience.”
Per Howe, the traditional outcome brands currently expect and that Samsung has demonstrated from the format is that a consumer was engaged or leaned in with an experience centered around the advertiser.
After that, there’s the ability to move consumers further down the funnel with the integration of QR codes, for example, which deliver not only interactivity but prompt a specific user action after the game.
That said, he acknowledged Samsung hasn’t been asked to do much of that lower-funnel, QR-code-enabled capability within GameBreaks just yet – but it’s easy to imagine as a next step.
“What we are starting to see is that as clients are wildly recognizing the engagement rate of this in mid-funnel, that very logical next question is: wow, if they’re that engaged, can we get them to do another action, another step, to further move them down the funnel,” he said. “And the beauty of GameBreaks is it is flexible enough to accommodate those click actions if required.”
Delivering scale, expanding to mobile and international markets
When it comes to scale, Samsung believes its device ecosystem – with over 500 million devices sold annually across the globe - meets the need. Its smart TVs reach three in four US households and the company has continued to hold the crown of No. 1 smart TV brand globally for nearly 20 years.
Still, the company intends to expand GameBreaks – both geographically and device-wise.
With the broader Samsung ecosystem, Howe said the company can offer advertisers “unparalleled” cross-device targeting and real-time and campaign optimization – something that’s been an ask for Samsung from advertisers and that he views as differentiator for GameBreaks’ implementation.
Device-wise, he told StreamTV Insider that GameBreaks is expanding to Samsung mobile devices starting with the Galaxy. Exact timing is still TBD, but Howe cited a target timeline for the second half of 2025.
And GameBreaks are expanding to Europe, starting with The Six in the UK later this year. It chose the UK first because it’s easy to port the English-based games over in the same language while the market also provides scale, audience and engagement based off Samsung TV Plus’ footprint, according to Howe.
Additional regions and countries are expected to get GameBreaks globally and moving forward he said it’ll be exploring more local-language executions as the effort scales beyond English-speaking markets.
Market rollouts are expected to start in Q3 and continue through the beginning of 2026.
Opening programmatic access, expects accelerated demand
Samsung declined to share just how many advertisers are currently using GameBreaks but noted it has “a variety of brands currently signed on” and continues to sign brand advertisers from every major vertical or category.
Howe expects to see “accelerated demand” for the interactive ad format throughout 2025 and already has inquiries about availability for the Q4 holiday season, when Samsung Ads anticipates significant interest from retail, CPG and eCommerce brands in particular.
These types of interactive units are still sold on a CPM basis, but he noted flexibility to report on other metrics like engagement or interactivity. Samsung has already taken steps to make it easy for advertisers to utilize GameBreaks, which are available via direct deal buys, but wants to open up additional buying avenues.
“Given the demand that we are seeing,” Samsung is exploring ways for the format to be purchased programmatically in the near future for 2025, Howe said.
Staving off interactive ad fatigue
Catering to advertisers is a primary goal of GameBreaks, but Samsung still wants users top of mind. To that end it’s taking steps to ward off potential interactive ad fatigue and ensure the offering doesn’t hurt the viewer experience.
While still early days, the smart TV maker is proactively employing frequency caps to avoid inundating or over-exposing viewers to gamified ads.
“We are being very thoughtful around the frequency in which any individual user is exposed to a GameBreak,” Howe noted.
It’s doing this in two ways.
One is limiting overall frequency to avoid fatigue over time, including restricting the number of interactive ad experiences to one per ad pod.
The other is frequency capping at a user level to ensure a viewer only sees the same GameBreak (ie: the same game with the same group of questions) once per day. This helps maintain both the viewer experience and interaction levels, as multiple exposures to the same game in a day would negatively impact engagement rates.
“That was one of the value propositions that we went into this, is ensuring that we need to not only deliver a high engagement rate but we have to preserve the television viewing experience on [Samsung] TV Plus,” he said. “And we have to balance both of those out.”
With interactive ad experiences that appear to be hitting the mark with consumers and benefits for brands to be had, it’s game on for GameBreaks.