
The promise of buying a product straight from your television, or any other video screen, has been around since before the modern internet. Bill Gates addressed this possibility in his best-selling book The Road Ahead in 1995. That you could “buy Jennifer Aniston’s sweater” from your television became the exemplar of hype when proposed in 2000 and its potential remains unrealized.
With the Super Bowl, the State of the Union, and Balloon-gate dominating the press for the last two weeks, two shoppable video ad initiatives were buried in the recent news cycle.
Roku & DoorDash
Roku and DoorDash announced a multi-year program where merchants can integrate click-to-order offers within ads on the Roku platform. Viewers engaging these ads receive a promotional text offer that links to DoorDash app, where they can redeem the offer. For example, Wendy’s is showing shoppable ads on Roku that offer DoorDash users $5 discounts on orders of $15 or more. As well, first-time buyers receive six months of free deliveries from DashPash, a $60 value.
This very aggressive offer shows how serious the two companies are about shoppable video ads. And it’s a win for all parties involved. Roku sells ads against the videos it features, DoorDash profits by collecting fees on sales, and merchants enjoy increased sales.
Roku announced a similar partnership with Walmart in 2022, with Walmart providing fulfillment and Roku grabbing the eyeballs of the retailer’s 70+ million accounts. Walmart claimed the effort would “crack the code” of shoppability by “shortening the distance from discovery and inspiration to purchase.” Lofty rhetoric for a retailer, but reasonably accurate.
NBCUniversal’s Peacock & Walmart
Two days after the Roku-DoorDash announcement, NBCU announced shoppable ads will be added to Peacock in 2023. The effort extends the network’s “Must Shop TV” and its “Checkout” platforms by directly integrating with the video service.

This is not NBCU’s first foray into shoppable TV ads. The company has tried to capitalize on the popularity of Bravo’s Real Housewives and like-minded reality shows by introducing a branded shopping area for show enthusiasts. This “virtual bazaar” fits in well with its larger strategy of “One-Platform Commerce” announced in 2020.
In January 2023, NBCU and Walmart added “shoppable recipes” to the network’s Today show, allowing viewers to scan an on-screen QR code to receive a text link that opens the recipe and enables an online shopping cart. Next month, the functionality will be offered on Today All Day on Peacock.
That Walmart is the retail partner for both Roku and NBCU is telling. Amazon’s Prime Video competes with Peacock in SVOD and its Fire TV hardware competes with Roku, making Walmart an attractive choice for nationwide fulfillment.
Other Action
Not one to sit on the sidelines, in December Amazon launched a Prime app branded “Inspire,” where users select their interests (e.g., camping, gardening) and receive a feed of photos and videos that match them. The products featured within are tagged for easy online shopping and purchasing. It has a social element, as well, allowing users to share reviews and text other app users. The feature is currently available on a limited basis, with nationwide deployment ongoing during 2023. Additionally, it’s available only via the Amazon shopping app, not through a browser.
