The insight: Walmart sees a (near) future where customers will shop directly from their smart TVs—preferably one powered by Vizio, which the retailer purchased for $2.3 billion last year.

The approach: Still in the beginning stages of integrating Vizio into its ad business, Walmart is exploring ways to offer more relevant, tailored ads on Vizio TVs in the hopes of encouraging shoppers to interact with the format.

• Select advertisers have been given an early crack at running Vizio ads powered by the retailer’s shopping data—although that access has come with a $200,000 minimum spending guarantee, according to Adweek.
• Ultimately, the goal is to get users familiar with the idea of purchasing products from their TVs: “You can imagine a world where you are sitting down with your family to watch a movie on your Vizio TV, and we’re able to then allow you to buy pizza,” Seth Dallaire, chief growth officer of Walmart US, said in an interview at Cannes Lions.

Our take: Shoppers are gradually becoming more comfortable with the concept of shoppable TV. Over half (51%) of streaming households also engage in commerce-related activities on their televisions, per a survey by Roku and Dentsu. While those activities range from subscribing to a streaming service to renting a movie to purchasing a product directly on-screen, the point is that consumers are already open to spending money via their TVs.

Whether those occasional behaviors become habit will depend on platforms’ ability to offer ads that are personalized and relevant. That puts Walmart at an advantage, given its troves of first-party data—although it faces tough competition from the likes of Amazon and Roku.