Exclusive: Samsung Ads launches discovery solution Sponsored Row in Europe

Samsung Ads has launched its new discovery solution for content partners, Sponsored Row across five markets in Europe, designed to boost engagement to content on Samsung TVs.

The new ‘Sponsored Row’ spotlights advertisers’ content and provides another pathway to discovering new content that may get lost or missed with the fast pace   of new content releases.

Following its launch in the US at the end of last year and India, the Sponsored Row has completed beta testing and launched in the UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain.

Minai Bui

Commenting on the Sponsored Row launch in Europe, Minai Bui, director of product marketing at Samsung Ads, told Digital TV Europe, “It’s a great ad unit for our content partners to not only help with discoverability and help users find their content, but it’s also a great way for them to really showcase the breadth of content that they have as well.”

The Sponsored Row ads takes the user directly from the home screen to the selected content within the relevant channel or app, and sit alongside personalised recommendations.

Bui explained a key driving factor behind the development of the Sponsored Row was to target the “decision paralysis” among users when looking for content to watch and to boost viewership of content by providers.

“There’s so much content and users are feeling overwhelmed,” she said. “So for us creating ad formats and just products in general that help with that discoverability and help them (users) find content that they want to watch quickly is really important.”

She added, “The abundance of content being overwhelming for consumers, that challenge is also faced by these app partners that own and have the content themselves. They can invest so much money into content, but if no one finds it, no one can watch it it doesn’t really matter.”

Performance

During Samsung’s beta testing, when comparing app usage between viewers that were exposed to the Sponsored Row ad versus viewers that were not exposed, it saw an uplift in app usage of 48.1% in the UK and 43.1% in Italy.

Bui said, “We want to make sure that the ads are relevant for that user and that’s a big part of the appeal.”

“We’ve got the biggest scale in Europe and we have the largest footprint in terms of ACR data (Automatic content recognition). We’re able to use a lot of the rich insights that’s developed from these household viewing behaviours to then allow an advertiser to target the right users at the right time. We can harness a lot of the insights from there to create very relevant and advertising campaigns for our clients.”

Sponsored Row rolls out general availability this month to UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain, with plans to also launch in Korea, later this year. The ad format is only available on 2020+ Samsung Smart TVs.

In a press release, Alex Hole, vice president and general manager of Samsung Electronics Europe, added: “With this premium placement, our Sponsored Row format is the latest addition to reinforce our commitment to providing viewers with seamless and intuitive experiences. In doing so we are helping our content partners reach new – and retain existing – audiences. Formats like the Sponsored Row play an integral  role in helping content.”