Introducing Shoppable Video: shop what you're watching

We've launched Shoppable Video - a new way to turn viewing into buying. Products that appear on screen are detected while the video plays and surfaced as purchasable items over the picture, so viewers can buy what they see without leaving the story. It's available on web, TV and mobile, and it works for signed-out visitors too.

What Shoppable Video does

The player identifies products shown in your content and displays the matching purchasable items as an overlay. Someone who notices a jacket in a scene can buy it in the moment, while the interest is still there. Your catalog stops being only something people watch and becomes something they shop - and every minute of viewing carries commercial intent alongside it.

Advertising feeds the same catalog

Shoppable Video can capture a screenshot from a custom advertisement and identify the products in it, so your ad inventory feeds the same shoppable catalog as your editorial content. For advertisers, that's a direct path from spot to purchase - worth considerably more than an impression.

Open to guests, on every screen

The shopping experience is visible to viewers who haven't signed in, across web, TV and mobile alike. Browsing doesn't require an account, which makes it a reason to sign up rather than something hidden behind signing up.

##Also in this release: vertical and horizontal playback

The player now supports both vertical and horizontal content, selected per title. Short-form vertical series and traditional widescreen content can live in the same app, each presented the way it was shot.Shoppable video only works if the path from seeing to buying is short.

This release removes the steps: no leaving the player, no signing in first, and no difference in behavior between the screen in someone's hand and the one on the wall.