Pause Ads: Good Idea or Bad Idea?

Xandr Unveils Pause Ads (at CES 2020) to complement viewer experiences

In short: AT&T's media arm Xandr has unveiled plans to roll out "pause ads" across its CTV content throughout 2020. These new ad units are exactly as they sound: They're gif-like ads that will play the moment a viewer hits the Pause button on his or her streaming content.

Since I recently worked at Xandr, my network is incredibly skewed; I haven't seen a ton of discussion around the potential pitfalls of such a product. As such, I can't help but ask myself: Is it just me, or does everyone in my network seem to be drinking the proverbial coral (Xandr's official color) cool-aid? While the article cites data from Xandr's 2019 Relevance Report on how "73% of respondents dislike ads that disrupt their viewing experience", I highly doubt that the solution is Pause Ads -- which, by the way, are additional to the traditional interruption-type ads that will continue to run across AT&T's streamed content.

Xandr's SVP & Head of Product Development Matthew Van Houten has tried to justify the value of pause ads by pointing out that 1) They're more subtle than traditional ads and that 2) While they don't guarantee 100% of the viewers' attention, neither do traditional ads!  I suspect that many marketers will jump at the chance to participate in this beta launch (for, in my experience, many marketers tend to like shiny new formats). However, I'd caution them to do so, as I'm highly skeptical as to whether the resulting engagement data will prove these ad units' worth. Even more troubling: I have a sneaking suspicion that viewers will see pause ads as just as - or perhaps even more - invasive as traditional ads, in contrast to the company's claims that these ads are designed to "complement viewing activity."

I'll give Xandr's product team this: They've managed to pull new inventory out of thin air; and new inventory means new revenue streams to pay down AT&T's massive amounts of debt. From a consumer and/or marketer perspective, perhaps the one good thing about Xandr's approach to these units is that they plan to use data to derive insights on how to optimize engagement of this new type of ad unit. What data, I'm not so sure - but I'll be watching the news on this to find out!