In a highly competitive video streaming industry, ‘Eat What You Watch’ creates a new viewing experience with innovative in-stream ads that engages the audience without disrupting their viewing experience, and paves new commercial ad placement for partnerships.

Viu is an Over-The-Top (OTT) streaming platform which is beating Netflix and Disney in the streaming game to become South-East Asia’s leading platform for exclusive and premium Korean and Asian entertainment across a wide range of genres.

Like any other OTT platform, Viu wanted to increase brand love among its audience to increase loyalty & ensure viewership. At the same time, they wanted to grow their revenue through in-stream commercials, the nemesis of uninterrupted viewing.

With the recent backlash Netflix faced when they announced a potential launch of 15-30 sec adverts that would run before and during shows and films, our challenge to achieve the two objectives of increasing brand love & revenue through in-stream commercials simultaneously seemed impossible.

Media consumption on video streaming platforms have steadily increase in Singapore, and this media preference shows a spike during the pandemic and stayed strong after.

Particularly in Singapore, viewers prefers to binge-watched dramas (K-dramas, Chinese and Japanese dramas) as a preferred option to past their times. Through this habitual behaviour, viewers are likely influenced by their favourite characters on lifestyle choices such as fashion and food.

‘Eat What You Watch’ hijacks viewers’ behaviour of craving food from the shows they watch. In partnership with Deliveroo, an online food delivery platform, Viu now gives Viu-ers the ability to order what they see on-screen.

An AI is jointly developed to analyse drama series with food scenes, and using a unique algorithm, it serves up food matching the scene to Viu-ers.

Remember when you were watching your favourite show and your mouth started watering when that character bit into a juicy burger, well! You’re not alone. All the reports and research we found were consistent and conclusive; our food choices are majorly influenced by what we watch.

Empowered with this insight we were able to add value to our audience’s viewing experience by helping them connect to their favourite show, film or character through food. Giving new meaning to the metaphor, ‘the way to someone’s heart is through their stomach’.

To achieve these polar opposite objectives, we needed an idea that could change consumer perception of in-stream commercials from an unnecessary interruption to hyper-personalised content that enriches their viewing experience.

With a proprietary algorithm, we identified moments across our shows where cast members chowed down on food, and linked the dish to the same food item found on food delivery apps, Deliveroo & Burger King.

When the audience watched their favourite shows and the dish appeared, an instant on-screen notification would pop with the exact same dish ready to be ordered from the app. To not disrupt the show-watching experience, these notifications are small, text-based blurbs that appear temporarily above the show’s progress bar. Upon tapping on the notification, our audience would be taken to our partnered food delivery app where they can place the order, make payment & seamlessly return back to watching the show on Viu while their food is prepared and delivered.

We created the first ever ‘5D’ OTT viewing experience, where consumers could not only watch & hear but also smell, touch & eat whatever their beloved characters were eating in the shows.

This revolutionary in-stream commercial that pops up as characters consume food on-screen, allows viewers a hyper-personalised experience where they can dine with their stars. By making this commercials inviting instead of intruding, we've changed viewer perception towards ads from being ignorable to irresistible.

During the campaign period, Viu registered a 143% increase in click-through rate for their in-stream commercial in just two weeks, with waves of positive reactions from Viu fans online.

New partners from F&B, Luxury and FMCG industries are drawn to this new commercial experience, creating a new revenue stream for Viu.