In some global markets livestream shopping has already become dominant, generating billions in sales. In Canada, the channel is young but rapidly gaining steam as more brands experiment in the space. And to that end, livestreaming service Twitch has been rolling out new initiatives designed to enable brands to more fully tap the potential of social commerce.
The benefit of livestream shopping is that it provides a direct path to purchase at the moment the audience is most engaged. At its best, viewers seamlessly click to purchase before the trusted streamer can even finish delivering their carefully curated recommendations.
By industry standards, Twitch boasts a highly engaged audience, which makes it an effective platform for brand advertising. According to a May 2021 survey of Canadian Twitch viewers, 56% are likely to try a brand their favourite streamer has promoted.
“As livestream shopping becomes more popular in North America, we are actively pushing to see how it can help solve challenges for our advertising customers,” says Victor Lu, Twitch Brand Partnership Studio lead for the Americas.
Twitch has developed “actionable elements” for sponsored livestreams so viewers can interact with advertised products in ways they couldn’t a few years ago, Lu says, including interactive overlays that allow viewers to visit Amazon landing pages to make purchases.
“We hope advertisers see this as a full-funnel experience,” he adds. “But it requires a lot of testing, learning and experimenting to see what resonates with our community.”
Back-to-school initiatives with Adidas and Sport Chek reveal the early success some brands have had experimenting with the channel.
To showcase a collection for Adidas, artist and Twitch streamer Suto designed and hand-painted two pairs of Adidas shoes live on stream. Using the service’s chat feature, she drove the stream’s 37,000 viewers to Adidas’ online shop for their back-to-school kicks. The effort helped Adidas remain a top-three top-of-mind retail/sportswear brand among 77% of Twitch viewers polled.
Meanwhile, Sport Chek teamed up with streamer LeahRevelle to promote a selection of products through a live unboxing and show-and-tell. Before jumping into FIFA 22 gameplay – the streamer’s usual audience draw – she used chat to build hype and get 53,000 viewers to help her fill her online shopping cart, resulting in a 42% boost to unaided awareness for Sport Chek and an 8% lift in brand favourability.
During sponsored streams, streamers often use chatbot messages to share links and direct viewers to where they can buy brands’ products and services. But Lu says Twitch also offers channel panels that live on a streamer’s profile page that viewers can click for more information.
For one of its most ambitious Canadian initiatives yet – POG Picks: MultEHverse – Twitch built a Stream Picks Extension, in which viewers are shown a programmed carousel of shoppable products, each accompanied by a description, image and call to action for viewers to click to buy or learn more.
A concept born stateside, POG Picks (“pog” being Twitch-speak for “awesome”) was globalized in 2022 with additional streams in Canada, the U.K. and Germany.
“We learned that each marketplace should have its own flavour of POG Picks with its own approach and format,” Lu says.
Hosted on streamer bobajenny’s Twitch channel on Nov. 8, 2022, the three-hour Pog Picks: MultEHverse event showcased the latest tech, deals and recipes from partners including Samsung, Doritos, L’Oréal, Chromebook and The Source.
Each sponsor had its own segment (or “universe”) in which to engage with the Twitch community, while viewers predicted the winners of streamer challenges, participated in polls and won giveaways by sharing their thoughts in chat. The event garnered nearly 70,000 unique views and more than 380,000 minutes watched.
“We’re continuing to use these opportunities to test the creative and the formats and to find that tonal balance that resonates best with viewers and communities,” Lu says. “We conducted research and from that we know that viewers would like to see more of these types of tentpole programs.”
As livestream shopping grows, Lu says Twitch Ads looks to continue creating entertaining and innovative experiences for the coveted older Gen Z and younger Millennial demographic to gain a deeper understanding to gain a deeper understanding of products, services and brands.
For more information about working with Twitch Ads or how you can be a part of the upcoming POG Picks Summerverse contact:
Chris Walton, head of sales, Twitch Canada, chrisads@twitch.tv
