Ooyala powers Vudu's new free streaming service, Vudu Movies on Us

Vudu joins the advertising-based video on demand (AVOD) service, offering free HD movies and television shows to its millions of consumers.

Ooyala powers the new video on demand service under advertising model (AVOD), Vudu Movies on Us, from Vudu, the premium video streaming service with free subscription from the American department store chain, Walmart. For the first time, advertisers can access Vudu's millions of highly loyal customers, reaching millions of streams each month across thousands of titles on nearly every connected device on the market.

Ooyala is not only the exclusive technology provider for the entire free service under Vudu's advertising model, but also functions as a representative of this advertising inventory, helping to expand its business beyond the current transactional service (TVOD). Vudu thus places more control in the hands of its customers, allowing them to choose how they prefer to access the library of premium content, either through direct transactions or now also for free through its advertising-supported offer, Vudu Movies on Us.

Vudu uses Ooyala Pulse, Ooyala's comprehensive advertising platform, to manage each campaign of its service under a real-time advertising model. With Ooyala's forecasting capabilities, Vudu can see if campaigns are progressing as planned to meet goals. Otherwise, Vudu is able to immediately adjust and optimize campaigns to ensure they are all successful.

Vudu's vice president of product, Scott Blanksteen, admits he is excited "to launch with Ooyala into the advertising market. Ooyala has quickly become an extension of our sales and advertising operations team, helping us connect with the right buyers, ensuring added value for both sides of the equation, and making the process of entering a new market seamless."

For advertisers, Vudu Movies on Us presents a unique opportunity because the majority of Vudu viewers watch content on devices in the living room, where the content plays in full screen and the ads are 100% viewable all the time. Vudu offers tremendous reach across a broad range of growing demographics as Walmart promotes Vudu to its 140 million in-store and online shoppers each week. Vudu Movies on Us is also available on an extensive list of devices thanks to Walmart's collaborations with a large number of device manufacturers. It is directly integrated with most Smart TVs, Blu-ray players, video game consoles, devices connected to television, mobiles, desktops and others.

Contenidos user friendly

"Due to the emergence of new streaming TV offerings under an advertising model, advertisers are faced with the challenge of building their audience in an application-based environment that lacks unified search capabilities and user-friendly content exploration. Advertisers are faced with significant fragmentation when trying to reach large-scale audiences. Vudu Movies on Us presents an opportunity to place our clients' messages with an application that already has an established audience," says Seth Walters, principal partner of Connected Television at Modi Media, the division of GroupM advanced television.

Scott Braley, General Manager of Advertising Platforms at Ooyala, highlights that "Vudu is at the forefront of offering its viewers the opportunity to choose how they access, pay for and view Premium content. Developing a hybrid approach like this represents a significant opportunity for Vudu, as well as its viewers and advertisers as it represents a whole new premium channel of great content in a seamless environment. We look forward to continuing to develop this new business together with Vudu, using our team and our technology to expand its audience and its opportunities of business.”

The service is now available and accessible through Vudu's existing presence on the web, mobile or in the applications of all compatible devices.