CANNES – DirecTV is betting that Pause Ads — those advertisements that appear when viewers pause their content — will soon become as common as traditional commercial breaks.
“Pause Ads… are going to be mainstream very soon,” Matt Van Houten, SVP of Ad Sales at DirecTV, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. “HERO and carousel and commerce formats will be [also be ] much more mainstream very soon.”
DirecTV has been working to position itself as the primary driver of Pause Ads, even winning an Emmy in the Tech category for the capability in 2023. During Cannes, the satellite TV company announced a partnership with TripleLift, the programmatic ad platform best known for its native advertising roots, to enable what Van Houten said is the first programmatic Pause Ad purchases.
Breaking through the clutter
The appeal of Pause Ads lies in their effectiveness and non-disruptive nature. Van Houten cited some impressive performance metrics: “Pause Ads have a much higher branded unaided recall. In some cases, on our platform, [there’s a] 38% higher unaided brand recall.”
The format also enables interactivity that traditional ads can’t match, he said. “You can have QR codes, you can click in our case for tune-in ads, download to your device, click to a VOD asset, click to a storefront,” Van Houten said. “When you look at the power of pause in a moment that is polite and non-disruptive, there’s a lot of applications.”
Bridging linear and digital
DirecTV has invested heavily in unifying its satellite and streaming platforms, creating new opportunities for advertisers. The company achieved a significant breakthrough earlier this year by making linear set-top boxes programmatically enabled.
“On DirecTV, for our broadband connected homes, we have the ability to bring in real-time programmatic advertising to television that has not been done at scale meaningfully in real time,” Van Houten said. “That really helps bridge the gap between digital and linear TV.”
This capability allows advertisers to reach DirecTV’s high-quality customer base across both linear and digital environments through a single buy.
The standardization challenge
Despite the innovation, the industry faces growing pains. Van Houten identified standardization as the biggest challenge facing advertisers trying to adapt to new formats.
“You have a lot of different platforms. We’re all built a little bit differently. We have different advertising infrastructure, we have different architectures that we use,” he noted.
Progress is coming through initiatives like Go Addressable and the IAB Ad Tech Lab. Van Houten predicted standards for innovative ad formats would emerge “probably in the third quarter of this year” and scale aggressively afterward.
Utility over disruption
In Van Houten’s telling, DirecTV’s approach to balancing innovation with user experience centers on the question of what provides the most value to viewers. Subscribers spend over three hours daily on the platform, Van Houten estimates, and the company focuses on creating sticky, engaging experiences.
“If you’re a DirecTV customer and you’re a sports enthusiast, we’re not just getting you to your favorite sports content,” Van Houten explained. The platform surfaces stats, integrates fantasy football, and includes sports betting opportunities.
“When you have a sports enthusiast to provide all these additional features and functionalities and utility, it doesn’t necessarily feel like advertising. You’re providing value,” he said.
Democratizing TV advertising
In the near term, Van Houten sees tech democratizing access to TV advertising across all business sizes. Self-service tools and managed service opportunities are making it possible for everyone from “a mom and pop tailor autobody in New Mexico” to national brand advertisers to access premium inventory.
“Technology and data are democratizing that. That’s where the future will go,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot more performance in advertising because of that. More diverse advertisers pushing more products and services off shelves. So I’m very bullish on where this technology will take us.”
You’re watching “Dispatches from Cannes Lions 2025: Interviews on Innovation”, a Beet.TV Leadership Series at Cannes Lions 2025, presented by DirectTV, EXTE, Fandom, Future USA, Jivox, Kroger, New Tradition, Ogury, Pentaleap, Perion, Topsort, VuePlanner, and Walmart Connect. For more videos from this series, visit this page. You can find all of our coverage from Cannes Lions 2025 here.
