As streaming behavior dominates the living room, Vizio&#x27;s operating system has claimed the top spot in U.S. television sales by turning the home screen into an active search and discovery storefront. In this exclusive Cannes interview, Chief Revenue Officer Mike O&#x27;Donnell explains how partnering with Walmart Connect allows advertisers to move beyond last-click attribution and track the complete customer path from initial TV exposure to final purchase. Key Highlights 🛒 Smart TV operating systems are evolving from invisible background infrastructure into powerful retail media endpoints embedded directly within commerce networks. 🎯 While traditional audience reach and frequency planning still matter, actual business outcomes have become the primary scorecard for modern connected TV advertising. 📺 True scale in the smart TV landscape requires a balanced formula of distribution volume matched with deep, daily home screen user engagement. 📉 Relying strictly on last-click attribution undervalues the top-of-funnel brand discovery and awareness value that television inherently delivers. 🔍 Designing utility-driven features like centralized sports discovery hubs solves viewer choice fatigue while unlocking high-intent sponsorship assets for advertisers. Resources &amp; Next Steps 🔗 Mike O&#x27;Donnell on LinkedIn 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 3:00 Evolution of Smart TV Operating Systems and User Behavior 4:32 Market Position and Competitive Landscape 6:23 Balancing Audience Metrics with Outcome-Focused Advertising 7:44 Content-to-Commerce Integration and Walmart Connect&#x27;s Role 8:54 Moving Beyond Last-Click Attribution 10:05 Innovation User Experience and Discovery 11:33 Advertising Innovation and Branded Content 12:53 Future Outlook and Walmart&#x27;s Vibe Acquisition

Vizio’s Strategy to Dominate the Smart TV OS Market

Next in Media

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Next in Media

## Participants

- **Mike Shields** (Vizio)

## Transcript

Audience planning matters, right? Reach frequency, it still matters. There's a lot of brands that for a long time... They still want to start there. And for a long time, a lot of brands have been built on television and audience and reaching frequency. But I think the way we look at it now is audience is an important input, right? But outcomes are kind of a scoreboard. Sure.

What we want to do is we want to be able to deliver an experience for our customers that starts up at the top of the funnel. CTV is known to deliver reach and frequency and audiences. But how do we work them through that purchase path? This week on Next in Media, I wrapped up my Next in TV series with my partners at Vizio as I sat down in Canada with Mike Shields, Vizio's Chief Revenue Officer slash Strategic Growth Officer, to talk about how things have gone since the Walmart has fully integrated with Vizio.

As the company is trying to balance classic TV metrics with retail media expectations. Mike and I also talked about Vizio's expanding ambitions for its operating system and where you see shoppable TV advertising headed. Let's get started. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Next in Media. Here we're live on the ground in Cannes, the culmination of my Next in TV series with my friends at Vizio. I got Mike Shields here. You're the Chief Revenue and Strategic Growth Officer. Is that right, Mike? Yes. Thanks for being here. The last time you were on the show, it's funny, it's not that long ago, but things have changed.

I think we were just talking about smart TVs as an ad vehicle. Now you guys are part of Walmart. The integration's gone through. Kind of catch me up on how that's gone and the overall vision. Yeah. Well, first, thanks for having me back on. And congrats on all the success. You're a rare second appearance. Yeah, repeat appearance. I would say things have changed since the last time we spoke. Last time we spoke, Vizio was a smart TV company with a growing platform.

Today, we are a scaled platform that sits inside one of the largest commerce ecosystems in the world. So I would say our ambitions have changed pretty dramatically since the last time I was here. That said, what hasn't really changed for us as an operating system is our focus on the customer experience.

Right. That's so critical. When people buy a Vizio or an on television with the Vizio operating system, they come to us and they want to be able to find whatever they want to watch as fast and as easy as possible. Right. So for us, it's really about making sure we continue to focus on making that as easy as possible. Right. We have fast performance, easy to use user interface, all the content available that they want to watch.

Because when we have that, that gives us the position in the living room to be able to combine ourselves with the scale, the retail marketing experience, and the understanding o...

Vizio’s Strategy to Dominate the Smart TV OS Market

Transcript

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Vizio’s Strategy to Dominate the Smart TV OS Market

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.