The Multi-Touch Effect: From Power-On to Pause
THE MULTI-TOUCH EFFECT | PART ONE
An advertiser might buy pre-roll through one DSP, a homescreen placement through a direct deal, and pause inventory through a separate partner. Each placement operates in isolation: separate briefs, separate reporting, and no guarantee the same audience sees all three.
The research makes the cost of that fragmentation concrete. Multi-touch campaigns combining homescreen, pre-roll and pause formats deliver up to 93% ad recognition. Single pre-roll alone: 63%. That gap is the argument for building across the full session rather than buying individual moments.
Rakuten TV Enterprise’s Display Extension is built on that logic. Here is what the complete session looks like.
Before the app opens
The session begins at power-on. Via Rakuten TV Enterprise’s partnership with VIDAA, the smart TV operating system powering Hisense TVs across EU5, a brand occupies the homescreen the moment a viewer turns on their television, before any app is opened and before any content is selected. Roadblock placements are available on this surface, the first advertising moment the viewer encounters.
IKEA and Wavemaker France activated this surface as the opening touchpoint in a coordinated campaign, securing visibility at the exact moment the TV was switched on and carrying that presence through into the in-app environment. That continuity is possible because Rakuten TV Enterprise is a publisher in its own right, not just a media reseller: the same company operating the OEM homescreen also operates the app the viewer opens next.
Inside the platform
Once a viewer opens Rakuten TV, they enter a publisher-controlled environment: IAB Gold Standard certified, zero user-generated content, operating across more than 40 European markets. The in-app homescreen billboard places a brand at the moment of content selection. Pre-roll follows within Rakuten TV’s FAST and AVOD content, reaching viewers who have already committed to watching.
Because Rakuten TV Enterprise operates the app itself, the in-app homescreen billboard is available at 100% Share of Voice. ALDI’s App Sponsorship campaign in the UK demonstrated what that means: 100% Share of Voice delivering total environment ownership, 100% viewability, and reach across 1M+ UK households.
At the pause
When a viewer pauses content, the break is their own. Pause ads appear at that self-chosen moment rather than interrupting the viewing experience, reaching audiences in a way that feels placed, not forced. Available across Rakuten TV and extended via Rakuten TV Enterprise’s partnership with TCL, the format adds incremental reach across EU5 and broader EMEA.
The research behind it
Independent research by Omnicom, conducted with 750 German CTV users, confirms what activating across this full sequence delivers. Multi-touch campaigns combining OEM homescreen, in-app homescreen, pre-roll and pause placements achieved up to 93% ad recognition versus 63% for single pre-roll. Unaided brand recall rose from 45% to 67%. More than half of respondents agreed the advertising told a coherent story, regardless of whether they saw the same creative repeated or different executions in sequence.
“The activation highlights the value of combining multiple CTV touchpoints to reach audiences who are increasingly difficult to engage through linear TV alone. The ability to connect these moments within a single campaign delivered both reach and impact.”
Chloé Rouanne, Video Planner Lead, WPP Media
One environment
Because Rakuten TV Enterprise manages every touchpoint in the Display Extension, planning, activation and reporting run through a single workflow. There is no fragmentation in the media buy, because there is no fragmentation in the environment.
That is what it means to be present across the full session.
The Multi-Touch Effect is a Rakuten TV Enterprise series examining what multi-touch CTV advertising delivers, from the evidence to the planning implications.