Walmart and Roku’s Jingle Bell Love is a Shoppable Movie

Walmart has partnered with Roku to make a holiday movie, Jingle Bell Love, that’s shoppable, allowing people to buy products featured in the film.

The Big Picture: Shoppable programming has steadily risen over the past couple of years during live programming on Peacock, Prime Video, and Paramount+. Walmart and Roku’s production seems to be the first tied to a feature-length movie, which could launch a new type of product placement.

Behind the Scenes: Although this isn’t Walmart’s first foray into shoppable programming — that would be last year’s episodic show, Add to Heart — the retailer has made some changes for the rollout of Jingle Bell Love.

• Instead of making the movie in-house, it partnered with Roku on the production. The movie is already playing on the FAST platform as a Roku Original movie.
• That makes sense when 78% of Roku’s audience are Walmart shoppers, yet 70% of viewers were new shoppers to Walmart.com in recent years. That’s a lot of new people who converted to ecommerce.
• When it comes to the movie, Walmart decided to take a less-is-more approach. Instead of filling the film with wall-to-wall product integrations, it simply has two “shoppable moments” of products relevant to the scene playing.
• Customers can purchase the products by linking their Roku and Walmart accounts beforehand, allowing the shoppable moments to be completed with a single click during the movie with their remote.

Closing Credits: Jingle Bell Love follows a widower who “visits his late wife’s hometown for Christmas and gets more than he bargained for when his 10-year-old daughter matches him up with a local shop owner.” That’s about as Hallmark Movie as you can get — cozy and aspirational. Brands love that. If Walmart’s movie successfully converts viewers into buyers, expect Hallmark, Lifetime, and Great American Family to get romanced by retailers like Target or Costco for a collaboration.