Whatnot Finally Makes Its TV Debut, and It Brought a Giant

Whatnot has been the biggest name in live shopping for years without ever running a national ad campaign. That changes on Sunday, October 25, when the company's first TV spot premieres during the New York Giants game, featuring Giants running back Cam Skattebo, several Whatnot sellers, and his mother shopping the app's marketplace for collectibles, food, and home decor.

The spot will then run during major NFL and NBA games, plus "Dancing with the Stars," "The Voice," and Bravo programming for the rest of 2026, a media buy built to put live shopping in front of viewers who have never opened the app. Whatnot told Adweek it holds a 60 percent share of the live shopping market across Europe and North America and is tracking toward more than $16 billion in worldwide sales this year, a figure the company is eager to defend as TikTok Shop Live closes in.

TikTok Live sales more than doubled year over year in the first half of 2026, and a Simon-Kucher survey found 60 percent of United States TikTok Shop users are somewhat or very likely to use TikTok Shop Live this holiday season. EMARKETER forecasts United States livestream retail ecommerce sales will rise 35 percent this year to $19.76 billion, with livestream buyers growing 9.5 percent, which is exactly the kind of mainstream growth Whatnot is now spending real television money to try to own.

Source: EMARKETER

Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →