How Roku helped an epic blockbuster drive streamers from TV to cinema.
This 6-time award winning Oscar movie with a stellar cast and breathtaking cinematography came to Roku looking for high-impact formats to drive awareness and enough interest to bring consumers back to cinema.
The odds were stacked against them as cinema viewing had yet to recover from Covid impact in the UK. The first 4 months of 2021 had cinemas entirely shut with no chance to even bring movie awareness through the most basic route, the cinema. British people were still more uncomfortable than comfortable to visit.
The pandemic saw a massive increase in more time streaming, and connected TVs saw major growth. According to eMarketer, 44.5 million people will watch digital video on a connected TV (CTV) set in 2022 - 87.8% of total digital video viewers and the highest proportion of any device forecasted by this measure.
In fact, the majority (69.6%) of UK streamers cited “watching on a big screen” as their top reason¹ for enjoying a movie in a cinema and even better, Roku TV streamers were still pro-cinema.
82% of Roku users said, “Even though I can watch movies at home, I still love going to the cinema.”²
Streaming TV ads needed to work harder than ever before
With out of home advertising and cinema advertising yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels of ad spend, TV streaming ads needed to work even harder than ever before to convince consumers to go back to the cinema.
The movie release needed to encourage consumers to come back to the big screen and blockbuster titles need every opportunity to get cut through. Streaming TV would need to work harder to make up for the shortfall in outdoor and cinema advertising.
TV Streaming Ads are:
- Full TV screen viewing
- Sound on for video
- Premium Brand safe environment
- Near 100% video completion rates
And the assurance advertisers needed to de-risk their investments in high production titles to get the cut through needed if they were to win back audiences to cinema.
The Brief
The theatrical client wanted to promote the launch of the movie with simple yet effective formats resonating well and reaching/influencing a high percentage of their key target audience - sci-fi, fantasy, action & adventure genre fans.
The creative execution was also an important part of the assignment - an original creative idea that delivers impact, but also reaches the targeting audience at scale - not limiting the experience to demo targeting, but rather genre-level interests.
The Approach
Our client was seeking a simple high impact movie launch format.
With over 2 in 3 Roku users becoming interested in seeing a movie after seeing an ad on Roku, we suggested our high impact creative format to drive awareness and intent for the client².
Roku’s home-screen native banner to trailer Brand Experience is a unique format that allows advertisers to endemically place their creative on the home screen through a targeted and customised native banner placement.
This type of custom experience not only allows brands to take their advertising beyond the :30s video spot, but by taking up 1/3rd of the Roku home-screen captivate user attention even before initial content selection.
Once users click on the banner, they are taken to a full-screen auto-play of the movie’s trailer within Roku where they can enjoy an almost cinematic experience from the largest screen in the home.
The Campaign
Dates: October 2021
Target Audience: 18+ year-olds (1) previous cinema goers and (2) sci-fi, fantasy, action & adventure fans.
Campaign objective: Drive awareness about the movie and encourage streamers to watch it.
Solution: Native TV Banner reaching all users before they go into their VOD services and linking through to the movie trailer Roku Brand Experience, seen in full screen, sound on and with near 100% viewing rates.
Results: The campaign recorded a +6% increase in both Brand Awareness and Intent to See across A18+, compared to the control group.
When looking into the younger audience (A18-44), the increase in Brand Awareness was +14% and the Intent to See was at +9% in comparison to the control group.
Consumers came back to cinema overall, with October 2021 recording the biggest cinema going attendance since pre-Covid and October 2021 also being the highest admissions to cinemas in the last 5 years. Cinema goers were back.
Three reasons why advertising on Roku was a perfect fit:
- The right audience: Media and entertainment streamers
- The right environment: for advertising cinema titles before consumers access their preferred video/content services
- The right solutions: to work harder while other media touchpoints had not fully recovered from Covid - namely out of home and cinema advertising.
Roku’s Brand Experiences
Brits spend more than 100 days of their lives deciding what TV shows and films to watch, according to this study by NOW. In fact, 49% take so long to decide that they don’t end up watching anything at all, according to the same study.
Roku’s Brand Experiences are designed to capture users’ attention and drive awareness and engagement. Home screen experiences are delivered to users as soon as they turn on their device through big, bold, noticeable creatives, which means that a streamer will see the ad experience even before they choose which app they want to stream content on.
This is especially important given that some of the most popular streaming apps are subscription based and don’t have any ads making the search and discovery phase a critical opportunity for advertisers to connect with users.
With Roku’s Brand experiences, advertisers can:
- Develop stories built to be streamed on the biggest screen in the home
- Target users backed by direct relationship 1st party data, regardless of their content preferences (subscription or free)
- Impress customers and provide value with creative that goes beyond the traditional :30s spot
If you’re a brand interested in exploring what TV Streaming can do for your business, Roku has a host of ad formats and placements that can be customised to your objectives.
Streaming 2022 and beyond remains a strong opportunity for advertisers
In 2022, an estimated 74.9% of the UK population, totaling 50.6 million people, will watch digital video up from 68.9% in 2019, according to eMarketer.
With more than half of TV streamers saying they will watch as much TV as they did even when Covid restrictions ease, advertisers can look forward to more great opportunities with streaming TV advertising on Roku, and for cinema advertisers specifically, to continue to help bring viewers back to big screen cinema viewing.
Contact us to find out more!
Sources:
- Global Web Index, March 2022, Movie going, UK sample n=2000, respondents 731
- Roku, ScreenEngine/ASI Entertainment Study, 2019
