What was once a short TV journey within a single show now extends across TV series, services, and screens. Today, the streamer’s journey begins as soon as someone turns on their TV and ends when they power down, perhaps after completing a purchase.
Throughout this experience, Roku engages streamers in unique, interactive ways that can't be replicated by other platforms, providers or programmers. That’s because our platform is purpose-built to help streamers find more of what they love across their journey.
In short, Roku is the front door to everything happening on TV.
Let’s take a deep dive into the streamer's journey and how Roku helps brands reach the ever-growing audience of TV streamers.
Roku’s unique vantage point allows us to see viewers leaving linear TV for streaming. And once they leave, they aren't looking back.
This ongoing shift gives advertisers the reach that was once achieved in linear TV. But last year, linear TV viewing fell below 50% of total TV usage for the first time, while streaming reached a record 38.7% of all TV usage.¹
Another important change: Streamers are increasingly choosing ad-supported experiences. In H2 2022, only 26% of time spent viewing connected TV (CTV) went to streaming video on demand, while time spent in ad-supported apps reached 48% — the latter marking a 55 percentage-point increase from H2 2020.²
In a world that is ever more focused on ad-supported streaming, Roku is a leader in ad-supported reach and innovation. And our TV interface is critical to both.
No one knows TV streamers better than we do.
As the nation's #1 TV streaming platform,³ Roku's 80 million active accounts provide super-sized reach on the biggest screen in the home, something advertisers can't replicate on individual streaming apps or in linear TV. In fact, native ads on Roku’s home screen reached 55% of U.S. Roku active accounts more than 20 days each month of Q4 2023.⁴ A recent Experian campaign achieved 43% greater reach than the average program airing on a top-five cable channel.⁵
This scale means that Roku has a wealth of first-party data, which we combine with diverse ad formats to help brands reach viewers with relevant messages across the streamer’s journey. For example, Roku's first-party data and deterministic reach helped HP achieve a 108% lift in aided brand awareness and 167% lift in brand favorability.⁶
The streamer’s journey is as varied as Roku’s audience, but Roku provides a wide range of experiences that allow advertisers to engage streamers from the moment they start their journeys.
These experiences transcend traditional formats to drive greater brand awareness, enrich the viewing experience, and guide viewers along the path to purchase.
Let’s examine some of the destinations and formats brands can use to reach viewers on Roku.
The first stop is discovery, beginning with the most premium real estate in streaming: the home screen. Brands can become part of the streamer's journey the moment they turn on the TV, fueling discovery of new channels, content, and experiences.
Roku's eye-catching Spotlight Ad and Marquee ad, for example, are highly visible and create an instant impact as the first creative to greet viewers when they power up. A Marquee ad, which takes up one third of the Roku home screen, is a powerful doorway to reach consumers before they stream.
Streamers spend nearly 11 minutes looking for content to watch, up from 7 minutes in 2019.⁷ Sixty-five percent of streamers favor a single guide or menu,⁸ while 56% prefer a centralized location to access sports content.⁹
To make it easier for viewers to find the content they love, we've created unique Zones and Playlists to align with their interests. Brands can help here too. They can host Roku Zones, which provide a single destination for discovery, creating a powerful, ownable contextual experience. A great example is Coca-Cola’s recent sponsorship of Roku's All Things Food content destination, an immersive collection of cooking, baking, and culinary competition shows.
Another doorway to content discovery, Playlists, allows brands to curate niche content surrounding tentpoles, genres, themes and affinities. In a 2023 campaign, NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes joined Barbie and singer Becky G to create shopping lists of their favorite products from Walmart, accompanied by personalized playlists on Roku with curated long- and short-form videos.
Other opportunities abound for brands to add value to the streamer’s journey, such as gifting viewers with passes for free movies, TV series and more.
Once streamers decide what to watch, brands can add value to and enhance their messaging with thematic video ads. For example, Raymour and Flanigan leveraged Roku’s video ads to drive their localized messaging to their target accounts. The brand reached 4.5 million people and drove 146K store visits from Roku media.¹⁰
Brands can also go beyond video ads with enhanced creative executions and engage with streamers directly within the content they love.
Best Buy Ads, for example, worked with Roku to organically integrate the home improvement brand into The Roku Channel’s original series Idea House: Mountain Modern, which is part of the This Old House franchise. Best Buy’s virtual and home experts made on-camera appearances, and the brand worked with Roku Brand Studio to co-produce vignettes promoting its virtual store offering. The campaign drove 13% lift in consideration intent, and 1.3 million Roku streamers clicked Best Buy's home screen ads promoting the show.¹¹
Brands can also guide streamers along the purchase trajectory with interactive ad formats. When Wendy's wanted to drive brand awareness and customer loyalty, it gave Roku streamers an easy way to order food with their Roku remote, receiving $5 off orders of $15 or more. Seventy-eight percent of viewers exposed to the ads never saw the campaign on linear, and it drove an 11% increase in average order value compared to non-exposed customers.¹²
And when viewers take a break from streaming, brands can reach them on Roku City, our iconic digital screensaver. Brands can organically integrate with the cityscape, such as when Warner Bros. Pictures and Mattel brought Barbie’s Dream House to Roku City. Their immersive campaign also included the Marquee ad on the home screen, promotional tiles alongside Roku's TV channels, and a QR code for purchasing movie tickets from local theaters, making Barbie unmissable across the streamer's journey.
The Roku Experience derives its power from our daily, super-sized reach, our position as the doorway to the streamer's journey, and our wealth of first-party data. We use these strengths to help our advertisers show up in ways that are most impactful for their customers and their brands.
We're excited to share more about how we can help brands be unmissable across this journey at our NewFront event, taking place on April 30th, when we will introduce our new lineup of programming, talent, and advertising opportunities.
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¹ Nielsen, August 2023
² TVision, State of CTV 2H 2022
³ Based on hours streamed (Dec 2003, Hypothesis Group)
⁴ Roku Internal Data, Q4 2023
⁵ Roku Internal Data, 2023
⁶ Kantar Milward Brown, Q4 2021
⁷ Nielsen Streaming Content Consumer Survey, June 2023
⁸ Roku Internal Data, 2023
⁹ Roku Internal Data, Based on a survey of 1,307 Roku users in September, 2021/2022
¹⁰ InMarket Location Attribution; Campaign Flight: Q2 2023
¹¹ Kantar Millward Brown Brand Lift Study, 2023; Campaign Flight: July – December 2022
¹² Roku Internal Data, 2023