When it added streaming TV to its marketing toolbelt, The Home Depot realized a number of clear benefits. It was able to connect with younger audiences, align with educational home improvement content, and, perhaps most importantly, transform its traditional TV ads into interactive shopping opportunities.
At this year's Brand Innovators Future of Innovation Summit, The Home Depot’s director of media, Christine Reed, and Roku's category manager of big box retail, Caitlin McKnight, discussed the escalating role of streaming TV in marketing within the home improvement sector.
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Here are three takeaways from their discussion.
Follow your audience to streaming. It’s no secret that streaming is the future of TV. In fact, more people streamed TV than watched cable in July last year. As consumers cut the cord, The Home Depot has begun shifting its marketing efforts to streaming. One example is its 20-year collaboration with the classic home improvement show This Old House. When Roku acquired the series, The Home Depot was able to reach streamers watching the show on its new home, The Roku Channel. This in turn helped the company tap into an audience not available on traditional TV, as a whopping 67% of This Old House viewers no longer have traditional pay TV.¹
“Our potential customers are streaming TV more than ever, so adding connected TV ads to our media mix was inevitable,” said Reed. “We want our brand top-of-mind during teachable DIY moments which now takes place on streaming platforms in addition to traditional TV.”
Streaming reaches younger audiences. For The Home Depot, streaming offers a conduit to younger consumers who either cut the cord or never watched traditional TV in the first place. To reach those consumers, The Home Depot positions its ads alongside informative DIY streaming content like Jessica Alba’s new show Honest Renovations, which offers home improvement tips for busy parents of young children.
“Gen Z and millennials are still honing their skills in tackling big projects or making home repairs. We want to authentically reach this next generation of homeowners where they are consuming content, inspire them to take on home projects, and position ourselves as a trusted retailer when they’re ready to get started,” said Reed.
Streaming makes ads actionable and accountable. Consumers now expect to be able to shop anywhere they stumble upon a product — whether it’s on social media, YouTube, or while watching TV. In fact, nearly 1 in 2 Gen Z shoppers said they have shown interest in purchasing products directly through a TV streaming platform.² Brands too are thrilled about shoppable ads’ potential to facilitate real-time transactions and directly link content to commerce.
The Home Depot has taken advantage by launching shoppable Action Ads on Roku. The ads prompt streamers to click 'OK' with their Roku remotes to receive a text with direct links to deals or product offerings. They’ve already seen success, running Action Ads during the 2022 holidays and 2023 spring season.
Plus, shoppable ads facilitate powerful measurement of performance and ROI. By leveraging Roku's first-party data about each streaming customer, brands can directly attribute their campaigns have on business outcomes.
“Shoppable ads are an exciting new way to connect with consumers, allowing them to act the moment they feel inspired,” said Reed. “Roku’s post-ad delivery metrics provide comprehensive ways to measure the effectiveness of our campaigns so we understand how they are performing and can optimize accordingly.”
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¹ Internal Roku data, 2022
² Roku + The Harris Poll Study, 2022
