There’s nothing quite like Advertising Week New York. Held last week, the event brought together thousands of advertisers, brand executives, and even a few celebrities.
With streaming now the go-to way for people to watch TV, the spotlight was invariably on streaming TV ads. Attendees were keen to know: How can they stand out amid the clutter? How can they tailor messages for their desired audiences? How can they distinguish between premium streaming TV inventory and the rest?
During panel discussions at the event, Roku joined brand executives, ad buyers, measurement partners, and others to discuss strategies for streaming TV ad success. Our key advice? Push the envelope with inventive ad formats, capitalize on premium streaming TV inventory, and harness an abundance of metrics to optimize and tweak campaigns.
Here are our takeaways from Advertising Week New York.
Engaging streamers? Think outside the box
Every marketer wants to make their brand unmissable. That’s no easy task in a world where the average consumer sees 3,200 TV ads every month.¹ Amid such fierce competition, a fleeting 30-second ad may not cut through the noise.
In a panel, Roku’s David Hardin sat down with Paramount+’s Director of Partnerships, Mallika Dattatreya, SVP of Partnerships and Life Cycle Marketing, Michelle Garcia, and Director of Media Strategy, Haley Mandel to discuss a creative way Paramount+ gained attention — a custom neighborhood in Roku City. Our vibrant screensaver drenched in shades of purple, blue, and orange reaches millions of streamers,² and is the subject of a social media post every 11 minutes.³
The Paramount+ Roku City neighborhood features Easter eggs from many of the shows and movies available on the popular streaming service. Two Transformers patrol the street next to a stagecoach from 1883. Later, we see Spongebob Squarepants outside his pineapple house, then Beavis and Butthead doing what they do best — watching TV.
“We are always looking for first-to-market opportunities and ways to move the needle in new and cool ways. Roku City is a unique palette that we could completely take over,” said Dattatreya. “It’s Paramount’s blue color and our great IP in a cityscape. It brings everything together. We can show users all the different types of content and it is a great way to bring Paramount+ into everyone’s household.”
While many brands have integrated a building or character to Roku City, Paramount+ is the first to deliver a full neighborhood takeover. Nodding to fan-favorite characters drove brand association and educated Roku subscribers about its rich content library. The campaign fueled buzz and social engagement, and drove action across the funnel from reach to sign-ups to engagement.
“Beyond the increase in app downloads and engagement, we were really pleased with the social chatter it brought. The surprise and delight delivered something fun to fans and also created that brand love element. This was a unique and special execution,” said Garcia.
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The takeaway? Sticking to the traditional playbook may not suffice. Go big to make your brand memorable.
The streaming TV gold rush
In a session exploring the rush of ad dollars to streaming TV, Roku’s Miles Fisher joined executives from GroupM, MiQ, and Spectrum Reach to discuss how brands are ramping up their media investment in CTV.
“We work with a lot of brands and agencies to help them make that transition from linear to streaming,” said Fisher, who leads Roku’s ad platform strategy and sales. “But the real value in Roku is that more CTV ad impressions run on the Roku platform than any other TV streaming platform. Whether that’s in our app, The Roku Channel, or any other streaming service on our device, we help marketers be a lot smarter about reach and frequency using our streaming data and our ACR data.”
The panel also touched on measurement upheavals that are gradually transforming how TV media is bought and sold. One such upheaval has to do with the use of marketing mix modeling (MMM).
GroupM’s executive director of investment innovation, Mike Fisher, noted that MMM tools still often undervalue CTV because they only look at base pricing against a standard panel-based reach - whereas impression-based buying in streaming is far more targeted.
"As an industry, we need to do a better job of coming together to understand the value creation by channel and the impact of better accountability at driving outcomes,” he said.
Measuring ROI and validating success
On Wednesday, Roku’s director of ad measurement and analytics, John Taveras, participated in a session about cross-media measurement alongside executives from Bayer, Epsilon, and Comscore. The panelists covered the need for accurate reach and frequency measurement in an ever more fragmented media landscape.
“When an advertiser buys on the Roku ad network we’re able to manage that frequency across a who’s who of ad-supported services, including The Roku Channel,” Taveras said. “The power of the platform really comes into play in managing your incremental reach.”
Asked how Roku supports the needs of advertisers with different levels of measurement sophistication, Taveras said,
“For advertisers who know exactly what they want, we work backward from there and have to be able to measure all parts of the funnel. We also have advertisers who are just testing the waters. We have to be flexible in how we build measurement.”
Ready to dive into TV streaming ads? Roku’s got your back
Whether you’re a seasoned streaming advertiser or eager to test the waters, Roku is here to help. From campaign planning to execution to measuring success, we’ve got you covered. And if you're aiming to truly dazzle, we’ve got plenty of innovative campaign options — from home screen takeovers to sponsored content hubs to placements in Roku City. Whatever you need, we’re here to help.
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¹ Roku internal data. US Roku households, streaming and linear TV viewership, April 2023
² Roku’s 73.5 million active accounts
³ Pack Your Bags, We’re Moving to ‘Roku City,’ Nov. 2022
