TRENDING NORTH: MAY‘23
A monthly look at the marketing and advertising industry from NORTH’s point of view.
New Roku Advertising & Content Offerings
Landie Viljoen, Channel Strategy Director
Roku — the 3rd most used CTV device in the US — announced new content and advertising opportunities at the recent 2023 IAB NewFronts. The updates included:
New Commerce+ Partnerships: Roku now has access to Instacart retail data, joining Best Buy, Cox Automotive, DoorDash, Instacart, Kroger, Walmart, and other retailers as part of their Commerce+ partnerships. Commerce+ closes the loop on the largest screen in the home with measurement from top retailers and marketplaces, providing unique solutions to shorten the path-to-purchase. The partnerships combine retail media with streaming TV ads to promote brands, matching Roku first-party data and partner transaction data to quantify the ads’ impact on product sales.
New AI-Powered Contextual Targeting: Brands will now be able to run their ads right next to the most relevant moments in every show and movie on The Roku Channel. Roku’s artificial intelligence searches the Roku library for iconic plot moments that match a brand’s message and place their ads in real-time. For example, an apparel brand could run their ad after Tim Gunn says “make it work” in Project Runway, or a new phone company could insert their ads during the movie E.T. each time the main character “phones home”.
New Roku City Brand Experiences: The cityscape-themed screensaver (as seen in the image above), “Roku City,” is now available for custom brand experiences. According to Roku, the screensaver is used in about 40 million homes. This summer, McDonald’s will become the first advertiser to be integrated into the artwork.
New Discovery Experiences: Brands can now sponsor content by genre on Roku’s home screen, reaching users during content discovery. Roku will start with sports and home and garden categories and will continue to expand into other categories.
New Roku Originals: Roku announced a new lineup of Roku Originals, along with expanded opportunities to advertise in original content.
Roku announced new Roku Originals, such as:
- “Side Hustlers”, an entrepreneurship docuseries produced by Hello Sunshine
- “Celebrity Family Cook Off”, executive produced by Sofia Vergara and hosted by Manolo Gonzalez Vergara
- “Carpe DM with Juanpa”, featuring social media star Juanpa Zurita
- “Charlie Makes a Record (wt)”, an unscripted sitcom starring Charlie Puth
Roku also announced the renewals of:
- “The Great American Baking Show” featuring Paul Hollywood, Prue Leith, and Zach Cherry
- “Honest Renovations” featuring Jessica Alba and Lizzy Mathis
“Americans spend more time on Roku than any other TV platform, which means they spend more time here with Netflix and Hulu and Disney+ and even more time streaming CBS, NBC ABC, and Fox,” Roku Media President Charlie Collier told attendees. “Think about this: 50% of all Super Bowl streaming took place on Roku this year.”
Montana Bans TikTok
Landie Viljoen, Channel Strategy Director
Montana’s governor has signed a bill banning TikTok within the state — the first ban of its kind in the United States to ban TikTok on all devices, even personal ones. The bill prohibits TikTok from operating “within the territorial jurisdiction of Montana” and demands mobile app stores make the app unavailable for Montana residents. Violations of the ban include each time a user is offered the ability to download the app. Each violation could carry a $10,000 penalty and enforcement would be handled by the Montana Department of Justice.
More than half of all US states have partially or fully banned TikTok from government devices. And Montana’s full ban on TikTok could lead other states to follow with state-level bans. This could also lead to other “high risk” apps being banned within the United States, either at the state or federal level.
YouTube Redefines TV Advertising
Landie Viljoen, Channel Strategy Director
YouTube is becoming more of a TV company and redefining TV advertising. According to internal data at YouTube, close to 45% of overall YouTube viewing in the US today is happening on TV screens. This was well below 30% in 2020, a shift most likely due to people spending more time at home after the pandemic and the increase in popularity of internet-enabled TVs. YouTube is now the most-watched streaming service for TV in America, reaching over 150 million people on CTVs (Connected TVs, i.e. internet-enabled TVs) in the United States.
In addition to the shift in viewership, YouTube will start to air NFL coverage this fall after buying rights to the league’s Sunday Ticket package. Viewers will be able to watch every out-of-market Sunday afternoon game on their TV and supported devices, either as a bundle with YouTube TV or as a standalone service. Prior to YouTube, DirecTV carried Sunday Ticket from 1994 to 2022.
YouTube is also launching 2 new CTV ad options that mimic existing streaming TV ad types: 30-second non-skippable ads and Pause experiences that allow advertisers to own the unique interactive moment when people pause a video. Yes, these ads will still run in front of user-generated content, creating some debate around the impact of a cat video versus a premium TV placement, but there is undeniable value in the scale of targetable audiences on YouTube and the efficiency of YouTube’s cost-per-view.
Spotify Makes Broadcasting Audio into Podcasts
Stephen Lawrence, Media Planner
In April, Spotify announced a new way for streaming users to engage with audio placements, outside the traditional music and podcast space — called “broadcast-to-podcast”. Spotify defines this new technology as a way to give broadcast publishers an opportunity to join the podcast space, by creating a seamless process from radio show to streaming audio. Between 2019 to 2022, the amount of time people spent listening to broadcast radio online grew 50%, showing that there is a real interest in consumers to listen to traditional radio.
Similar to podcast and audio ad buys, the opportunity for ad placements to be dynamically inserted into broadcast radio streaming creates an abundance of opportunities to continue to build off of streaming audio success. By hitting an audience who has more interest in traditional shows over podcast-specific shows, brands can activate an even larger network of Spotify listeners.
How “FAST” is Changing our TV Watching Behavior
Stephen Lawrence, Media Planner
For many of us, we can still remember scrolling through the channels on our TV screens, bouncing between different networks until we found a show we wanted to watch. Obviously, over the past decade, we’ve slowly distanced ourselves from this traditional, or linear, TV-watching experience by integrating more and more streaming platforms into the mix, like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+. As of 2022, every American household has access to about 5.2 streaming services, on average, showing a continued diversity of content platforms available to us.
However, as many of us have heard over the past few years, many users are feeling overwhelmed with the options. We went from having everything in one place, to paying for everything separately across multiple platforms. Now, a new type of video platform is joining the mix and taking us back to more traditional ways of viewing — called “FAST” or free ad-supported streaming television. “FAST” channels include platforms such as Tubi, Pluto TV, and Roku Channel, which are all free to access, do not need a subscription, and are typically pre-loaded onto smart televisions. The benefit of these channels is exactly what we’re missing from the old linear television days — the ability to scan multiple channels and see what’s available to watch in real time, without any paywalls.
Additionally, “FAST” will likely be making a comeback on streaming platforms as well, as more streaming services look to ad-supported models to keep profits. For example, Peacock has started a “FAST” channel on their platform that allows users to watch television in a more traditional way.
Overall, this movement back to a more linear watching experience is going to be fascinating for the future of streaming, as platforms try to keep up with the ever-changing demands of users in the video-watching space.
How to Make TikTok Work for Advertisers
Stephen Lawrence, Media Planner
TikTok continues to have a stronghold on the social media landscape, and as more and more brands look to the platform to reach their audiences, many advertisers are trying to find ways of integrating themselves into the channel without disrupting the audience experience. While most brands hear the same advice about creating content that feels organic to the platforms, Kantar mentioned one key note that struck interest which is “making a brand centric TikTok”.
When working through creative and planning for TikTok, it is important to consider the overall TikTok experience and create an identity for the brand across video assets. For example, brands like DuoLingo, have created a cohesive experience for users, both on their profile and organically across user’s “for you page”. By creating a storyline that exists across the brand, no matter what the content allows users to feel connected and engaged with the brand, while creating relevant content.
