Roku study shows bright future for home screen and interactive ads
Connected TV home screens are creating additional premium advertising inventory and opening the door for brands that previously couldn’t afford to advertise on TV.
That was one of the conclusions when Roku, Dentsu and WPP Media joined The Media Leader to discuss findings from Roku’s debut VOD Evolution 2027 UK Study, published last week.
The study highlights the important role home screens now play in helping people find something to watch.
It found that consumers appreciate brands who help them with the content discovery process – which might mean sponsoring a curated collection of Christmas movies or a ‘Sports Zone’ that guides viewers to their favourite sports across an increasingly fragmented streaming universe.
Gateway to all TV
According to Mike Shaw, director of ad sales for EMEA at Roku: “The home screen is now the gateway to all TV and ensures nobody becomes unreachable, even if they’re moving straight into ad-free streaming services.
“The viewing journey has fragmented across many content destinations, but the home page offers aggregate reach.”
He views home screen ads as a way to build brands and also achieve performance objectives – delivering the short-term results some advertisers need.
A classic example is the fast-food call-out before a movie night.
Speaking on the webcast, ‘VOD Evolution 2027 UK Study – Meet the UK streamer, your advertising future’, Gemma Lee, partner for AV at Dentsu, declared herself a big fan of the home screen.
“Everyone has to turn on the television, so there is a captive audience when they first enter this space,” she explains.
“Home screen advertising has worked really well for a number of my clients.”
Discussing the TV-OS home screen market generally, rather than Roku specifically, she cited a retail client with a Christmas gift campaign that had never used TV and could not afford broadcast linear advertising.
“They wanted to direct people to their website, so we took a home screen takeover ad with a product carousel, which worked incredibly well.
“This is a good opportunity for clients who lack the budget for mass reach linear broadcast or even some of the video streaming platforms.”
Dentsu recently launched a marketplace for home screen advertising that highlights the incremental reach this inventory can provide and allows frequency capping.
Helping consumers find content
The VOD Evolution 2027 UK Study is based on an online survey of over 2,300 UK consumers who have the internet and watch TV at least once per month. Fuse Insights gathered the data.
It found that people spend an average of 12 minutes finding something to watch on TV and that 60% of viewers find the hunt exhausting.
Some 73% of consumers said they would find advertisements useful if they help them find content. 38% of respondents said they would like a brand more if it sponsored (and led them to) a selection of movies and TV shows.
Not surprisingly, Roku will make its Christmas movies collection sponsorable for the first time in the UK this year.
“Brands can solve a discovery problem and put their name against the fix,” Shaw suggested.
Also speaking on the webcast, Maud Cant, director of activation and delivery, UK, at WPP Media, agreed that home screen advertising is a good addition to media planning options.
“Most people land on the home screen, so this is a massive opportunity to achieve broad reach,” she declared. “You can use this to be very targeted, too.
“This is something we are starting to use more and more.
Cant is positive about combining the home screen with interactivity.
“Interactive ads have become more popular over the last two years and we have seen a strong return for the QR code, which at one point looked dead in the water.”
Everyone on the webcast panel agreed that CTV supports both brand-building and performance campaigns.
Achieving performance objectives
Focusing on the latter, Cant stated her interest in ads where brands can send consumers follow-up information, and ads which simplify the shopping process – including those that drive shoppable TV.
“From a consumer point of view, TV is becoming more efficient if they want to interact, so this interactive opportunity is definitely going to grow.”
As a TV-OS, Roku can ensure there are permissions for follow-up brand activities.
“It is getting easier and easier to click on a button so a product arrives at your house the next day,” Cant continued.
According to Lee, “Interactive ads can be brand building or performance. Where we have used them, we see really positive results.”
Once again, there is an opportunity to help clients with lower budgets, “and show them how great telly can be.”
Shaw believes home screen interactive ads allow brands to do more with the TV set than they could before.
Compete with global platforms
For him, home screen plus interactivity equals an opportunity for TV to compete with global platforms for campaigns that need short-term provable outcomes.
“TV can now play against many of the objectives where historically money has gone to Google and Meta.”
This could expand the total market for TV advertising, he reckons.
Cant agreed with Lee that home screen advertising in general [covering display, content discovery and interactive units] lowers the cost of entry into what is effectively a premium TV environment.
“You can get onto the big screen with a smaller budget,” she noted.
This webcast also explored:
- The reach of premium streaming in the UK
- The role for CTV on media plans
- The value of linear/live TV in the streaming environment.
You can watch the whole conversation and download the VOD Evolution 2027 UK Study here.