TV home screens are the next battleground for consumer attention and, thus, ad performance.
On Wednesday, Roku unveiled its new home screen to a small room of partners and press in New York City. The new home screen includes a “Top Picks for You” section, an easier way to access subscriptions and a new search function. All of these features are meant to tailor the home screen experience to each viewer.
Home screens are “one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in streaming right now,” said Preston Smalley, VP of viewer product, addressing the room. Roku and other streaming distributors, such as Vizio and Samsung, have been trying to figure out how to help advertisers reach viewers on their home screens before they get lost in their shows. Reaching viewers while they’re still in the content discovery phase has become increasingly important to marketers reckoning with the fact that so many subscribers prefer ad-free streaming.
But consumer and advertiser needs are very often at odds – especially as media sellers and buyers pursue ad performance by any means necessary.
According to Roku’s own consumer research, 82% of viewers said they would prefer if the show they want to watch displays on their home screen as soon as they turn on their TV devices. Roku aims to achieve this goal with its home screen upgrade, Smalley said. The conundrum for advertisers is that this upgrade represents a shorter window of opportunity to reach viewers.
Even so, Roku is confident it has a way to balance the user experience with advertisers’ wish lists.
Popcorn Plus Performance
While viewers don’t love ads, especially ads that feel invasive or too personally targeted, consumers do like when their streaming interfaces are highly personalized, said Rohit Mahto, senior director of recommendations and experimentation. The more customized the home screen is, the less time consumers have to waste looking for something to watch, he said.
The new Roku home screen lets users control what appears on their own screens by adding or removing tiles if the personalization engine didn’t get it quite right the first time. Those manual corrections also count as data that will feed Roku’s personalization algorithm for both content as well as ads.
On the advertising side, “we’re using the same content personalization signals for the advertising space to make sure that ads feel really relevant to the user,” Frances Callaghan, head of product commercialization, told the audience.
Roku changed how some of its home screen ads display to make sure marketers have a fair shot at reaching viewers while they’re spending (hopefully less) time browsing content. Before, its marquee video ad would run after a user took an action, such as clicking on an app. Now, the marquee ad displays on the right side of Roku’s new content discovery interface. Viewers still need to click the ad for the video to play, but the change in placement means that the ad remains viewable and garners more impressions as a result, Callaghan said.
For example, Callaghan said she was served an ad for NBCU’s “The Traitors” on Peacock and wound up binge-watching the series as a result.
Roku execs didn’t explicitly mention sample ad experiences beyond media and entertainment while they were onstage. But Two Roku devices were on display during Wednesday’s event, with an ad for The Farmer’s Dog on one of the screens, to name one example advertiser. After the panel, AdExchanger sat down with Callaghan to ask a few more questions about how non-M&E advertisers can capitalize on Roku’s new home screen.
Marquee ads are already open to non-M&E advertisers, so brands from just about any vertical should expect improved performance now that the ad format remains on the home screen without being interruptive. Brand recall is one metric advertisers watch for due to the emphasis on reaching viewers before their (hopefully reduced) content discovery journey, Callaghan told AdExchanger.
Over time, Roku expects to use viewer feedback and consumer surveys to continue improving the ad experience. (Generally speaking, there’s a ton of room for improvement in the streaming TV ad experience.)
Ad fatigue is one example of a consumer pain point, Callaghan told the audience during the panel.
Roku’s consumer surveys leading up to the home screen relaunch indicates “a lot of ad fatigue,” she said. Now, “we can take that information and use it to [improve] ad rotation and frequency.” With more home screen impressions available and a road map to continue cleaning up the ad experience, Callaghan said, Roku can “balance consumer [needs] with performance outcomes for advertisers.”
