Roku Builds Branded Content Studio to Pitch Advertisers on Streaming’s Unique Opportunities

Roku’s building a branded content studio for connected TV advertising—a frontier analysts think will soon be dominated by the more efficient programmatic advertising.

This is something brands have been asking for, Dan Robbins, VP of ad marketing at Roku, told Marketing Brew. “They were telling us, ‘There’s far more we can do in TV streaming than just the 30-second spot,’” he said.

For the record: Hulu has its own creative studio, Greenhouse. ViacomCBS has one, too. But neither is a platform like Roku, which serves both an audience and publishers.

So...what’s “beyond” a 30-second spot?

Full-fledged programs. Think: a documentary on fly fishing, produced solely by Roku, and running on the platform’s Roku Channel, but paid for by Patagonia or REI. The studio will also make ads, continue the sponsorships and native advertising it was already doing, and invest in “new products that may not exist today,” said Robbins.

• The studio-produced sponcon will be promoted on its home screen, as well as on the Roku Channel.
• Roku’s also interested in distributing the content to services available through its platform (like Hulu or Tubi) in addition to working with them to produce custom branded content.
• It’s bringing on partners from Funny or Die’s brand team to scale the effort.

Robbins declined to provide revenue expectations for the studio or specific brands already on board, but said more would be announced during NewFronts in May.

Business has been good

Like every other streaming platform, Roku has benefited from the pandemic. It doubled its monetized ad impressions year over year, and it still sits atop the throne as the US’s most popular streaming device, with an audience of 51.2 million active users.

And things aren’t slowing down. The biggest media holding companies have “doubled their investment” from 2019 to 2020, the platform shared in a letter to shareholders, and are committing to drop “significantly” larger spend during the 2021 upfront season.

Bottom line: Roku hopes to leverage this investment to court new partners with fresh programming opportunities. It remains to be seen whether the studio is just a shiny new toy, or a meaningful addition to Roku’s arsenal.