Roku’s Rosenberg on Why Brands are Turning to OTT

Kathy Newberger amp160Tell us about Roku39s media business amp160What are the products you are sellingScott Rosenberg amp160One part of our media business what we call the platform business is audience development with our content partners helping companies with Roku apps build their audience amp160The other part the faster growing part of the platform business and the OTT business in general is 15 and 30second spots in more traditional adsupported viewing amp160Today weamp8217re working with a majority of national advertisers in every vertical all the big agency holding companies and are active across every ad categoryOf the many products within the adsupported side of the business the bestselling product is demographic guarantees when an advertiser wants to reach women 1849 for example amp160When we first started down this path folks said amp8220Well isnamp8217t everybody moving away from the Nielsen demoamp8221amp160 Certainly we sell all those advanced campaigns but right now today thereamp8217s 70 billion dollars spent every year against that Nielsen agedemo currencyamp160 So we can go right to the person responsible for a TV budget at an agency and say quotYour audience is migrating out of linear your reachable universe is shrinking year over year amp160They39re moving to OTT they are predominately on Roku and moreover we can offer you the very same currency that you buy against in television todayamp8221amp160 Itamp8217s a huge winThe difference from traditional TV is how much else we can doamp160 We can target based on demographics or viewing patterns and advertisers can bring their own firstparty data and match that to our universe amp160We can do lookalike modeling amp160We also sell interactivity amp160So we39ll sell an auto ad that viewers can click it pauses the thirty second spot and they can go in and interact with a photo gallery of the car or get a text message from a local dealerNewberger amp160What about dataRosenberg amp160Measurement is the huge thing for us amp160We have login data and know exactly who39s been exposed to an ad and weamp8217ve struck partnerships with companies like Placed and Nielsen Catalina and Millward Brown where we can benchmark the impact of our ads up and down the marketing funnel and look at whether exposure to a video ad increased perception of the brand purchase intent store visits or sales liftNewberger amp160There was quite a bit of coverage after your recent earnings call about how important the advertising business is to Roku as a wholeamp160 Can you talk about reach and revenueRosenberg amp160We disclosed that we39ve now hit 167 million active accountsamp160 Thatamp8217s accounts not devices amp160Some Roku users have more than one device and we would count them as a single accountamp160 For context if we were an MVPD weamp8217d be fourth in size after Comcast ATampampTDirecTV and CharterAdvertising is about twothirds of our platform revenue the other third being related to the content side of our business where we typically get revenue shares on subscriptions and transactions amp160Adsupported viewing is over 40 of viewing on our platform today and growing faster than the subscription and transactional parts of our viewershipNewberger amp160Roku is doing groundbreaking workamp160 Any thoughts on OTT as a categoryRosenberg amp160Whenever you39re out offering a new media you39ve got to prove that media works harder performs better than all the other dizzying array of choices where marketers can plunk down their moneyamp160 The fundamentals of OTT are fantastic I39ve worked on a lot of media in my career a lot of propositions amp160The promise the opportunity around OTT is really all the power of a TV ad blended with all the power and benefits of digitalWhen we first started in 2012 there was a resistance to the idea that OTT advertising was important amp160Today everybody acknowledges that ratings are down and cord cutting is up especially in younger demos amp160We now have great research that shows we can deliver 10 incremental reach over a linear TV ad buy amp160We view our mission here to elevate the state of the media amp160The industry is moving way faster than any of us might have thought possible just a few years ago amp160It39s amazing how big the tidal wave is of consumer habits changing amp160And advertisers are following their consumersFor Roku itamp8217s an ecosystem play amp160I think a lot of folks think of us as just another media sales team amp160We view our job as bigger than that as making these things possible not just for our own ad sales team but for content owners on our platformI think the main thing we try to communicate to the market place is genuine excitement That the future is here amp160I think the TV business is coming online amp160It39s got dial tone all the stuff we39ve learned is possible in digital is coming to TV amp160It39s a huge market amp160I just think it39s one of the best places to beClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writersamp160

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Roku’s Rosenberg on Why Brands are Turning to OTT

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Kathy Newberger

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Roku’s Rosenberg on Why Brands are Turning to OTT

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