Roku plans to make its first in-person NewFront pitch this year and help more upfront ad dollars shift from traditional TV to streaming.
The presentation will be held at the historic Caldwell Factory in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood on Tuesday, May 3. It will also be streamed.
The event will be Roku’s first live presentation at the NewFronts, following two years in which COVID-19 forced it to hold virtual meetings. Most of the traditional TV networks are also planning to resume holding in-person upfront events.
“There's nothing that really replaces the face-to-face interaction and the real spectacle of a great show. And that's kind of the magic of television,” said Jordan Rost, head of ad marketing for Roku. “So we feel like the natural place to tell Roku’s streaming first story is really live in front of an audience. So we're looking forward to finally doing that.”
The theme of the event will be “bringing Roku home.” In addition to Roku executives, speakers will include talent from Roku’s original programming, advertisers and other partners.
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The key points Roku intends to make are about its original programming, new inventive and innovative advertising experiences and fresh ways to apply Roku’s data to ad campaigns.
“We've been investing and will continue to invest in lots of great, really ad-supportive, ad-first content and we'll bring that to life on stage with the creators, in the producers, and the talent, who bring that story to life on screen, directly in front of the audience,” Rost said.
“We will demonstrate the advertising experiences live onstage in really interesting and immersive ways,'' he added. “Both in person and over the stream, the audience can really see the TV streaming experience with Roku brought to life in front of them.”
Roku will also be touting its OneView ad platform, which helps mount campaigns across all streaming and traditional TV opportunities.
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Rost said that at the upfront Roku will disclose how many advertisers and buyers are using OneView. That number will have four digits, he said.
“That speaks to the whole breadth of the advertiser base,” he said. “One of the most interesting things I've seen is the diversity in use cases, everything from driving incremental reach to traditional linear campaigns all the way to driving new customer acquisition and mobile app downloads on a performance basis.”
Roku operates in the ad market as a digital platform, a content distributor and a media property. While it’s taken time for some streamers to adopt the upfront model, it’s always been an important part of Roku’s business, Rost said.
“Last year, many of our partners committed earlier than they ever have, and we doubled our overall commits,” he said. "The upfront marketplaces is alive and well. If we can deliver value for advertisers and they can ultimately get a glimpse of the future of television everyone wins.”
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Roku has found that it does better with advertisers and buyers who use Roku at home and part of the presentation is designed to bring that experience to life.
“If you imagine what it's like to sit in front of your Roku TV with a remote control and watch TV, and that's very much what it's going to feel like in person. And we want to bring that magic home as well,” Rost said.
The audience will be able to control parts of the experience, Rost said. But they won’t be able to put the presentation on mute, he conceded. “Maybe not total control.” ■
