Roku Making Changes To Boost Engagement
This week Roku announced that its inventory will be available on demand-side platforms for more programmatic purchasing. They’re calling this initiative Roku Exchange, and, frankly, it’s a bit surprising it hasn’t come sooner. Buyers will no longer be required to work with Roku directly for length and timing of ad breaks, as well as additional metadata around networks and channels, such as genre. And this past week Roku announced a nifty engagement hook with a weekly home screen trivia game, reminiscent of those in-movie-theater games. Roku grew its ad platform revenue to $755 million in the first quarter 2024, up 19% YOY. #Roku #CTV
Political Advertising – The Amount Is Astounding
The election cycle is just ramping up and we haven’t, yet, entered the political window, but spending is projected to reach $10.7 billion. That’s nearly 20% increase since 2020. Interestingly, of all channels, digital is projected with a decrease in ad spend. All this while the big tech firms are working to prevent fraud and misinformation, a Sisyphean task.
Speaking of Astounding Amounts
The latest branding wars comes to you courtesy of Novo Nordisk, maker of the weight-loss drug Wegovy. Its “Discover the Power” ad ran 6,271 times on TV from June 3-25. This flight was worth about $42 million and it racked up quite a few impressions – about 2 billion. Ozempic was svelte by comparison, pardon the pun, airing a measly 1,417 times its last flight. With Wegovy’s goal of increasing 35,000 new US patients, if that were to be accomplished from the June blitz, we’re looking at a $1,200 customer acquisition cost. Not bad. But we all know a single-month ad blitz does not a brand make. So look for a lot more ad indulgences from Wegovy.