Roku launches OneView ad platform for Canada

Roku Expands Canadian Advertising Business With OneView Ad Platform

TORONTO — Roku, Inc. (Nasdaq: ROKU) today announced the expansion of its Canadian TV advertising offering with the introduction of the OneView advertising platform. OneView provides advertisers with a self-serve platform, leveraging TV identity data from the Roku streaming platform, to manage advertising across TV streaming, desktop, and mobile campaigns. Roku signed Matterkind, an IPG affiliate company, as the first Canadian OneView campaign partner.

By the end of 2020, 77 per cent of Canadians were watching streaming content**. Additionally, nearly half (46 per cent) of Canadian TV streamers have signed up for a new streaming service in the past 12 months, according to Roku’s 2021 The State of Canadian Streaming Report.

As Canadian households move more of their entertainment time to TV streaming and away from traditional TV programming, advertisers are seeking a toolset to scale TV streaming advertising. The large-scale movement into TV streaming has created new opportunities for marketers to reach and engage consumers with the same level of data and insights available to digital advertisers.

Marketers and their media buying partners are seeking self-serve capabilities to optimize return on advertiser spending by measuring effectiveness across screens with detail, penetration, and data richness not available through traditional TV advertising. OneView, which was built for TV streaming, integrates the reach, inventory, and capabilities of Roku advertising with the identity and attribution tools of Roku’s demand-side platform.

“With half of Canadian TV streamers regularly using ad supported streaming channels like The Roku Channel, and millions having left behind traditional TV for TV streaming, there’s a big opportunity available for marketers looking to tap into this rich audience,” says Christina Summers, Regional Sales Manager at Roku.

The Matterkind partnership with OneView allows Roku to work with the agency locally in Canada as an extension to its global agreement in the U.S. The first campaign ran nationally from May 25 – June 30, 2021, in English and French for a major Canadian travel client, promoting domestic tourism in the country, and has enabled IPG and Matterkind the ability to better reach key domestic travelers like younger families, mature travelers, singles and couples.

“The reality is the industry is at a critical crossroads. Many marketers are still deploying large majorities of their budgets towards traditional TV, where data is generic at best, and the capacity to target specific audience segments is lost. Roku is uniquely positioned to help marketers reach their target consumers at scale with the kind of data rich capabilities and reporting metrics they have come to expect from their digital campaigns. OneView’s first-party capabilities give marketers access to measure and optimize effectiveness across screens to improve ROAS and take advantage of the shift in audience preferences to TV streaming. This is a game changer for marketers looking to reach consumers on the biggest screen in the home,” said Summers.

“Matterkind takes pride in driving our clients’ businesses forward through data and tech innovation and first-to-market test opportunities, making the OneView launch partnership a natural fit,” says Erin Rahn, General Manager, Matterkind. “The OneView DSP allows Matterkind to focus on our cross-channel addressable approach using Roku viewership data that is ethically sourced and privacy compliant, and all with 100 per cent transparency and control. The Platform’s robust offering, such as instant OTT forecasting and more precise targeting across devices and inventory, aligns strongly with Matterkind’s key areas of focus and ultimately allows us to deliver better business outcomes for our clients.”

In addition to supporting the needs of marketers and advertisers, OneView’s capabilities also enable Roku’s content producers the ability to tap into new audience segments, and better monetize their existing and often dormant catalogues to extend reach even further.

OneView offers:

• Better identity solutions – access more accurate TV audience data powered by Roku’s direct consumer relationships
• Further campaign reach – Roku’s data can help identify who are heavy Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) viewers for advertisers to target, both on and off of Roku across all devices and inventory
• Proprietary audiences – activate numerous unique segments based on direct customer relationships resulting in deeper insights
• Instant OTT forecasting – calculate TV streaming ad inventory availability in seconds to plan campaigns that can be activated across Roku and other TV streaming publishers
• In-flight attribution tools – optimize reach, frequency and performance across TV streaming, desktop, and mobile campaigns
• Measured outcomes – measurable demographic delivery or business outcomes such as website visits or mobile app downloads allowing a greater capability to track performance with Connected TV

* Source: According to the NPD Group Retail Tracking Service, Canada, Smart TV, software service name based on unit share Q1 2021
** Source: Estimate using MTM data up to Fall 2020, as cited by CBC, Media in Canada