Diving deep into personalized CTV advertising with Swoop and Roku

[00:01] Hi, I’m Marc Iskowitz editor at large for MM+M. And this video is sponsored by our friends at Roku and Swoop CTV is on the rise and Pharma as for marketing budgets move more toward streaming TV and audio and perhaps become less dependent. [00:16] On things like linear TV radio and perhaps some of the classic hdmp engagement Tactics like dinner meetings and things of that nature farmers becoming more enamored with the CTV world. [00:26] But entering that world can be a little bit scary without proper guides. [00:30] So here with me today in the studio. We have two experts in this area that can help advertise theirs to make sense of the CTV landscape. [00:37] Shauna Brown is VP of partnerships at Swoop and Mike Singer is head of industry health & wellness at Roku [00:48] welcome to both. Thank you so much great to be here absolutely. [00:52] What we both just kind of start off with having. [00:55] You tell me about your titles and roles at your respective organizations and Shawna that we start with you sure absolutely so as VP of partnerships. I oversee are CTV relationships. [01:06] Roku included and along with that comes the plethora of things that go into CTV and kind of [01:13] the ways that you can buy CTV with different partners of programmatic and [01:18] Direct IO and different [01:19] ways that you can access that media as well, so yeah, I’m looking forward to kind of sitting here in Chinese and talking about our partnership with Roku [01:27] lot to talk about yes. [01:28] Mike Hugo next yeah, thanks Mark as you noted on the head of industry for health and wellness at Roku [01:34] ultimately I oversee a team that oversees investment in strategy for our farmer partnerships, but really what we’re focusing on is helping to develop and evolve our planning activation and measurement tools and ultimately lead the charge of innovation within ctb. [01:50] So in this year’s swoope mmm. Healthcare marketers trans survey. We saw a rapid rise in CTV usage and harm above budgets. [01:57] 47% on the DTC side and about 80% on the HTTP side, so it was curious what kind of trends are you both seeing in the market, but we stay with you on this one. Yes, so Roku sits in a very unique position in the marketplace considering where streaming platform and we’re not just a streaming channel all right where the number one TV operating system in the US [02:16] and we sit on a mountain of data made up of a registration data. [02:19] and viewership data [02:20] to your point Mark we’re absolutely seeing this trend from linear into streaming. [02:24] Especially since chord cutting has really accelerated. [02:28] That was stimulated really during the pandemic, but we’re seeing no signs of a bathing. [02:32] in the post pandemic world [02:33] 66% of our audience has cut the cord is an unreachable within the linear marketplace, but what I find really interesting is when you look at our audience composition. [02:43] We’re actually seeing substantial growth among our all their audiences as well. [02:47] As you can imagine when we entered the marketplace 18 to 49 tech enthusiasts early adopters that really drove penetration in the marketplace. [02:55] But now we’re seeing older audiences needing to replace their TV’s right doing the research. [03:00] Seeing the cost and really the quality of our products and making the shift over the Roku but also cutting the cord adding to that cord cutting acceleration. [03:09] Shifting gears a bit to hcp. [03:11] all of our partners, you know they know the importance in the value of educating and influencing doctors write but [03:17] Again during the pandemic we saw in person representation that plummeted all right and is not returned to pre-pandemic levels. [03:26] So our partners had to quickly adapt and shift their strategies to find doctors where they are. [03:31] And this is where Roku has played a really big role within that medium mix finding doctors within those blue jeans moments right in the morning when they’re watching the news or tracking financial markets right or at night when they’re binging content and actually. [03:44] Bringing their work home with them at updating patient charts, so it’s been a very exciting evolution to see Roku playing a part and not just the direct to consumer side but also on the ACP side. Yeah, we’ll get into more how you do that in a second channel is to hear what you’re seeing in the market. Yeah, I definitely. [04:01] feel [04:03] aligned with a lot of what Mike is saying. [04:05] from the swoop side of things it’s interesting because [04:09] you’re [04:10] you’re used to the traditional linear as you mentioned kind of off the top right. [04:14] Pharma marketers have historically done really well in the traditional linear spaces. [04:20] which seemed to see TV and even some of the [04:23] agencies having focused on more of these streaming platforms has really [04:27] Risen up very very quickly. [04:29] And I think it’s interesting to see. [04:32] that they can still follow those same audiences from linear to the new channels using those same kind of [04:39] methodologies using our custom audience targeting and kind of bringing that all together to really make. [04:44] the impact [04:45] on the screen what it means to be for those people that are watching right and as you mentioned kind of that older audience. [04:52] being [04:53] part of rokus platform is really important. It’s not just [04:56] going to segment your audience to those. [04:58] You know 18 to 49 you’re really going to be able to reach people when and where they’re watching and I think that’s why the rise and CTV has taken off so. [05:07] Kind of easily honestly, it’s really something that you can’t really have a conversation without including these days. [05:14] Write the meaning health is a topic. That’s so front center for everybody these days right right and we saw a health and wellness searching on the Roku platform jump earlier this year mmm reported. [05:24] From your data and it did break down as you said by age group. I think the younger. [05:28] Segments were looking for mental health subjects or programming and the older groups were looking for physical health programming. [05:36] In my case would be had a bend over entire shoelaces, but we did see that breakdown and demographics there. Yeah, so [05:42] I’m about to shift into that demographic myself. Yeah. [05:48] So things are obviously busy you know in the Roku platform from a from a health and wellness. [05:53] Point of view tell me about the Pharma segment tells that grown and evolved tell us about that Mike yeah. So Farm has been one of the fastest growing verticals at railco, which I think it makes a lot of sense considering the enhanced capabilities. They’re available within CTV right. [06:07] We’re working with partners who have been buying linear for decades right, but have been limited by age gender guarantees which have been the backbone of linear for the last 50 to 60 years. [06:17] But we’re now in a position to deliver the same ad experience. [06:21] On that 65 inch TV right that leaned in living room environment, but now interjecting digital capabilities working with precision Healthcare marketers like a swoop to ensure reaching the right patient at the right time and then ultimately proving out results right showcasing that there was a high audience quality. [06:39] Showcasing that the media was able to deliver scrip lift right and ultimately again Roi on that investment. [06:47] But what we really are excited about looking to the Future we think there’s plenty of runway ahead of us. [06:53] when you compare [06:54] trends like investment from linear shifting into streaming. [06:58] And then you compare that to viewership. [07:00] Going from linear into streaming. There’s still a significant gap between the two. [07:05] We actually did a study with lucid and and compared Roku cord cutters. [07:09] To Linear viewers to better understand, what awareness look like for? [07:13] Pharma advertising and what we found was Roku cord cutters were 32% less aware of Pharma brands. [07:20] compared to Linear viewers [07:22] But we also segmented that data. [07:24] Take a look at brands that had more aggressively shifted investment over the last couple of years. [07:29] from linear into streaming [07:31] and within [07:32] those brands we actually saw that there was a 26% decrease in that awareness gap so again. We’re really excited about the momentum that we’ve built and we still think the future is really bright for Pharma on Roku right as you mentioned. You’re no longer limited by age and [07:49] Demographics you have a much wider swath of targeting options, that’s your disposal. Yeah TV absolutely I mean that’s a lot of our brands. [07:58] They’re entry into Roku and CTV started with dar guarantees age gender and we were actually one of the first streaming platforms to enable dark guarantees. So it was a very easy way in a seamless way to shift investment from linear. [08:10] To streaming because it was a similar currency, but that’s definitely the biggest trend that we’re seeing is this increased appetite to test out and to use precision health care marketing segments because of just the relevancy and the enhanced capabilities that supported to it. [08:25] Sure makes sense. [08:27] So as you mentioned Mike there’s a lot more you know targeting potential you know with a platform like Roku so this is probably a good time to talk about how soup works with Roku to make it more personalized and to target audiences. You know you by building custom audience segments. Can you talk about your partnership a little bit more Shawna yeah, absolutely [08:45] Well at the basis health is personal right everyone has their own health? [08:50] Problems or conditions and that’s personal to you to you to you. [08:55] And so being able to customise our audiences to our clients needs specifically and building those as requested as they come in. [09:05] Is really been where swoope has? [09:08] kind of [09:09] really jumped I think ahead of some of the other Partners in this face and we’ve been able to [09:15] Lean in to the CTV space because we have such customised audiences we’re able to find them. [09:21] When and where they’re watching like you mentioned like the Leaning into that big screen that 65 inch that’s on though. [09:26] On the wall making sure that that message resonates with the people that are watching. [09:31] is how you’re going to get the rois how you’re going to have the results that the clients are looking for and [09:36] ultimately that makes our job at swoop. [09:39] More important we have to be better at personalising and coming up with a custom audience targets and order for those. [09:45] results to continue to [09:47] See the upward trends right. We can’t we can’t take a step back anymore. We have to continue to personalise and continue to work with partners such as Roku [09:55] to find success in the space is really kind of [09:58] what we’ve [09:59] strived for and I think where we’re really focused on. [10:02] Continuing to move forward on that side of things. [10:06] So when our Healthcare marketer survey which we did in conjunction with swoop and other trend that you know we saw amongst the Farmer marketers was that personalization was a big priority for them for the rest of the year. [10:16] tell us about how you personalized and build custom audiences yeah as [10:20] I [10:21] polluted to [10:23] we really do. [10:24] very closely with the [10:26] friends and the agencies to create an audience exactly as requested. [10:31] cater to their needs [10:32] In the best way right, we make sure that if they’re looking for someone that’s treating with a specific condition or diagnosed. [10:40] We’ve kind of made our way into the Healthcare [10:43] practitioner hcp space with you know being able to focus on those doctors and not just on the patients as well so [10:51] finding that data and using that data. It’s AI powered it’s [10:57] anonymised de-identified tokenize all those words that are buzzwords and it’s really [11:04] built [11:05] to be able to do all of that. [11:08] With specific requests coming from the clients. [11:11] um it’s very interesting to kind of [11:14] come from a space where I was used to using a lot of different types of data set. [11:19] Now at swoop in my role here, it’s been really cool digging in and seeing just how smart. [11:26] this [11:27] technology is that swoop is using to make sure that they’re. [11:31] Targeting is personalized. [11:34] to [11:35] ultimately just drive home better results. That’s what everyone wants right. They want their message to succeed in the marketplace and I think that has. [11:44] The work suit has done with the technology side of things and the again all the buzz words is really what’s kind of driven us to the top of the market. [11:54] Sure, we had you actually swoops had a privacy on a couple weeks ago. We had a podcast together. [11:59] And you know you talk about health how the farm industry is moving like you know from the mass market DTC days of old you know the Pharma linear TV commercials. [12:07] More toward a dtp. You know direct to patient or you know who your patient audience is for the most part. You know it’s if it’s a rare disease audience or something like that. [12:15] but [12:16] to being you know you know the privacy safe. [12:18] Company that it is. [12:20] You know they go above and beyond to make sure that you know that audience is it might not be a thousand. It might be five thousand they increase it. [12:27] Manifold just to make sure that they’re maintaining anonymity of that patient population that was very impressed with you know and they go above and beyond you know the privacy the sort of you know standards there definitely a hot Topic for sure but I think that is where we shine is obviously making sure that all of that. [12:46] work that goes into being privacy compliant is [12:50] ahead of the trends for sure [12:52] sure [12:53] like you want to weigh in on the personalization topic as well. Why is that so important so from your perspective? Yeah absolutely personalization is truly at the heart of everything that we do it real cool. [13:02] I know that our conversation today is focused on marketing right and the advertising experience on Roku and how we work with partners like swoop. [13:10] but really [13:11] remember that we are consumer first product right at the end of the day our goal is to ensure that streamers are able to use our platform right have ease of use with that ux and they’re able to find the content that they’re looking for but we’re also recommending content that we feel very confident. They’re going to engage with right. That’s how we’re going to maintained our share that we have against competitors who are [13:33] amongst the biggest in the world [13:36] when you think about streaming there’s been so many great advantages for consumers right. There is the really taking back control from cable companies right that have locked consumers into one to three year Commitments alright. We no longer have to rent cable boxes with a monthly tax. [13:52] We now have free Ed supported content within the streaming space. [13:55] But on the flip side if you were going to say like what’s a weakness. [13:59] I would say content discoverability right the amount of content that’s available is almost overwhelming right on Roku we have almost. [14:06] 7,000 channels on our platform and if you think about it, there’s no real traditional linear. [14:12] Channel guide anymore right like we used to use when we were just surfing to see you know what’s going to be on next within cable right, so it is critical that we’re leveraging our tech in our investment to ensure that we are bringing that content forward. It’s very easy for our consumers to find. [14:29] And ultimately the more engaged consumers are in the content that they’re watching the more engaged. They’re going to be in the commercials that are supporting that content and then we supercharged everything again working on advanced audience Tactics to ensure that that message is relevant. [14:44] It’s a flywheel. That’s really successful. Not just for Roku but more importantly for our partners. Yeah. [14:49] It’s what’s your the Roku algorithm? That is helping to personalise the programming that that person will see absolutely have the option yeah, so select a fun fact for you is we actually are internal data suggests that it takes up to 11 minutes. [15:02] For the average streamer to actually find the content that they want to watch yeah well people. It’s important to ever ride targeting is important exactly right right once you pick your platform. That’s just half the battle. It’s like sorting through things and [15:16] finding age-appropriate content or if this case health appropriate content so artificial intelligence. Obviously is you know the swirling around us as a buzzword. [15:25] Curious Sean and what kind of questions you’re getting from your customers whether they be brands or otherwise about AI yes, we’re getting a lot of questions. [15:33] a lot of questions coming from the brand side of things [15:36] where they’re really interested in learning how the AI is helping power. [15:42] the [15:44] data that we’re using ultimately to build their audience segments right. That’s right there. Whole goal is is to [15:50] Find that. [15:52] Niche audience within much larger pool of folks that you know have to apply by all of the rules that are out there and privacy and it’s a complicated space. [16:03] And AI is designed to make that less complicated for all of the ends. That’s I’m glad you mentioned I mean that’s swoop sweet spot right using AI machine learning. [16:11] To develop generate custom audiences for pharmacology Pharma brands, so that makes total sense and you know absorbing huge vast quantities of data. [16:19] And you know that would give us all fits and then being able to then you know use that data to target a campaign. [16:26] So brand can use its budget more wisely. [16:28] And do it. [16:30] smarter than [16:31] Maybe I can do so. [16:34] It makes me total sense. [16:36] Mike how about Roku how are you? What kind of questions you get from from your clients and how are you using AI yeah? I definitely still early days right, but there’s no doubt. This is top of mind for all of our Partners and we’re expecting this to be the next real big disruptor within this space and it will have major implications that are initially. [16:54] There’s no doubt about that at the end of the day. [16:57] You know we have a long-standing history of leveraging machine learning algorithms. [17:01] To power our operating system we use this for our recommendation engine right. [17:07] to Curate content experiences that we know will be engaging for our consumers we aggregate content for products like a live TV guide which brings your favorite content to the top but really you know because we have a constant connection with our consumers because we power the largest operating system in the US [17:25] we have always on access to proprietary data. [17:28] That we can also analyse and use to segment viewers based off of demographics based off of Interest based off of viewership habits and other relevant factors, so ultimately this is a space that we’ve been working in for a good amount of time now and we think as these products evolved. It’s only going to shrink that our product. [17:46] Sure yeah and when you combined and layer. [17:48] AI powered targeting with machine learning content I think that’s [17:53] Success right yeah absolutely right yeah. Yeah ai ai builts audience with machine learning on the content. [17:59] Discovery side predictive AI that you’ve been using that for years you know you like this. You might like that. You know what type of type and to your point earlier. It’s it’s all about ease of use alright if we can make something that took six steps now three. [18:12] That’s going to be a benefit to consumers and again the more we can use that to power the targeting right and the care of that’s being used. [18:18] The relative goes up and it’s a win for everybody. It’s just a better experience for the consumer overall. [18:23] So we’re going to switch gears and you sort of bring this to a close by getting both of your predictions. [18:27] Mike habit, we start with you. What’s your thoughts going forward for the near term for farm & advertising you know through to say 2025 so a couple of if you don’t mind yeah, the first. I think is interoperability is going to continue to be a huge need in the marketplace alright. [18:43] Working with the platforms and with the partners that are important for our partners. [18:47] It’s going to be increasingly important especially as measurement takes a bigger role right. [18:53] If partners are walling off their data right and they are into passing that data into the measurement tools that are important to our clients. [19:01] I think they’re going to be in a really tough spot in the future the second prediction- is definitely innovation. [19:07] We see it now on almost every brand Brief and rfp. [19:11] clients really want to [19:13] Explore opportunities to break out of that traditional 60 to second 60 seconds to 90 seconds spot and really tap into more high impact executions and area of Focus for US is how do we tap into our home screen? [19:27] To really bring those brands forward. [19:30] and one of the advantages there is [19:32] When you go into the Roku home screen you’re reaching viewers no matter the content that they’re looking to select so if you think about it. You’re reaching people who are yes. They’re watching at supported content, but there’s also an opportunity to reach people who are going into Netflix [19:46] without that edge tear and are not being exposed to any ads during that two our bench. [19:51] So I think over the next several months to a year the products that we’re developing are going to support Pharma again on the home screen. You’re going to see some brands coming to life outside of that traditional pot. [20:02] So obviously the interoperability point you know those those walls are coming down especially as brands build their own custom audience segments with a company like swoop. [20:11] They’re going to be able to compete with maybe some of those walls Gardens you know for for data and in a cookie list world. You know I think it’s going to be a little more of a level playing field there and also you’re saying. [20:20] You know one ad by you know say on a CTV platform like Roku could get them exposure to other. [20:26] platforms because of that interoperability [20:28] and I mean programmatic is obviously another growing trend that we’re seeing in the marketplace and it’s it’s not going to go back right so ultimately buyers want to be able to see their Roku by along with their other streaming buys with with their other channel types understand frequency understand measurement understand effectiveness across the full Funnel right, so we’ve taken large steps to again bring those walls down and we are now fully interoperable. We will work with partners with they want to do Direct IO [20:56] PG or PMP [20:58] so it’s been a big step that we’ve taken and it’s been really well received by most of our clients. [21:03] So Shawna will have to have you take out your crystal ball and tell us you know what you think is going to happen for the rest of 2024 and it’s a 2025 with Pharma and advertising yeah definitely I’m going to pay back off of Mike And interoperability. [21:16] That brings the topic of data clean rooms and data sharing up to the surfaces well. It’s interesting conversation around how data can get places faster better more efficiently every time you have. [21:30] a data transfer, you know there is some loss of data that occurs there so if there’s [21:35] you know a way to keep that integrity. [21:38] solid by [21:39] partnering a little bit closer with some you know brands agencies and points. [21:45] I think that’s going to be a big topic of conversation that does then bring to light the privacy concerns and things that come to play with. [21:53] You know sharing data so exactly how it’s all going to flush out. I don’t have that crystal ball for but I think. [22:00] Along those lines and also come the talk of how do we make the data that we’re using for targeting work better. [22:08] Work Smarter in different ways than before as an example you know if you’re using a target, can you do something? [22:15] In a pre-planning stage to make sure that you’re finding that audience. [22:20] When and where they’re watching on the front end and then to send the messaging through. [22:25] To make sure that it’s actually hitting the right Focus it’s kind of you know that full cycle marketing Funnel I like to think of it more as a circle than a funnel because you want to really make sure you’re starting with. [22:37] a target you go through to activation and then you’ve got the measurement which should really inform and come back and kind of be the next cycle right and keep that going so how do we [22:48] Kind of continue to use the data that we’re building as a target to facilitate a further learning for our brands and agencies. I think is. [22:57] kind of [22:58] the next big step for hopefully the industry [23:02] absolutely and we didn’t mention this but you’re saying privacy is going to get better target is going to get better over the next 18 months or so the bottom of the funnel. I know swoop is a big proponent of using interactive ritual assistance on a brand.com website which then you know you talked about using that to inform your next Media buy those are the questions that you know customers have and then you can use that at the top of the funnel again, so it’s that virtuous circle that you’re talking about. [23:26] Fascinating thank you so much for doing such a great job of articulating not only your crystal ball predictions for the next 18 months but how the two of you work together. [23:34] To make the CTV landscape a little bit less intimidating for farmer brands that want to get involved there. So thanks so much for for doing this today appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you for having us. It’s great absolutely. [23:45] And thanks everybody out there for listening. I hope you enjoyed it as well.