- Roku is making it easier for small businesses to buy ads
- AI means very small businesses won't need to have or hire ad creators
- Expect many more ads from the Uncanny Valley
Whenever I check my Instagram feed and see far too many awful AI slop ads from businesses I've never heard of flogging things I'm not remotely interested in, I think "man, I wish my TV was like this." And if like me you've also recently been kicked in the head by a horse, you're going to love what Roku's predicting.
As The Verge reports, Roku finance and operating boss Dan Jedda told investors to prepare for a new era. He said "No longer is it going to be about the top 200 advertisers. It’s going to be about 100,000 advertisers."
The goal is to shift smaller businesses – think local car dealers and food places – away from social media ads and onto streaming ads instead.
What are Roku's ad plans for streaming services?
This is a really big deal because Roku is the US's market leader: Jedda said that over 20% of all US TV viewing happens on Roku devices, that the Roku Channel's 2.8% TV viewing share in July put it ahead of streamers including Peacock and HBO Max, and that the firm will soon "surpass 100 million streaming households".
That's a lot of people that advertisers want to reach, and Roku would really like to help those advertisers do that no matter how big or small they are – with AI as a big part of their ad creation toolkit.
According to Jedda, AI means that advertisers will be able to generate "very well-produced" ads within minutes. And that's going to open up ad sales to the previously overlooked small to medium-sized business market.
Roku isn't pretending it'll be the only game in town. But if its AI ad toolkit proves compelling to advertisers, then other providers are going to want to compete with that – and that means more AI ads on everything, everywhere.
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