Roku is highlighting its ability to support “agile investment plans” by advertisers as it rolls out Upfront presentations to attract more ad spending on its platform. Roku is focusing on delivering advertisers enhanced agility, control and value as they navigate huge market uncertainty.

Dan Robbins, Roku’s VP of Ad Marketing and Partner Solutions, told me in an interview that the shift to streaming, acceleration in cord-cutting and the pandemic’s suspension of live sports and stay-at-home guidelines have led to “each advertiser facing a different reality.” In particular, Dan said more agility is the “number one request” Roku is getting from advertisers. Roku’s goal is to help align advertisers’ spending with actual media consumption. He noted that half of 18-34 year-olds’ consumption is now streaming, requiring different strategies by advertisers targeting this age group.

Roku is giving advertisers more control to change and enhance campaigns. Roku is enabling advertisers to pull national TV campaigns in any zip code within 24 hours if local regulations change. And it’s providing free creative services so that national ads can include overlays and other interactivity. Dan gave an example of Roku creative services helping take a client’s social media and create a TV spot.

Within The Roku Channel, advertisers are being offered equalized pricing for 15 second spots, so they won’t pay for 30 second spots when they’re not being run. Dan said this is new for streaming and has been a hurdle for traditional TV advertisers who primarily used 15 second spots in linear and resisted overpaying.

Roku is also leveraging its new OneView Ad Platform to manage frequency on a daily basis. It is offering incremental reach guarantees, ensuring advertisers only pay for unduplicated reach to campaigns running on linear TV by using its ACR technology to monitor ads viewed in linear and on streaming.

Roku will be streaming its IAB NewFront presentation on the morning of Monday, June 22nd. In addition, it is streaming custom Upfront roadshow presentations for verticals including Auto, CPG, Finance and Insurance, Restaurants and Telecom during the June 8th week. A newly-created “Upfront Hub” will allow advertisers to watch all the presentations through their own Roku devices. Dan said Roku is targeting a mix of traditional TV advertisers as well as digital buyers and agencies’ integrated investment teams.