Streaming television platform Roku and ticketing company Fandango have announced a partnership that will allow theatrical advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their Roku campaigns when it comes to ticket sales.
Through the partnership, Roku will become integrated into Fandango 360, a proprietary marketing insights technology that “helps advertisers strategically connect with millions of moviegoers with the right message, at the right time, maximizing their marketing dollars to drive more movie ticket sales,” the companies affirmed in a joint press release on Thursday.
“As the leader in movie ticket sales, serving millions of fans with their movie-going needs for more than 20 years, Fandango is excited to team up with Roku to connect streaming audiences with the most relevant movie ads to make a meaningful impact for studios at the box office,” Mike Hood, the Senior Vice President of Advertising and Partnerships at Fandango, said in a statement.
Nearly nine out of 10 Roku users have gone to the movies at least once over the past 12 months, according to data cited by the streaming company. The partnership aims to provide theatrical advertisers with “a full-funnel view of their media buys, giving them insight into how Roku campaigns impact consumer behavior at theaters and at home.” From there, theatrical advertisers can choose to have their movie trailers or other elements displayed across Roku’s inventory, including the home screens of its devices and The Roku Channel, its free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) platform. According to Comscore, more than half of all households that regularly use a FAST platform are picking The Roku Channel.
“Studios must find the consistent reach and mass viewership needed to break through to moviegoers,” asserted Kristina Shepard, the Vice President of Global Advertising Sales at Roku. “As the daily lead-in to television for U.S. households with nearly 120 million people, Roku has the scale and creative canvas to find entertainment enthusiasts and bring studios front and center throughout the Roku moviegoer’s journey. Our exciting collaboration with Fandango will give studios valuable insights into their campaigns.”
The partnership comes at a time when Roku is increasingly looking toward its advertising business as a bigger driver of the company’s revenue, something that is already starting to happen. During the first three months of 2024, Roku earned $754.9 million in platform-based revenue, much of it from advertising. Overall, Roku brought in $882 million in revenue during Q1 2024, up 19 percent on a year-over basis.
The pact between Roku and Fandango comes one day after Roku announced it was launching a new product called Roku Exchange, a streaming-first advertising technology solution that aims to connect digital ad inventory with demand from buyers.
The platform, called Roku Exchange, “ensures a direct path between premium ad inventory and the leading programmatic ecosystem in the industry to deliver greater effectiveness for our clients,” a company spokesperson said on Wednesday.
