Early research points to the scaled opportunity
for brands to connect with Gen Z consumers on Roblox via new and
engaging ad formats
Today, Roblox Corporation (NYSE: RBLX) announced video ads would
become available to all advertisers,1 enabling them to seamlessly
reach Roblox’s community of users, ages 13 and up2, across the
platform. This new immersive advertising format doesn’t require
creation of custom-built 3D content and opens up a scalable
opportunity for brands to connect with Gen Z consumers that
represent over half of the platform’s 71.5M daily active
users.3
This press release features multimedia. View
the full release here:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240501299333/en/
Avatars watching a video ad on Roblox
(Graphic: Business Wire)
“By advertising on Roblox, brands can create deeper connections
and engage tens of millions of Gen Z users who represent our
top-spending demographic and spend millions of hours here daily
connecting and exploring immersive experiences,” said Stephanie
Latham, vice president of global brand partnerships, Roblox.
“Our new video ads format offers the simplicity and scalability
that brands want to drive global awareness and consideration. Any
brand can easily leverage our video ads in their campaigns,
benefiting from a format built for this digitally savvy consumer
generation that’s increasingly hard to reach through traditional
and 2D media.”
Available today through Roblox’s self-serve Ads Manager4 and
soon via programmatic media buying, the new video ads come with
expanded controls and features like genre targeting, brand
suitability and an audience estimator. Later this year, advertisers
will also be able to buy completed views—a proven format in the
industry currently being beta-tested in Ads Manager. Video ads join
the broader suite of Roblox’s Immersive Ads offerings that already
include portal and image ad formats, the two solutions helping
brands drive traffic to their existing content and increase
awareness among users on the platform.
Initially introduced on Roblox in November 2023, video ads have
been tested over the past six months with top brands like e.l.f.
Beauty, HUGO, Walmart, Warner Bros. Pictures and global agencies
like dentsu and Hearts & Science, among others:
- "e.l.f. was born to disrupt, shape culture and connect
communities, and it is with this mindset that we are proud to be
part of the alpha test and one of the first brands leveraging
Roblox video ads,” said Patrick O’Keefe, vice president of
integrated marketing communication, e.l.f. Beauty. “We have
been impressed by the way it has enabled us to connect with
Roblox’s vibrant community, and we look forward to continuing to
use the platform to create a foundation for the future as Roblox’s
virtual economy continues to grow.”
- “As a network that prioritizes innovating to impact results,
our agencies can immediately harness the power of this easily
scalable advertising solution for brands,” said Cara Lewis,
chief investment officer, dentsu international. "Video ads
offer a unique opportunity for our clients to introduce their
brands to Gen Z consumers globally within popular immersive
environments in a safe and scaled way, while utilizing video,
social or display budgets to tap into Roblox’s premium video
inventory.”
Early Insights on the Impact of Roblox Video Ads
Earlier this year, Roblox conducted an audience impact and brand
lift study5 with Latitude pointing to positive user reception of
video ads. For example, the vast majority of the study respondents
(75 percent) said they were more likely to notice brands
advertised on Roblox as compared to brands that advertise
elsewhere, and 73 percent see brands that advertise on
Roblox as category leaders.
Study results also show that Roblox video ads can deliver
significant lift across all key brand objectives, from awareness to
consideration, while also boosting user actions, such as the
likelihood to post about the brand on social media, check out its
website and look for more information about the brand. After
viewing video ads on Roblox,6 users were more likely to visit the
advertisers’ experiences on Roblox (+10pp7), post about
these brands on social media (+5pp), follow them on social
media and/or check out the brands’ websites (+4pp) and look
for more info about the advertised brands (+3pp).
“According to three quarters of respondents in this research,
brands that advertise on Roblox ‘feel innovative and unique,’” said
Enrico D’Angelo, vice president of economy, Roblox. “This
sentiment reflects our vision for Immersive Ads, which is to help
make user experiences richer on the platform—immersive, not
disruptive. We are focused on building powerful, native to Roblox
solutions like video ads that bring advertisers inside 3D immersive
experiences and serve their needs of innovating and engaging
communities at scale in these new spaces. We are also leveraging
and building upon industry standard advertising goals like
completed views, evolving them to ensure more authenticity for our
users.”
Scaling the Ads Business With New Measurement and
Programmatic Partners
To offer measurement solutions to its advertisers, Roblox today
also announced new partnerships with leading research organizations
— Integral Ad Science, a global media measurement and optimization
platform, and Kantar, a marketing data and analytics business and
brand consultancy:
- Integral Ad Science (IAS) is partnering on a
first-to-market integration with Roblox to provide 3D in-experience
Viewability and Invalid Traffic (IVT) measurement in complex
environments. Advertisers on Roblox will get access to
industry-leading third-party measurement to verify that their
Immersive Ads (video and image formats) are driving engagement with
real users. IAS's Viewability and IVT Measurement products will be
available for campaigns on Roblox later this year.
- Brand Lift Solution with Kantar Context Lab will
serve as an interim solution for brand lift studies utilizing
forced-exposure methodology for eligible video ads campaigns on
Roblox.
In the near future, Roblox will offer full integrations with
multiple brand lift partners for industry-standard passive
measurement of ad campaigns.
A recently announced partnership with PubMatic will also enable
more brands to seamlessly reach Roblox’s global community via
programmatic media buying in the near future, while Roblox will
gain scaled access to premium brand advertising demand.
Immersive Ads: Part of the Growing Virtual Economy on
Roblox
Immersive Ads represent a growing monetization opportunity for
Roblox creators and can already be found across more than 1,000
experiences on Roblox, including some of the most popular ones
with billions of visits. Today’s launch of video ads
includes publishing clear eligibility guidelines for the broader
creator community on Roblox to continue growing the number of
experiences that can publish ads.
All Immersive Ads on Roblox must comply with the platform’s
Community Standards and Advertising Standards, including Publisher
Integrity requirements. These standards are grounded in principles
of making advertising on Roblox safe, transparent and respectful of
people’s privacy while still creating opportunities for the
community to innovate, engage and earn. What this means for
different audiences on the platform:
- Users will know when they are interacting with ad
content on Roblox, and ads will only be served to people ages 13
and up;
- Ad publishers must meet and maintain certain thresholds
and requirements to participate and earn through ad monetization,
such as being 18+ ID verified or maintaining a certain monthly
unique visitor minimum threshold. Ad publishers’ experiences must
also comply with Roblox’s Community Standards to ensure brand
safety;
- Brands can leverage brand suitability controls and genre
targeting included in the platform’s Ads Manager to choose
experience content that is most suitable to their brand needs.
For more information on advertising solutions for brands on
Roblox visit: brands.roblox.com.
About Roblox
Roblox is an immersive platform for connection and
communication. Every day, millions of people come to Roblox to
create, play, work, learn and connect with each other in
experiences built by our global community of creators. Our vision
is to reimagine the way people come together – in a world that’s
safe, civil and optimistic. To achieve this vision, we are building
an innovative company that, together with the Roblox community, has
the ability to strengthen our social fabric and support economic
growth for people around the world. For more about Roblox, please
visit CORP.ROBLOX.COM.
___________________________________
1 All advertising on Roblox must comply
with Roblox’s Community Standards and Advertising Standards.
2 Ads on Roblox are only served to people
ages 13 and up (58% of DAUs in Q4 2023 were ages 13 and up).
3 Daily active users number as of Q4
2023.
4 To access the Ads Manager, advertisers
need to create an ad account with a verified email on a Roblox
account registered for users aged 13 years or older.
5 Study conducted via Latitude
March 20-27, 2024 among 2,100 U.S. respondents who spend time on
Roblox at least monthly, including 300 in the control group and
1,800 users ages 13-49 exposed to immersive video ads from multiple
brands across different consumer categories on the platform.
6 Brand lift results averaged
across multiple brands tested.
7 PP=percentage point lift
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240501299333/en/
press@roblox.com
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