Recently Roku has been selling ads in its Roku City screen saver. Recently Paramount took it over as part of a deal to promote Paramount+. Now McDonald’s has partnered with Roku to bring Mcdonald’s to the Roku City screen saver.
Here is what these ads look like:
Paramount+ Roku City Neighborhood wasavailable from May 25th through May 29th. Audiences will have an “interactive visual experience” as the companies pair their content with popular franchises including Transformers, Star Trek, PAW Patrol, and even the UEFA Champions League.
The Roku City screensaver was first introduced in 2017 to streamers as an urban utopia, where aliens don’t invade, they visit; volcanoes don’t erupt, they bubble; and monsters don’t destroy buildings, they rearrange them.
According to Roku and Twitter data, a mention of “Roku City” appears once every 12 minutes. Now it seems that Roku is hoping companies will pay to promote their brands just by having them visible in the Roku City screen saver.
Back when Roku and Paramount partnered here is how they described the partnership. The fully immersive Paramount+ Roku City Neighborhood will go beyond promoting brands and content to increase customer acquisition. It’s intended to encourage engagement, retention, and long-term brand-building by tapping into Roku’s 40 million user base. Audiences will be able to sign up for promotional films and series only available on Paramount+.
The question now is will these ads be successful and will Roku find others willing to pay for them.
What do you think of ads in your screensaver like this on Roku? Let us know what you think about this.