• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, May 4, 2022

Roku announced a new advertising data partnership with Microsoft, along with the introduction of shoppable ads and a new video series designed to integrate products into content, during its upfront presentation on Tuesday.

On the data front, Roku will match data on its OneView streaming advertising platform with Microsoft Audience Intelligence, which uses data from more than 7 billion Bing searches per month, to allow for linking ad exposure with online searches and browsing — an industry first, according to the company. 

A new program for retailers, also powered by OneView, will pair shoppable ads with Roku Pay to sell products right from ads on the TV screen. Overlays will be added to existing ads, allowing streaming viewers to click inside those ads, then users will get a phone call with a link to the brand’s website.

Roku’s other recent advertising innovations have included adding a clean room to facilitate use of advertisers’ first-party data and introducing Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings audience guarantees and a watermark that validates video ads on its platform. 

At the upfronts, Roku also announced a new product integration offering through its year-old Roku Brand Studio.

“The Short List,” a partnership with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, will integrate brands in 12 short-form films across the drama, comedy, documentary and animation genres.

The Roku Channel and Hello Sunshine previously announced a partnership to produce an unscripted series dubbed “To Paris For Love: A Reality Rom Com.”

In addition, Roku unveiled a roster of new Roku Originals programming, including seven original series for The Roku Channel to be hosted by lifestyle/cooking celebrities Martha Stewart, Emeril Lagasse and Christopher Kimball, through co-production deals with Marquee Brands and Milk Street Studios.

Other new coming titles will include “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” starring Daniel Radcliffe and Evan Rachel Wood; “SLIP,” starring Zoe Lister-Jones; “The Great American Baking Show,” starring Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith; and “Honest Renovations,” starring Jessica Alba and Lizzy Mathis.