Connected TV is no longer just a buzzword in the ad world — it’s where the industry is being reinvented. Audiences aren’t just watching differently; they’re shopping, engaging, and co-viewing in ways that open new creative doors for brands. And sitting at the intersection of entertainment and advertising is Roku, a company that’s helping marketers meet these shifts head-on. In this episode of The Big Impression, Roku’s VP of advertising, marketing & measurement, Sarah Harms, explains why the company is uniquely positioned as a publisher and an operating system.
Connected TV is no longer just a buzzword in the ad world — it’s where the industry is being reinvented. Audiences aren’t just watching differently; they’re shopping, engaging, and co-viewing in ways that open new creative doors for brands. And sitting at the intersection of entertainment and advertising is Roku, a company that’s helping marketers meet these shifts head-on.
In this episode of The Big Impression, Roku’s VP of advertising, marketing & measurement, Sarah Harms, explains why the company is uniquely positioned as a publisher and an operating system.
Episode Transcript
Please note, this transcript may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.
Damian Fowler (00:00):
I'm Damian Fowler.
Ilyse Liffreing (00:01):
And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.
Damian Fowler (00:02):
And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.
Ilyse Liffreing (00:09):
Today we're talking about how streaming and connected TV are transforming not just how we watch, but how brands connect with audiences.
Damian Fowler (00:17):
Our guest is Sarah Harms vice president of advertising, marketing and measurement at Roku. She leads the strategy behind Roku's advertising business, helping brands tap into streaming's growing audience while building smarter measurement tools along the way.
Ilyse Liffreing (00:32):
Before Roku, Sarah built her expertise across both the buy and sell sides of the industry with leadership roles at Microsoft XR and wpp giving her a unique perspective on how ad tech data and storytelling all come together on Connected tv.
Damian Fowler (00:49):
We'll talk about how Roku's helping brands of all scientists meet new viewer behaviors, build more effective campaigns, and push the creative boundaries of what's possible on CTV.
Ilyse Liffreing (01:00):
So let's get into it.
Damian Fowler (01:03):
So Sarah Roku is in a pretty unique spot right now, right? Between entertainment and ads with this latest brand or measurement move, what got it started? Was there an insight or audience need that really stood out to you?
Sarah Harms (01:17):
Yeah, so in my role I run ad marketing and measurement. So much of my job is us as a marketer, so marketing roku's, advertising proposition, but also in support of our marketers. And so that makes my job very fun. And so a lot of this conversation today, I'm going to go back and forth between my job as a marketer, but also my job in B2B advertising of driving marketers results on our platform. Something that's really fun about Roku is that we're a publisher, but we're also the largest operating system in the us. We see consumers come through our front door to get to the content they know and love and care about. And so that gives us a really rich canvas for supporting some of our marketers initiatives. And so for example, the Super Bowl was very fun for us, whether it was using our platform to drive traffic to Tuby or to build really fun brand experiences on our canvases.
(02:13):
So we had, when Sally met Hellman's and we had Hellman's and Roku City and we had the Super Bowl ad and a really lovely zone destination to drive shopping and drive purchases of Hellman's mayonnaise, which you really wouldn't expect from a television advertising experience. And so I think that was a fun one from us in supportive marketers. And then a whole part of my job is making sure our advertisers really know about the Roku experience. And so while it's B2B, it would be silly not to address them in a B2C capacity because our marketers could also be customers, the need to understand the value of the Roku experience even if they don't have a television
Damian Fowler (02:53):
From ro. Once you realize your customers could be businesses, consumers, or both, how did that shift your strategy? Did it change the way you approach things?
Sarah Harms (03:01):
I think it's just strategic use of our resources and a strategic use of our messaging. We certainly think the Roku experience as an operating system is delightful and easy and intuitive. We talk about how your mother-in-law can set it up herself as the example we always use. And so we certainly want our advertising customers to know that too because it really is a beautiful, elegant experience for advertising as well, for watching content.
Ilyse Liffreing (03:28):
So you've got such a big range of advertisers from big Fortune five hundreds to D two C brands to B2B. How do you build campaigns or measurements that flex for either of them but still stay true to your own approach?
Sarah Harms (03:44):
Great. So I'll address that as a speaking to the advertising community part of my job, we certainly are on a journey to evolve our strategy to be more flexible and meet our customers where they want us to be, whether it being in their buying platforms of choice or providing optionality to a D two C customer by giving them a very lightweight, intuitive self-service platform like Roku Ads Manager. And so I think a lot of it from a measurement standpoint is doing some education. I think some of the questions were ground around CTV is still somewhat new, but I don't know if it's new, but it's certainly new in the eyes of performance. And so it's a lot of education about how we can enable customers to drive true outcomes using connected television. And so whether it's ad manager or unique measurement integrations, shoppable formats, we really try to address all of that
Ilyse Liffreing (04:36):
Now. Streaming's completely changed how people watch from binging to co-viewing and basically everything in between. How do cultural or data trends help shape what you're doing on the platform?
Sarah Harms (04:48):
Yeah, I mean it's been so interesting to see it change even since the pandemic. I think for a long time CTV was synonymous with SVOD or subscription video on demand. We're very much seen that is not the case anymore. A majority of our households are using some form of A VOD, we're advertising video on demand. And so that trend coupled with live sports coming into CTV and streaming, it's really just driven a whole new slew of opportunities for advertising. And so off the back of that, that's more addressable, more accountable television because it is connected television. And so that's been fun from a education standpoint, it's been fun from a how do we enable our platform to address that and also how do we educate our customers from a measurement standpoint.
Damian Fowler (05:37):
So what's the ad experience like on Roku? You mentioned CTV and it sounds like there's a pretty wide mix of formats. Can you break that down a little more?
Sarah Harms (05:46):
I'd love to because I think that's again, where my role as a B2B marketer, it's of course helpful to inform our clients about our experiences then they might not have a Roku device or television. And so we think about our business in really two core buckets. We have the Roku experiences, which is our beautiful ui, so native home screen units, they're customized, they're elegant, and we have some of our more kind of viral experiences like Roku City, which is fun and delightful. We're now doing brand integrations there. But then on the other side, we're also a very scaled publisher. So the Roku channel continues to climb Nielsen's Gauge in terms of total TV content time. And so that is allowing us to be a very kind of open interoperable, performant publisher as well with standard video that's available programmatically. It's available with unique measurement integrations, and that's really our ecosystem being an interoperable partner in the space.
Ilyse Liffreing (06:43):
Roku City is that fun, animated screensaver, very purple that a lot of people see on their TVs. Can you tell us a little bit about it and the kinds of brands you're partnering with there?
Sarah Harms (06:54):
Yeah, so this has just been something really fun that's taken off. So Roku City is our interactive screensaver and people love it. I don't know if you see it every day, but it's cute, it's fun, it grabs your attention. We see that it's tweeted about every 12 minutes, so it is a viral experience and so much so that really our advertisers challenged us to think about it differently. And so now we have really a variety of advertisers coming into Roku City. So I gave the Hellman's example. We had Taylor Swift in Roku City. And so it's really just a fun, unique, totally differentiated advertising experience, but we tie it all to the rest of our assets.
Damian Fowler (07:36):
I heard somebody say this morning, performance media is kind of the baseline. Now with that in mind, how do you think about measuring engagement across all these different touch points that we've been talking about?
Sarah Harms (07:46):
Yeah, I mean, so much of my job on the measurement side of the house is education. And I think the challenge is that performance is in the eye of the beholder and CTV is still bought via a very different group of personas from a legacy television buyer all the way to someone that had been in social API partners and dipping their toe into CTV. And so performance is required, but it's really a matter of educating them on what that means to them and supporting them in their efforts. But what's great about CTV is its big beautiful television, but with all the addressability and accountability of digital.
Damian Fowler (08:23):
And on that point though, what is it that linear TV buyers still don't quite get about CTV?
Sarah Harms (08:29):
I think it's the ecosystem aspect of it all. I think television in the past was measured by a couple companies with a couple KPIs or just reach. And so I think this is where CTV has really unlocked really turnkey, always on easy to optimize measurement. That's very exciting.
Ilyse Liffreing (08:48):
So one thing we like to do on the show is pull our takeaways from the big campaigns. Are there any KPIs or success stories from the campaigns running on Roku that stand out to you?
Sarah Harms (09:00):
Yeah, so I think what's been fun is we see that we have opportunities for really kind of all verticals. Obviously Roku is born out of the media and entertainment industry, but we've expanded there. And so we really do have kind of a playbook for each vertical, but auto specifically comes to mind, which is a really exciting one. You don't really think of performance and auto on tv, but we've built kind of beautiful experiences like showrooms where you can configure cars, sign up for test drives. And so I think we've really changed the narrative there in terms of driving actions for that vertical all in a very big, beautiful, elegant canvas.
Damian Fowler (09:37):
Are there any other kind of surprises from your takeaways in terms of like, oh, that's popping. I never expected that.
Sarah Harms (09:44):
So for me, I don't carry a wallet. My phone is my wallet. And I think if you told me that five years ago, I would've never believed you. Similarly, I don't think anyone thought they'd be shopping with their television. That happens every day on our platform, and I think it's because of clients testing with us, but also it comes back to us as an operating system. And really our remote, it's a few buttons. It's really easy. We have a direct relationship with our customers from a billing perspective. And so the same way Apple Pay is just so easy now you can shop from your tv, which again seems insane, but maybe we'll be here in a couple years and we'll see so much direct shopping from televisions.
Ilyse Liffreing (10:23):
What about the interest from B2B brands? It just feels like that sector is really exploding across all categories, but CTV particularly.
Sarah Harms (10:33):
Yeah, I mean so much of my job as a B2B marketer is a lot of education and a lot of really, so much of our reframing away from being a walled garden to more of an open collaborative partner. And so much of it is doing, we talked in the press about our change away from doing a big new front event. We did more kind of small customized dinners instead just to make sure there is a very direct touch point, but also specifically cater to each client's needs. And so I think that's been more of our approach of making sure we do pointed conversations to address the nuances and needs of each customer.
Ilyse Liffreing (11:12):
And how was that new approach for you this year? I know a lot of brands are doing things a bit differently at the fronts. How did it go on your side?
Sarah Harms (11:21):
I think for us it's knowing the value of us as the operating system and having great content, but not being these content giants that have millions and millions and millions of dollars to spend on content. And so they should do a big show for us. We drive traffic to the big show. And so I think it was more about, yes, of course, talking about our amazing content and brand integrations there, but also acknowledging the integrations that each customer wanted, the platforms each customer wanted, and what we're doing for each of them in a really kind of catered way versus such a one to many message.
Damian Fowler (11:57):
You mentioned content earlier. Are you seeing any particular trends now? Anything that's really driving interest from certain categories or marketers?
Sarah Harms (12:06):
So we have our Roku originals, and we do very well in kind of holiday and home as you can expect, but I think this year in Cannes, you won't be in a meeting like this without talking about sports. And so we have sports rights, yes, but again, the value of the operating system, we've built sports zones to help make sport discoverable and findable. I always use the example of my husband's great Uncle Joe, diehard Yankees fan, can't find a Yankees game because it might be on four different places in five days. And so how can Roku as an operating system help in that regard? And so I think Roku is invested a ton in our infrastructure of driving curation of sports, but also we're very invested in what we call challenger sports, so National women's soccer league volleyball, stuff like that where they have really these die hard fan bases and they just want to find it. We're the destination to help them.
Damian Fowler (13:01):
We keep hearing it's not just about mass reach anymore, it's really about how well the audience, and the better you understand them, the better this whole thing works for both the platform and the advertiser. How do you see that playing out right now?
Sarah Harms (13:13):
Yeah, and they're loyal. They're diehard. They're big spenders sometimes. And so you want to kind of associate with yourself with such a kind of amazing, loyal fan base that's just so passionate about the sport.
Ilyse Liffreing (13:26):
So we have some quick questions for you now. So first of all, you've led both creative and analytical teams. What is one timeless truth about great advertising that cuts across both sides?
Sarah Harms (13:41):
First of all, it's a very fun aspect of my job having both kind of the marketing team and the measurement and analytics team. Two very different personas, but brilliant in their own ways. And so much of my focus since being here is making sure they're working together versus kind of two ships in the night with their own functions because we certainly have such amazing data, so we should use that to speak to the marketplace in a smart way. And so I think that's been really fun. I think they're getting to know the other side of the house and the creative thinkers versus the analytical thinkers like me pushing them to work together has been very fun. And I think with that in mind, a data informed approach is key. And so that's what really drew me to Roku was that opportunity of just this amazing data set that we have that we can use to optimize, but also to tell our story in a more elegant way.
Damian Fowler (14:33):
Now since you joined Roku, is there a favorite data point or piece of feedback that's really stuck with you?
Sarah Harms (14:38):
Yeah, well, I think what's interesting about my job is I should have been informing people like myself about the value of Roku. Before the process started of being recruited, I had a pretty antiquated view, the Roku advertising offering. So that's something that in getting here and in going through that process I learned so much more. I think my favorite might be that any given month, we see a user come through our front door about 25 days a month. And so that is an advertising opportunity to message our amazing footprint. But we see that on average an individual app is seven, maybe eight times a month. And so if you think about that, the reach potential, but also just the consumer habit of using our devices and seeing the messaging from our brands, I think is so compelling and something that really we're massive as it relates to our OS and footprint. And so we've designed these beautiful experiences to really account for that.
Ilyse Liffreing (15:36):
Now, Roku really helped pioneer the modern CTV ad experience. Is there a moment that's made you step back and think, wow, look how far the medium and your team really has come?
Sarah Harms (15:49):
I think the fact that the Super Bowl was really such a success story for streaming, I think we never thought the Super Bowl would be at that level, but it was streamed and it really streamable and really without a hitch, I think we've seen some live streaming events and there were some issues. I thought it was very well done. We were happy to support it. We drove some amazing traffic to Tubi. And so I just think 10 years ago, we never thought that would be the case. And so that's just been a fun thing to think about that and the Olympics and the Olympic zone that we built, just really elegant experiences and just changing television has been fun.
Damian Fowler (16:32):
And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression.
Ilyse Liffreing (16:35):
This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by Love and Caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.
Damian Fowler (16:41):
And remember,
Sarah Harms (16:43):
A data informed approach is key. And so that's what really drew me to Roku.
Damian Fowler (16:47):
I'm Damian, and I'm we'll see you next time.