What Marketers Should Consider as They Gear Up for the Holiday Season

Editor’s note: This piece is part of our Columnist Network series, which explores the tactical thoughts and actions from Adweek’s community of high-level experts. Today, Roku’s Kristina Shepard thinks ahead to another challenging holiday season. Below, in her own words, she interprets the data on the role of streaming and its unique advantage for marketers. The challenge As we approach Labor Day Weekend, the "last weekend of summer," our minds are starting to shift to the holidays. We are entering our second pandemic holiday season, and there is uncertainty around how it will play out. With the delta variant on the rise, questions are swirling about whether people will travel to celebrate together or be comfortable shopping in person. Common questions among marketers are also swirling: Can shopping start as early as September? What are streamers buying this year? How will mobile play a role in online shopping? Will TV commerce finally begin to pick up steam and adoption? These questions are being asked by marketers across categories such as retail, tech, toys, travel, entertainment and food/restaurants. All of these dynamics will have an impact on how brands approach their holiday advertising and messaging overall, and we've found that brands are leaning heavily into streaming because of targetability and custom messaging that may lead to higher sales. The process Last year, Roku partnered with The Harris Poll to answer these types of questions for brands. We surveyed 2,000 U.S. adults about their attitudes toward gift giving, the way they will shop compared to previous holiday seasons and how the adoption of TV streaming affects their purchasing decisions. While we patiently await the results of this year’s survey, we thought it’d be helpful to take a look back at what we learned from last year in an effort to help brands better prepare for their 2021 holiday strategy. 2020 was a pivotal year for the TV streaming market—85% of Americans streamed, and an additional 43% of U.S. households with cable planned to cut the cord within 12 months, which will start to take effect by the end of this year. These statistics influenced why streaming played a bigger role in brands' media mix last holiday season, and we expect it to play a bigger role in 2021. Another key factor came from the upfronts, which was big for streaming this year—platforms like Roku and Vizio saw massive growth year over year in brand commitments. This gives us an idea of the increased importance brands are putting on the medium. Not only did consumer viewing trends shift during Covid-19, but so did buying habits. Seven in 10 of those surveyed last year planned to spend the same or more on gifts. They also opted to spend less on travel: Thirty-one percent of shoppers reported that shelter-in-place rules influenced their decision to buy more gifts. We expect to see this continue with the rise of the delta variant, making it even more important for brands to focus on adding interactive and offer-based messaging to their holiday campaigns. Shoppers also told us they planned to make more “WFH-related purchases,” with nearly one-third of shoppers buying for home offices for either themselves or someone else. We expect this to become increasingly important, as major companies have announced long-term flexibility plans. Brands can lean into this with both smart targeting tactics and content alignment that focuses on the new "WFH consumer." Lastly, consumers are expected to do nearly 65% of their holiday shopping virtually. Streamers are fueling this surge in online shopping: 79% will do most of their holiday shopping online versus 55% of non-streamers. This last point emphasizes the need for brands to customize their messaging and approach to the medium in which they’re advertising. What we learned last year is that over-the-top advertising drives purchases—the laidback and interactive nature of the platform encourages consumers to buy. Forty-three percent of consumers and as much as two-thirds of millennials surveyed reported that an ad on a streaming service caused them to pause the content, go online and shop for the product. The takeaway These learnings from last year’s holiday season are prompting marketers to evolve their approach to streaming ad spend and use unique targeting capabilities to reach the consumers that are most likely to purchase. Brands can engage those consumers with high-impact, interactive ad units and then leverage measurement offerings to accurately project their holiday campaign success.