Where the Next Generation Actually Pays Attention, with Stephanie Latham of Roblox | Ep. 448

Daniel Murray (0:01)

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Welcome to The Marketing Millennials, the No BS marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray. And join me for Unfiltered Conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests, stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the f*** up.

We are back with another episode of The Marketing Millennials podcast. Today I have Stephanie Latham on the podcast, Vice President of Global Brand Partnerships and Advertising for Roblox. And I was just telling her before this, I'm thankful my son's not on Roblox yet, but I bet you he's going to be on it in five to six years. So I will be calling Stephanie to get all the tips on how to navigate the Roblox world. But Stephanie was also at Meta, so she's a pro in this space and we're excited to chat. Stephanie, welcome to the pod.

Stephanie Latham (1:23)

Awesome. Daniel, thanks so much for having me. I'm psyched to chat with you.

Daniel Murray (1:27)

Could you just give a little background, what does your role entail at Roblox and then how did your experience like carry over from Meta to Roblox?

Stephanie Latham (1:39)

Sure.

I think I followed consumer behavior pretty much my entire career even before Meta. At Roblox, I am responsible for helping brands understand our community and find ways that we can work together to drive value both for the Roblox community, creators and users and also brands, which means I get to do a lot of really fun things. Building off Meta, I was at Meta for a long time and really helped develop what social media was and what that meant for advertisers. And so I feel like I'm in a new inflection point as we think about consumer behavior and where time is being spent and really have this unique opportunity to get to build again, which is one of my favorite things to do.

Daniel Murray (2:24)

I know you said Gen Z isn't necessarily harder to reach, but they're spending their time like actively doing, not passively watching. So what does that change about how marketers should create campaigns for that audience?

Stephanie Latham (2:39)

You know, I think what we see on the front lines every day at Roblox, we have over 120 million daily active users that are spending all this time with us, right? Like we had 29 billion hours spent with us last quarter.

They do things together. Like Roblox is a participation platform, right? So you're coming with friends, maybe you're coming to build, maybe you're coming to play, maybe you're coming to design, strategize all different types of things. And then I think what's really interesting with this generation and GenAlpha too is how seamlessly they move from digital to physical and back again. So for marketers, it creates such a really interesting opportunity to start to think about this very elaborate and immersive storytelling canvas and how you can intersect them in really thoughtful ways but different formats than probably times of the past.

Daniel Murray (3:27)

One thing I also have seen you say is that advertising is more than just reaching people. Right now, it's like building things worth their time. So how does that mindset shift?

What should marketers think about for that mindset shift?

Stephanie Latham (3:49)

I think I always say reach still matters, but what happens after that impression matters even more.

The advertisers that I see that are the most successful on our platform and are driving the best results are the ones that really take the time to slow down and listen to the community. So something that may seem obvious to you or me is actually not authentic to this community. And so I've seen a lot of advertisers, I'll give a shout out to Elf Beauty. I think they're one of the ones that has done it really well of following where the time is spent, understanding how it's spent and then coming up with interesting ways to engage and add value to what's already going on. So they have an experience on Roblox. They also run ads on Roblox. They do UGC. They really embraced everything that is a part of what the Roblox community stands for, which has then rewarded them on the business side too.

Daniel Murray (4:40)

I want to take one step back before I go forward again.

Where is the current state of advertising? Because now we have AI. Meta is getting harder and harder with the spend goal, spend going higher and higher. People can create creative really fast. So it's creating all this slop in the market. So what is your view of the current state of advertising right now?