How Roblox conquered the immersive ads space

On the popular Roblox game Welcome to Bloxburg players can be anything they want to be. They can build and decorate their own home, customise their character with outfits, and even choose a job and earn rewards as they work. Played no less than eight billion times, it's one of the platform's most popular games.

Welcome to Bloxburg has proven extremely popular among Southeast Asia's Gen Alphas and young Gen Zers. This is where young players replicate therapy sessions and fast-food encounters while gossiping in real time, adding a new level of engagement to online interactions. 

But Welcome to Bloxburg is just one of the games that has transformed Roblox into a worldwide hit with younger audiences. The proto-metaverse platform boasts nearly 80 million daily users. In APAC alone, daily active users of Roblox grew 31% to more than 20 million in Q2 2024. It's little wonder that brands are increasingly eager to partner with it.

"If the goals are to find a platform to meaningfully engage and hold the respective attention of Gens Alpha and Z, then Roblox has been successful," says Lydia Adlina, general manager, Gov@Publicis, Starcom. 

Last October, the Singapore Government teamed up with Starcom Singapore to launch SG Farm Tycoon, a game developed for Roblox designed to raise awareness of food security among young Singaporeans. The game was successful and averaged over 11 minutes average session time.

"Considering how hard it is to capture and hold anyone’s attention for that long, 11 minutes is a testament to a Roblox experience capacity for immersive and memorable branded experiences," adds Adlina. 

 

Scaling its advertising business

 

Eager to entice more brands to leverage its immersive platform to engage younger audiences, Roblox launched its ‘Roblox for Brands’ website back in March, which allows marketers to explore successful brand implementations on the platform, as well as a tour of Roblox's growing menu of ad units.

The platform currently offers several different types of official advertising products, including sponsored experiences to search ads more recently. Brands can also now leverage immersive ads from image, video and portal formats that are served within experiences on Roblox.

Anton Reyniers, head of strategy at We Are Social Singapore, says that when brands approach Roblox advertising, they need to think of it as more than just a media buy. "Roblox is an entire ecosystem, a space where brands aren’t merely seen, they’re experienced," he says.

With this in mind, there’s some principles that brands need to consider. Firstly, it's about recognising that Roblox users aren't passive consumers, they're active participants.

"Brand needs to earn the right to be there, to feel like an extension of a valuable experience," says Reyniers. "Immersive video ads are a great opportunity to go beyond awareness and deliver engagement. Think about designing interactive, gamified experiences that make users want to explore what your brand has to offer. The focus here is on delivering value in a way that enhances the player’s journey."

And brands shouldn't see Roblox as another platform to run ads, instead it's a platform where you build social spaces.
 

 

"Rather than thinking of advertising in terms of impressions and reach, think about how you can build communities within the platform," says Reyniers. "You could host in-game events, launch branded virtual goods, or sponsor competitions. The goal is to turn your brand into a conversation point among players, creating a sense of shared experience that goes beyond a transactional interaction."

Ultimately, says Reyniers, Roblox is not an advertising platform, it’s an opportunity to be part of the cultural currency of a generation.

"To succeed on Roblox, you need to think big, move fast, and be willing to immerse your brand into the world your audience already loves and, to be honest, wasn’t designed with brands in mind. When done right and with the right creative mindset, your brand becomes part of the very fabric of how users interact, play, and connect,” he says.

It's by way of this immersive approach that brands and agencies are increasingly eyeing opportunities to leverage Roblox to engage not only young audiences, but young creators. 

Just this month, Dentsu launched its House of Creators, a partnership with Roblox that serves as an accelerator for the creator community. Over the next three months, Dentsu will work closely with around 30 of the most active creators and developers on the platform, providing investment and mentoring to help them scale and advance their ideas. 

One example programme will be a manga contest in partnership with Kodansha—the well-known Tokyo-based publisher. The winning creator's content will be further developed and made available to readers around the world as an off-platform IP with the help of Kodansha’s Creators’ Lab editors and Dentsu’s support.

"Our decision to launch the House of Creators initiative on Roblox was primarily driven by the platform’s potential to empower creators on a global scale," says Magali Huot, vice president, global gaming strategy at Dentsu. "In this context, Roblox has become a global community of millions of next-generation creators and we thought it was the perfect partner to launch this initiative."

Measuring success

With its more immersive nature, clearly Roblox is a platform where brands need to build social spaces and experiences to succeed and can't just rely on traditional ads. But does this make it trickier to measure success on the platform?

"When it comes to measuring success on Roblox, you’ve got to think well beyond the standard vanity metrics like impressions or clicks," says Reyniers. "Those numbers are surface-level, they don’t tell you the full story. On a platform as immersive as Roblox, success means deeper, more meaningful engagement."

To that extent, it's not just about how many users saw your execution, it’s about how much time they invested in your branded experience. Roblox thrives on interaction, so you need to track how long users engage with your world. One of the most powerful indicators of success is whether your brand becomes part of the social fabric within Roblox. Are users talking about your brand, sharing it with friends, and engaging in branded community events? 

 

Roblox users are creators. If brands are truly resonating, users will start building around them, whether it’s customising their avatars with the brand’s items or creating their own games and experiences that incorporate your elements. 

"When users start generating their own content, that’s a huge signal that your campaign has transcended traditional boundaries," says Reyniers. "You’re no longer just advertising, you're encouraging co-creation."

If a brand has virtual goods on Roblox, it can also look at how those items are performing within the in-game economy.

"How frequently are players purchasing or trading your branded items? Success here is about being embedded in the day-to-day economy of the game. When your virtual goods become desirable assets, you’re integrating your brand into the lived experience of Roblox users,” he says.

Can Roblox conquer the ecommerce space?

In addition to its growing advertising business, Roblox has announced a global partnership with Shopify that will allow creators of Roblox experiences, including brands and retailers, to sell physical goods directly within the platform via Shopify’s checkout, signalling their plans to conquer the ecommerce space.

"Roblox has the potential to expand into ecommerce successfully. Players are already accustomed to spending money within the platform on virtual goods, so shifting to physical items feels like a natural progression," says David Vu, consultant at Publicis Play. "The key here will be creating compelling reasons to buy on Roblox instead of traditional platforms. If Roblox can integrate exclusive or limited-edition products, paired with seamless shopping experiences, it could open up a significant ecommerce opportunity, particularly with younger consumers who are highly engaged on the platform."

Yet, while Roblox holds promise when it comes to the ecommerce space, conquering the space will certainly be no small undertaking. 

"It’s important to note here that in Southeast Asia, ecommerce is dynamic and competitive," says Shom Mabaquiao, junior editor for APAC, Canvas8. "Shopee, Lazada, and Tokopedia are still ecommerce juggernauts despite the introduction of, for example, new players like TikTok Shop which at most has levelled with long-time big names in Southeast Asia. I think there's potential for the Roblox and Shopify partnership to have this same trajectory—that is if it leans into social commerce, which is steadily rising in the region now."

A danger to young users?

While Roblox might be basking in the glory of its impressive growth, it's also had its fair share of criticisms. Efforts to grow its advertising and brand partnerships have been hampered by persistent concerns that advertising on Roblox is a child safety grey area due to its young user base. As of the end of last year, 58% of users self-reported to be aged 16 and under.

While Roblox ensures that its ads are only served to people ages 13 and up and provides transparent disclosures so that 13+ users know when they are interacting with ad content, some remain concerned about advertising on the platform. 

"Have we lost sight of what truly matters? We’re talking about calculating ROI on advertising to children, but the real conversation should be about the impact these platforms are having on our kids," says David Klein, director at Orange Line. 

"Instead of focusing on how to maximise advertising effectiveness on these platforms, we should be asking ourselves how to minimise the harm being done. Are we really willing to exploit children’s screen addiction to drive marketing success?"

 

Klein believes that brands considering advertising on platforms like Roblox need to pause and reflect. 

 

"This is an opportunity to do the right thing. Before leaning into these platforms, brands must carefully examine what it means to be complicit in using gaming and screen time to profit off children. The ethical implications are too significant to ignore," he says. 

 

A spokesperson for Roblox said that it remains committed to ensuring its users have a positive and safe experience on its platform as the company scales advertising on its platform.