After years of ad-free use, Roblox is now giving advertisers access to pre-teens
Online gaming platform Roblox is opening up its audience for advertisers, with under-13s now being made available to advertisers – naming ad marketplace SuperAwesome its exclusive advertising partner for under 13s.
This is the first time Roblox has allowed this move. Roblox recently introduced new age verification for all users, with tiered systems for children and teens, which has allowed the platform to enable “privacy-safe contextual advertising to youth audiences,” the company told AdExchanger.
“Brands are already part of everyday life to all ages of the community,” the Roblox spokesperson said. “So we wanted to move to a standardised and restricted pathway to ensure that every encounter is transparent and age appropriate.”
Roblox boasts as many as 144 million daily active users, 45% of whom have verified their age on the app. Of those, the largest group is 13-17 year olds (38%), followed by under 13s (35%), and over 18s (27%).
The terms
The gaming platform is setting conditions for advertisers looking to target under-13s, with ads limited to deals only: “No programmatic for under-13 whatsoever”, the spokesperson confirmed. Display and video ads must be clearly labeled as ads.
The Roblox spokesperson argued that Roblox wants to de-incentivise children from spending extended periods of time on its platform, with some platforms tending to restrict rewarded video for children for the same issues.
As such, children on Roblox will only be shown home screen banner ads, including in-game billboard as with video and static ad creative – excluding rewarded video ads.
Roblox will not allow the collection of behavioural data or one-to-one personalised targeting. Advertisers will also be to target campaigns with generalised demographic data such as gender, age range, and location.
Child safety concerns
This comes at a turbulent time for digital platforms, as age verification enforcement becomes a point of contention for governments around the world, and platforms come under fire for failing to prevent children on their sites.
Awareness is spreading regarding the addictive nature of many of the features of social media, and regulators across the globe are taking aim at online sites – and although Roblox is not a social media platform, it does operate in the same spaces, and is included in the crackdown on age verification measures introduced in the UK.
Roblox has emphasised that ads which will be shown to under 13s on the platform will be no different from the ads children will be exposed to in their daily lives – like those which would be shown during children’s TV programmes.
It’s worth noting that Roblox recently settled a lawsuit for $12.2m in the US and expanded parental controls following the legal action regarding child safety concerns. The site still faces legal challenges across 6 other states and from dozens of families across the country as families allege the platform failed to protect their children from exploitation.
