Roku City Secrets Revealed: How Long Will Jimothy Last, Why Did the Titanic Get Nixed and Where Exactly Is It Located?
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Roku City has scrolled across television screens since 2017 as a purple-glowing screen saver reaching over 100 million viewers, hosting more than 40 rotating Easter eggs and ad campaigns for McDonald's, Walmart, Demi Lovato and studio films.
- Jimothy the raccoon was added to Roku City after a social media post generated 12 million impressions; a dedicated internal Slack channel called the 'Rapid Response Easter Egg Team' can insert topical references in a matter of hours, per VP of global brand and creative Damon Van Deusen.
- Roku removed a Titanic reference from the city after the OceanGate submarine tragedy because referencing a sinking ship 'where many people died' felt like 'a bummer,' while memorials to Catherine O'Hara (3 million impressions for her hairdos on the Jumbotron) and Prince's 'Purple Rain' 40th anniversary remain welcome.
- Roku's July brand campaign, designed by the Preacher agency and directed by Andreas Nilsson, added six themed interactive areas — including a pirate ship, volcano and villain's lair — shot on a Prague soundstage and bathed in purple light, marking a bigger foray into live-action content.
- Roku prototyped localized versions of the city set in London, Brazil and São Paulo but scrapped them because they 'felt too literal,' and swapped out buildings that resembled New York too closely; the city is now deliberately unspecific, per Van Deusen.
- A Roku customer survey found two out of three users would visit Roku City if they could, with Reddit users describing being 'comforted by the purple glow' and getting 'stuck in it' while stoned or sober.
- The 'Wicked for Good' campaign changed Roku City's purple background to pink and green for the first time around the theatrical and home entertainment releases, while Universal placed an Odyssey Trojan horse on wheels in the city as part of a larger ad buy.
Why it matters: Screen savers — long dismissed as dead pixels — have become premium ad inventory: Roku changed its signature purple to pink and green for the first time for Wicked, and Universal integrated an Odyssey Trojan horse into the city. With two-thirds of users saying they'd visit Roku City, Roku gains a non-skippable branding channel heading into its $22 billion Fox merger.
