Home furniture brand Blu Dot blew up on CTV with help from Roku Ads Manager. Here’s how:

After a test campaign reached 211,000 households and achieved 1,010% ROAS, the brand went all in to promote its annual sales event. It removed age and income constraints to expand reach and shifted budget to custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.

The results speak for themselves. As Blu Dot increased their investment by 10x, ROAS jumped to 2,308% and more page-view conversions surpassed 50,000.

“For CTV campaigns, Roku has been a top performer,” said Claire Folkestad, Paid Media Strategist, Blu Dot. “Comping to our other platforms, we have seen really strong ROAS… and highly efficient CPMs, lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”

Using Roku Ads Manager, the campaign moved from a pilot to a permanent performance engine for the brand.

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A Michigan health plan is donating nearly 3,800 pairs of reading glasses to older adults across the state — a meaningful gesture that also reveals a much larger gap in senior vision care. Here is what comprehensive vision coverage actually looks like.

When Meridian Health Plan partnered with Eye Care For Detroit to distribute nearly 3,800 pairs of reading glasses to older adults across Michigan, the goal was practical and immediate: help seniors read medication labels, discharge paperwork, and the daily information that keeps them safe and independent.

It is a meaningful gesture. And it points directly at a problem that reading glasses alone cannot solve.

Across Michigan and the broader Midwest, a significant portion of older adults go without adequate vision care — not because they don't need it, but because the system makes it difficult to access. Transportation barriers, fixed incomes, and a widespread misconception about what Medicare covers all contribute to a situation where millions of seniors are managing with deteriorating eyesight and no clear path to correction.

The reading glasses Meridian is distributing will help people read pill bottles and appointment reminders. That matters. But they won't correct the nearsightedness that makes driving unsafe. They won't detect the early signs of glaucoma or macular degeneration that a comprehensive eye exam would catch. And they won't replace the prescription lenses that many seniors need but can't afford.

For that, seniors need actual vision coverage — and most don't realize they can get it.

This is the part that catches most people off guard: Original Medicare does not cover routine vision care. No annual eye exams. No glasses. No contact lenses. Medicare Part A and Part B cover medically necessary eye care — treatment for cataracts, glaucoma, or diabetic retinopathy — but the routine annual exam that catches those conditions before they become serious? Not covered.

Some Medicare Advantage plans include vision benefits, but coverage varies widely by plan and by geography. In many parts of Michigan, particularly in rural areas and lower-income urban neighborhoods, the Medicare Advantage plans available either don't include vision or offer benefits so limited they barely offset the cost of a single exam.

The result is a large population of older adults who assume their Medicare covers their eyes — and find out at the optometrist's front desk that it doesn't.

Vision loss in older adults is not just an inconvenience. It is a health and safety issue with consequences that ripple through every aspect of daily life.

Falls are the leading cause of injury-related death among adults 65 and older in the United States. Poor vision is one of the most significant and modifiable risk factors for falls. Seniors who can't see clearly are more likely to trip on uneven surfaces, misjudge steps, and lose their balance in low-light environments. The reading glasses Meridian is distributing address one piece of this — near vision for close tasks — but they do nothing for the distance vision problems that make navigating the world dangerous.

Beyond falls, untreated vision problems are linked to social isolation, depression, cognitive decline, and reduced medication adherence. When seniors can't read their prescriptions clearly, they make dosing errors. When they can't drive safely, they lose access to medical appointments, grocery stores, and social connections. The downstream health costs of untreated vision loss far exceed the cost of the coverage that would prevent it.

And comprehensive eye exams do more than measure vision. They detect early signs of diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and neurological conditions — often before other symptoms appear. For older adults who may not see a primary care physician regularly, an annual eye exam can be a critical point of contact with the healthcare system.

The good news is that seniors don't have to choose between Original Medicare and going without vision care. Standalone vision insurance plans — available to anyone, including Medicare beneficiaries — fill exactly this gap.

VSP Vision Plans are the largest vision insurance provider in the country, with more than 90 million members and a network of over 36,000 eye doctors nationwide. Individual VSP plans are available outside of employer benefits, which means seniors on Medicare can enroll directly. A typical VSP individual plan includes:

Monthly premiums for individual VSP plans are generally modest, and the exam benefit alone often offsets the annual cost of the plan in a single visit. For seniors managing on fixed incomes, that math matters.

VSP's network is extensive enough that most Michigan residents — including those in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Flint, and smaller communities across the state — can find a VSP provider within a reasonable distance. The provider search on VSP's website filters by zip code and specialty, making it straightforward to find an in-network optometrist nearby.

To compare VSP individual plans and find a provider near you, visit our vision plans page.

It would be easy to read this as a criticism of what Meridian and Eye Care For Detroit are doing. It isn't. Distributing nearly 3,800 pairs of reading glasses to seniors in underserved Michigan communities is a concrete, immediate response to a real need. The organizations doing this work understand that the people they're serving often can't wait for systemic solutions — they need help now, with the tasks in front of them today.

The program also reflects something important about how community health organizations think about vision care: not as a luxury or an elective, but as a basic component of health and independence. That framing is exactly right. The gap between that framing and what Medicare actually covers is where the problem lives.

Reading glasses are a bridge. Comprehensive vision coverage is the destination. For Michigan seniors — and for older adults across the country — closing that gap starts with knowing that standalone vision insurance exists, that it's affordable, and that it covers far more than a pair of readers from the pharmacy rack.