Election 2024: Capturing Hearts and Mindset with Video-level Contextual Advertising

Welcome back to the Think Inside the Video newsletter, where we explore the ever-evolving streaming TV landscape and how the advertising industry can use AI and contextual intelligence to reach the right viewers at the right moments.

As political campaigns ramp up for the 2024 election, the battle for voters' attention is increasingly fought on Connected TV (CTV).

This presidential race will likely be another close call, coming down to a few thousand votes. Luckily, it’s possible to geo-target voters by district and hone in on swing states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada.?

With a polarized political landscape, both parties are focused on winning over younger, unaffiliated voters. In an interview with Digiday, IRIS.TV CMO Rohan Castelino discussed how political campaigns leverage IRIS-enabled PMPs for Politics to help candidates reach viewers on subscription-based streaming and free ad-supported television (“FAST”) channels. While targeting can be tricky for certain demographics like younger viewers, we do know that Black and Hispanic viewers skew higher with free ad-supported content. Campaigns can use contextual targeting to reach them and single-issue voters, but matching the ads to the content being watched is especially key for CTV.

This is why ad placement is so important in politics. FAST viewers are twice as likely to remember an ad and four times more likely to watch it in the first place when those ads are tonally and contextually aligned to the content they’re consuming.?

Today, it’s also possible to push political campaigns alongside real-time cultural moments and trends, so the right candidate’s messages are seen by voters who will resonate on a deeply personal level. Take Kamala Harris for example - as soon as she announced her candidacy in July, she tapped into the cultural zeitgeist that is Charli XCX who also released a new album, ‘Brat.”?

Campaigns looking to align with culture and voter mindset can leverage solutions like Slightly’s Brand Mentality. In this interview with TVREV’s Alan Wolk, Slightly CEO Adam Katz describes how they are helping brands and political campaigns identify minute content shifts within a specific program to help brands target or block specific content alignment with much more granularity and flexibility.

IRIS-enabled? PMPs for Politics

Learn more about IRIS-enabled? PMPs and download our one sheet for political advertising.

Election 2024: Winning Hearts and Mindset with Sightly’s Brand Mentality

Sightly CEO Adam Katz sat down with TVREV to discuss how his company’s unique approach to video-level contextual targeting is helping brands and political campaigns more effectively engage CTV viewers.

Alan Wolk: With the U.S. presidential race in full force, how do you think brands and political campaigns should approach their CTV strategy during an election year?

Adam Katz: Politics today is extremely polarizing, particularly during an election year, and brands must be even more attentive than ever to the content they’re surrounding. Political content is everywhere, and brands need a proactive approach for deciphering what they want to lean into, or avoid. When it comes to CTV however, brands cannot simply identify whether they’re around political content just by targeting or blocking news publishers.

For example, late night talk shows often have one-off political segments that typical Brand Safety or Suitability standards would not detect. With Brand Mentality, we’re able to identify those minute content shifts within a specific program to help brands target or block with much more granularity and flexibility.

We ensure the brand’s preferences are captured by asking in our profile whether an advertiser wants to target or block scenarios like “Consumers taking action based on political choices”, “Conversations around elections”, “Conversations around public health”, and much more, to form a playbook that serves as a connection point for contextual alignment based on the actual content of an episode, not just the program’s genre. This offers brands the ability to target politically active and socially conscious viewers regardless of what streaming app or channel they are watching. We ensure their message is delivered in a context that aligns with their brand values and political views while also defining their tolerance for political topics.

With respect to the campaigns themselves, like the last few elections, a few states will be the difference in determining the next president. In addition to targeting their bases, the parties are going after younger, unaffiliated, and single issue voters to drive turnout. These groups watch CTV and index high with free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST). Consumer research has shown that these viewers watch 4X more ads and demonstrate 42% higher brand favorability when they are aligned to the mentality of the content. With our IRIS-enabled private marketplace deals, campaigns can ensure they are reaching voters at the right moment...

Read the full interview at TVREV >

In the News

Digiday: How fast-food chain Carl’s Jr. is pushing CTV to become a performance channel

In its coverage of IRIS.TV and PMG 's case study with CKE Restaurants, Inc. , Digiday dives deeper into how retail brands apply contextual strategies to leverage CTV as a performance play. That push has led to 2.2X higher return on ad spend compared to other targeting methods and a 152% incremental lift in sales.

Read the full story at Digiday >

PMG's Sam Bloom discusses the campaign in greater detail in his panel,?Navigating the CTV Revolution, at RTL Beach in Cannes.

Case Study: Carl's Jr and PMG mean business with IRIS-enabled PMPs

Read the full case study to learn how PMG and CKE Restaurants leveraged video-level contextual targeting to drive upper and lower-funnel performance.