Advertising
To Reach Persuadable Voters, Look to CTV: Report
Campaigns & Elections
“Eighty-three percent of registered voters nationwide are reachable via ad-supported CTV, according to Cross Screen Media’s report, while 68 percent are reachable via linear TV. Even more notable, however, is the fact that 18 percent of registered voters are exclusively reachable via CTV.”
CTV is Not Television
Vendor Trap
“CTV produces actionable data in near real time: reach, frequency, viewability, cost per completed view, attribution. The correct response to that data is optimization, creative rotation mid-flight, bid adjustment, audience suppression, frequency management. That is not what TV buyers were trained to do. Their mental model does not include it.”
AI Disclaimers on Campaign Ads Are Sowing Mistrust, Study Finds
Campaigns & Elections
“The research, conducted by the American Association of Political Consultants Foundation in conjunction with a bipartisan group of practitioners, found that the appearance of an AI disclosure on a political ad creates a measurable ‘disclaimer effect;’ viewers reported feeling more mistrust and skepticism toward the advertised message, even if the ad didn’t actually feature AI-generated content.”
Content
The Clip Economy
Prof G Media
“This is the crucial point to understand: Clips are no longer the byproduct of the main product — they’re the main product. Once you grasp this you start to realize how the entire media ecosystem is being flipped on its head.”
Fundraising
House Republicans Step Up Scrutiny of Democratic Fund-Raising Giant
New York Times
“The Republican-led committees, in their letter, did not specifically demand the Covington memos, which are labeled ‘privileged and confidential, attorney client privilege, attorney work product.’ Instead, they requested two other records mentioned in the Times article: a letter of resignation from Aaron Ting, who in early 2025 was an in-house ActBlue lawyer, and a Slack message from Zain Ahmad, who also worked in the organization’s legal department at the time, that warned that ActBlue’s leadership had retaliated against him.”
Democrats are Sticking with Embattled ActBlue But Exploring Other Fundraising Options
NOTUS
“In the meantime, Democratic congressional candidates and committees continue to raise record amounts of money, largely through ActBlue, ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.”
Social Media
MAGA Influencers Are Salivating Over Jailing Each Other
The Bulwark
“Because so many conservative influencers have actually engaged in pay-to-post arrangements in the past, it’s become commonplace for members of this community to accuse their intramural foes of being on the take.”
Technology
Why Are We Still Living with VANxiety?
The Connector
“But the overwhelming odds are that the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who are going to do the grunt work of contacting and engaging with voters this cycle, along with the campaign teams that manage them, will be stuck using lousy tools that make them less good at their work and using lists that are missing the correct information (or any information) on millions of likely or registered Democratic voters.”
GOP campaigns go all-in on AI, Dems not so much
Axios
“A survey last month by the American Association of Political Consultants found that 64% of Republican consultants used AI daily in their work, compared to 49% of Democrats.”