Explainer: Connected TV (CTV) Advertising (Keith Norman – Premion)

Keith Norman:

CTV has that kind of measurable reach that is valuable to a holistic approach to political ad buying.

Eric Wilson:

I'm Eric Wilson, managing partner of Startup Caucus, the home of campaign tech Innovation on the right. Welcome to the Business of Politics Show. On this podcast, you are joining in on a conversation with entrepreneurs, operatives, and experts who make professional politics happen. After listening to this episode, you'll know all about connected TV advertising for campaigns. While broadcast TV ad budgets continue to grow on campaigns, more voters are watching streaming services, many of which are ad supported, so campaigners are shifting their budgets accordingly. Keith Norman, head of political sales at PreOn, is going to be our expert guide today. He has an extensive resume in ad sales and the media industry. He's also worked at Univision Politico and NBC PreOn is an industry leader in this connected TV advertising space with national reach on lots of the platforms that you're already familiar with, we discussed strategies for targeting and creative, how to measure success and what to do if you haven't started CTV advertising yet, Keith, what's the difference between CTV connected TV O T T over the top and streaming? Why do we have so many names for this platform?

Keith Norman:

Yeah, it can be confusing, Eric. You know, O t T and C T V are often used interchangeably, and they can refer and do refer often to the same thing. But there is some distinction. O T T streams content across all devices such as mobile desktop and big glass TVs connected TV does not, but rather streams only to big glass TV screens. So o t t means over the top, by definition, it refers to the content that is truly delivered over the top of your cable box and give you access to TV content using the internet instead of a cable cord. Hence the term cord cutter for those who have cut the cable cord and are now streaming or cord nevers people who have never had cable or satellite, in fact, about half of US house, so today, now are only reachable via streaming tv. Eric.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah, and we'll dig into some of that polling that we've done from the Center for Campaign Innovation in just a minute. For me, I've heard them used interchangeably, but it sounds like there's a little bit of a distinction here, and it's important that people understand what that means because it it's a different experience for the end consumer.

Keith Norman:

Yeah, it is. And, you know, depending on what the campaign's goals are with a, with a buy you know, with a strategy for for their media, most, most campaigns that wanna persuade or get out to vote will be really focused on a connected TV delivery of their buy. And perhaps earlier in the, in the sale, in the cycle, earlier in the in the calendar. It may not be as important to a campaign to be delivering only or larger to connect the TVs. They just, just wanna reach, perhaps, you know, for fundraising purposes or for list building which can be done with, with O T T. They may want to, you know, incorporate employ mobile and desktop earlier in the, in the cycle.

Eric Wilson:

Got it. So, Keith, let's start with the voters and work our way backwards on this, this sort of life cycle we found with the Center for Campaign Innovation in two polls of battleground Senate states last year, that less than half of voters, as you mentioned, can be reached through just linear TV advertising alone. And then when you look at voters under 50, that number drops to just a third. So what's driving this shift? Two streaming?

Keith Norman:

Yeah, it's really two things, Eric. It's content and control. People are in control of how they consume the abundance of content out there. I've heard it described now that we are in the second you know, the second era of, you know, H B O is has often been referred to, you know, it's not tv, it's H B O and now we're in the second era of must watch really high quality television streaming programming particularly now streaming programming with, with getting, you know, high quality TV content. So there's an abundance of content out there and, and more ways to watch that content than ever before. So nearly five hours per day is now spent watching tv according to Nielsen. And about 40% of that time is being spent with streaming tv.

Eric Wilson:

There was a great Saturday Night Live skit this season where they talk about all the, the award-winning movies in these actors that are, are putting things out, and no one had heard of them in point being is because it's, it's streamed on your phone. So more, more content than ever more places. I mean, it's just, it, it is trivial at this point to set up and deploy your own content distribution channel. So it, it, it's definitely shifted the variety and led to fragmentation of this audience. So when you look at commercial advertisers, like your big brands, your consumer package goods, how have they adapted to this transformation?

Keith Norman:

Yeah, you know you mentioned fragmentation. You know, we cut the cord in our home about seven years ago. We've been cordless ever since. We have about six apps now. <Laugh>. Yeah, you

Eric Wilson:

Just recreated cable

Keith Norman:

<Laugh>. Yeah, exactly. And the, and the apps that we use mostly now in our home some are ad supported, some are subscription and ads free. And also some of the, the data that we, that I've seen recently shows that about half the time spent now, is with those ad supported apps, like, like in our home here in, in northern, Northern Virginia apps like Hulu and Roku, and about a quarter, you know not as much time, nearly half as, as less time is being spent on the subscription services like Amazon Prime and Netflix and Disney Plus. So people are watching more than ever, but yeah, as you, as you point out and these numbers bear out it's spread across more apps and more channels and more platforms. So definitely fragmentation is something that brand marketers are trying to get their arms and and heads around. So another piece to this is the f fast-growing segment of free ad supported tv, otherwise known as fast channels. They're not household names, like some of the ones we just talked about, the, the apps that are more common, but Pluto two b, filo not as as commonly known, free V

Eric Wilson:

Is that one that Amazon

Keith Norman:

Has. Yes, exactly. Free v Amazon's fast channel, but they have these vast TV and movie libraries, Eric, and now some original programs that people are willing to watch, a few ads to get for free. So, you know, brand marketers, political marketers they're, they're having to really understand the fragmentation and understand within that fragmentation of where there's quality content that their brands and their, you know, their, their issue advocacy or, or candidate messages can, can be next to

Eric Wilson:

It Sounds like that they, they have sort of packaged this into their, their overall strategy. What, what can we learn from that in this, in the political ad space?

Keith Norman:

You know, first working with, with providers, working with platforms who can, can aggregate or, you know, deliver that fragmented audience in you know, in a geography or in, in a cohort, in an audience that is the intended you know, the intended audience for a particular campaign, whether it be a brand campaign or, or a political campaign. So that's, that's one thing. And then, you know, also thinking about c CTV as part of a holistic approach, right? And thinking about CTV and linear TV together brand marketers have been leading the thinking and leading the, the buying of CTV and linear tv. In terms of you know, in terms of that approach for a while now because they can reach a larger audience or the, the majority of the audience that they're trying to reach by looking at, at both, you know, C T V and, and linear tv as, as two, you know, two legs of their stool.

The third leg of course could be digital or social or some other, you know, some other means to, to reach that, that larger audience. Brand advertisers have also been leading in tapping into data rich you know, targeting, whether it be for automotive or C P G or other you know, other categories where there's purchase and tenders that they can, they can identify through, through data that can be used in the CTV space as it's been used in the digital space for a while now. And then outcome space measurement brands have been doing that for a while as well with, with CTV as they have been with digital, where they can, you know, they can determine website attribution, how many visits to website after seeing their their brand message. They can also determine how the brand has, has been, been impacted by, by, by the campaign on C T V through brand lift studies. And so they can, they can really, brand marketers can get a sense for how their C T V campaign is delivering r ROI and proof of performance. And we're seeing some of those same tactics and strategies applied in the political marketing space as well.

Eric Wilson:

You're listening to the Business of Politics Show. I'm speaking with Keith Norman, head of political sales at PreOn about the world of O T T and connected TV advertising. So, Keith, I wanna switch gears now to, to sort of helping our listeners understand what CTV or O T T is like and what it's not. So obviously in terms of targeting and buying, is it more like digital or more like tv? I'm gonna put you on the spot here. Who should be buying these or placing these for campaigns?

Keith Norman:

It's interesting, and it's a fair question. It's one that you know, we think about here at PreOn and our partners, our buyers that we work with think about, and they represent an, a mix of linear TV firms with years of experience with addressable tv, targeted TV advertising through cable and satellite or, or digital firms and buyers with their own years of experience with, with targeted, you know, approaches to buying digital on websites and social. So really both linear TV firms and tell

Eric Wilson:

To anybody I

Keith Norman:

<Laugh> digital firms, yeah, we we're open for business to anybody for sure. But, you know, they, they do bring their own targeting and buying experience and expertise to, to this medium, to C T V. You know, increasingly there's firms that are doing both tv, traditional tv, linear tv, and digital CTV very well now with increasing expertise. You know, Michael Beach at cross screen media has a cautionary rule of thumb on this topic, actually, when he's advising clients and is, you know, don't let a digital buyer pick your video allocation unless they can explain the TV part of the buy. And conversely, don't let your TV buyer pick your video allocation unless they can explain the digital part of the buy. So it's really incumbent upon a political operative or a buyer to make sure they have the expertise and they're representing to their clients that they can do this well.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah, so it sounds like the answer is a hybrid approach, because devices, I mean, it's, it's going on your tv like, like TV ads and, and it, it's sort of supplementing that lost inventory. And then in terms of targeting and, and, you know, metrics and performance, it's more akin towards digital where we, we get some feedback unlike with broadcast. So, so the, it seems like the, the way forward is almost following the medium, right? So if it, if it's the giant screen that's in your living room, a firm needs to handle that from end to end. So when it comes to the creative on C T V or O T T, I'm sorry, I, I've confused us, I now just gonna use both terms, but <laugh> how, how does that differ from your typical TV ad creative? What needs to be changed?

Keith Norman:

It's pretty exciting actually. What could be done with C T V creative or, you know, applying really a digital mindset with, with C T V ads. And so brand advertisers, you know, they've been delivering personalized ads with localized or inac interactive dynamic creative over the, you know, recent years. So they can, they can have different sales or discounts for different store locations, and they can target via zip codes to, you know, to their, the intended audiences. Or they can use QR codes on screen to deliver product information from, from the TV to, to the consumer's phones, or even enable them to purchase those products in real time. And so you're seeing political marketers, now, political advertisers using that personalized ad approach and localized creative or, or inactive creative on political bias. So for instance, including QR codes, Eric, that enable delivering a candidate or issue information to a voter's phone, or even enabling that voter or advocate to use their phone to sign up to volunteer at a phone bank.

That can all be done through creative advertising now on ctv. As for localizing it, you know last cycle we had a, a statewide candidate in a large Midwest state run five different creative messages five different ads with five slightly tailored messages across five different regions of their very large state. And messages varied from how rural or how urban particular area or particular region was that the message was running in. And they did that via zip code targeting by county, which, you know, is really only possible, or at least, you know, efficiently executed on CTV versus broadcaster cable where you're buying, you know, some DMAs or you're buying some cable zones. It's really quite remarkable how efficient ctv, you know, localization of messaging and and impactful tailored messaging can be delivered.

Eric Wilson:

Just as an aside, there's something that gets lost, and this is true about digital advertising, this localization, it's about personalization. It is not meant to say, oh look, we are not gonna waste any money. We're only gonna target these people. But rather it allows you to make the ads more relevant. And I think a lot of campaigns miss out on that. They think, oh, this is, this is how I only target what I need. It's, no, it's, it's, you know, you still gotta treat it kind of like broadcast that people are, you know, you need more people to see it than, than they're actually gonna go out and vote, for example. But it gives you an opportunity to, to cut through the noise.

Keith Norman:

Yeah, you bet. And, you know, targeting that creative, you know, to your point, to audiences that are precise and, and those, you know, those one out of four or two out of four primary voters, I mean, you get it very precise. Like you can with direct mail. In fact, I've heard at least a few political operatives who work, work with refer to CTV as, as direct mail on tv, right? You can really get precise with your targeting just

Eric Wilson:

Desperately hanging on for relevance. I'm, yeah,

Keith Norman:

That's right. That's right. And you can base that targeting on, not just on geo, but on, you know, political affiliation of course, as I mentioned, and also also issue interests. You can use, you know, first party lists or third party segments from providers that we all know and, and work with offline and other aspects of campaigns. So the creative, the localization of that creative, the dynamic nature of that creative, the, the targeting of with precision, and then also to a broader audience with, with a TV mindset to make sure you're not leaving voters untapped, untouched. It's really remarkable how much creativity, how much, how much flexibility there is with, with this kind of advertising available now to political marketers.

Eric Wilson:

Right. Okay. So, so we're, we're starting to notice a theme here where it's, it's, it's somewhere in between, it's a hybrid. It's, you know, it, it's on this screen, it, it's gotta have the, the dynamism of, of a TV ad cuz it's on that, that platform. But you have the ability to do personalization. Let's, let's go down another layer in terms of measurement and attribution. How does CTV compare to the other advertising mediums that campaigns are using?

Keith Norman:

You know, enhanced measurement capabilities with CTV is very akin to those capabilities with digital. One of the areas that many local advertisers lean in to with CTV measurement is reach extension, incremental reach and frequency, and measuring the effectiveness of their tv, buy their linear, you know, tv, buy their C T V buy, enabling them to plan and optimize how they're allocating budget to finding that additional incremental audience through C T V that they can't find on broadcast or vice versa. Quantifying that reach. For example, a reach extension study that we did here at PreOn with 300 campaigns across, you know, multiple verticals including political showed an average of 85% of households reached by campaigns on PreOn were not reached by linear TV campaign. So, you know, CTV has that kind of measurable reach that is really valuable to a holistic approach to political ad buying.

Eric Wilson:

You're obviously a big believer of buying CTV advertising. That might be an understatement <laugh>, but I don't want to give our audience the, the impression, and I, I never advocate for this of a, you know, it's all or nothing. I'm always a both and mm-hmm. <Affirmative> type of person. And so to that point, right, yes, there is a role for tv, yes, there is a role for, for direct mail. So how does, how does C T V fit into a broader TV buying strategy? Is it, is it all about that extending the reach? Or is it something, something different?

Keith Norman:

We recommend to our clients that they ask a lot of questions of themselves about what their, or, you know, what their goal is, what they wish to accomplish. With most, most political buyers, of course, most political operatives, they, they wanna win races or they wanna, you know, win hearts and minds on, on issues about, you know, about initiatives. And then once you've answered those questions and you know what your strategy, what your outcome, what your intended goal is, then, you know, asking questions of your existing or potential, you know, media buyers, it's, is what's, what's next? What's, what's that buyer's experience with linear tv, with digital TV C T V? Are they able to, you know, think and plan across media holistically? Can the digital buyer explain the TV part of the buyer? Can the TV buyer explain the digital part of the buyer, like we talked about earlier? And as for mix as for media mix, there's a, there's a few studies out there that have looked into this, and what we've seen recently is that buyers considering a CTV investment somewhere in the 10 to 40% range based on their audience, based on their geo or or universe target is, is a pretty effective recommendation.

Eric Wilson:

And that's the, that that's really important too. So I just wanna underline it. It is not a fixed percentage. I, there, there have been times throughout my career where people say, oh, you gotta do 20% on, on digital or, or whatever. It, it really comes down to, well, who your audience is, are they in a really expensive DMA or, you know, like where I live in Northern Virginia where you're having to buy a lot of DC or Maryland broadcast and, and there's like tons of waste. So I just wanted to underline that for our listeners, that it, it it is a sliding scale. There's no hard and fast rule of saying, oh, you know, your budget needs to be this. There's some instances where it could be as high as 40 and others where 10% makes more sense.

Keith Norman:

Yeah, yeah. And, and this effective, effective TV rather effect TV <laugh> a little bit of a tongue twister there with with Comcast advertising arm. It's

Eric Wilson:

A better brand for, for being red than her

Keith Norman:

<Laugh>. That's right. So effect TV study recently showed that 20 to 30% of investment allocated streaming was the sweet spot, but beyond 40%, the benefits from putting more money towards streaming is outweighed by the minimizing and the effectiveness of, of the linear TV budget. So yeah, to your point, you know, it depends on the target and it really depends on the DMA or the, you know, the geography and how expensive or how efficient it is to buy linear versus versus streaming.

Eric Wilson:

Keith, as you know, this political industry of ours is slow to change <laugh> <laugh>. So I don't think we are gonna completely leapfrog to where we need to be on C T V in 2024. What are some a attainable goals for someone listening who's a campaign ad buyer who wants to move the ball forward? What, what should they be looking at trying to, trying to do this cycle?

Keith Norman:

Yeah, so, you know, as we're talking about, one of the themes here is embracing CTV as a way to extend reach, as a way to increase frequency and capture audiences. Frankly, in some cases, that can't be reached with linear at all. So that's one big takeaway from the recent cycles that we've been working with our clients here at PreOn and recommendations going forward. The other, you know, thought the other goal for, for 20 23, 20 24 is to have buyers working with partners and vendors that are focused on branded networks, high quality networks that align with the type of programming that their clients or they've been accustomed to, to getting with TV buys. There's a lot of Bill and Ted's excellent o t T services out there, o t T channels out there. They're just not brand safe. And then, you know, working with partners that have capabilities to measure that reach and, and measure that website attribution or measure again, through, you know, QR codes in other ways, what kind of, you know, return on investment the buy is achieving. That's a really valuable addition to a media strategy is, is r roi. And so taking advantage of the digital measurement capabilities that are available with CTV that come with the impact and the results and the effectiveness of a TV buy on the big screen.

Eric Wilson:

Well, I want to say thanks to Keith Norman for an amazing conversation today. We learned more than anyone ever asked to know about connected tv, but now you're prepared for 2024 buying ads where the voters are. You can learn more about the work that Keith is doing at PreOn over on their website. There's a link in our show notes and they put out really good resources, so lots of studies and research. So go check that out. If this episode made you a little bit smarter or gave you something to think about, all we ask is that you share it with a friend or colleague and bonus you look smarter in the process. Remember to subscribe to The Business of Politics Show wherever you get your podcasts, so you'll never miss an episode. You can also get email updates about new episodes at business of politics podcast.com. With that, I'll say thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

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