TV remains voters’ top choice for impact and awareness of political messages; Digital inventory is scarce and risky

Every week between today’s Super Tuesday elections and June 14 brings a new set of primaries and caucuses before it’s on to the political party conventions and November’s national election. The hotly contested election is driving record spending. Borrell Associates expects $11.4 billion to be spent on the 2016 election, 20 percent greater than the previous high in 2012, including a new high of $1 billion on digital.

It’s easy to see why digital video has become as popular among political operatives as it is to brand marketers. It’s a high involvement ad format that can be carefully targeted at specific voters with relatively low CPMs. You get what you pay for, though; the worries about digital video fraud and viewability are well documented.

Candidates and SuperPACs looking to run targeted digital video advertising are also running into an unexpected problem: there’s not enough digital premium inventory to go around. On February 18, YouTube announced it was completely sold out in the early battlegrounds of Nevada and South Carolina.

How can candidates get their video messages targeted to the right voters, achieve massive reach quickly and motivate action – all while assuring their ads are viewable and run amid premium programming? TV still hits all these notes, and buying programmatically with WO Programmatic TV assures that campaigns can “heavy up” TV advertising in their key states.

TV remains the best way for campaigns to achieve massive reach fast and motivate people to go to the polls – the key to success in small and large states alike. Check out these fast facts:

• TV reaches 87 percent of Americans 18 and older. (Nielsen)
• Every age group thinks political TV ads are extremely or very effective, including 38 percent of Millennials, 25 percent of Gen Xers (35-50s), and 19 percent of Boomers (51-69).  (Kelly Scott Madison)
• 69 percent said TV is their chief source of political news, while 39 percent say TV is their most important method for getting info on candidates – tops among any media format. (IAB)

WO Programmatic TV can help get your message in front of voters in any market across our footprint of 74% of US households. Click here to find out how we can extend your campaign with TV advertising in your toughest battlegrounds.