Online ads can move poll numbers. Barriers to online video advertising are disintegrating. Now is the time for politicians and advocacy organizations to shift 10% of their TV ad spend online.
These were the major points presented by Political Online Video Advertising panelists Anupam Gupta, Michael Bassik, Michael Beach, Josh Koster, and Alex Skatell at the recent Personal Democracy Forum conference in New York.
Disintegrating barriers
Many political advertisers blame structural barriers for their hesitation to invest in online. They point to:
A lack of inventory for in-stream video ads.
The expense and labor involved in creating and/or editing video for online audiences.
Incentive and pricing structures that favor TV.
These barriers are more perceived than real.
While in-stream video ad inventory is low, inventory for in-banner video ads is virtually unlimited. By running video ads in standard display ad banners, advertisers have access to millions of online impressions.
Running in-banner video allows advertisers to target viewers, either by selecting the sites the ads run on or by taking advantage of the geographic and demographic targeting tools available through ad networks.
Studies increasingly show that online viewers are willing to spend time watching engaging video content. This means that 30-second TV spots can be easily and economically re-purposed for use online.
TV + online creates a synergy that is more than the sum of the two parts. Yahoo!’s analysis of Nielsen IAG data showed that a 10 percent to 15 percent shift from TV to online increased reach and significantly lowered cost per point (CPP). In addition, the frequency of online ads improved TV brand recall by as much as 50 percent.
Source: Nielsen IAG
Online advertising can move poll numbers
A recent study conducted by Russell Research on behalf of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association confirmed that online ads can move numbers. The study measured the ability of an online display and video ad campaign to raise awareness.
Comparisons of baseline polls and post-campaign surveys showed significant increases in awareness (from 42 to 56 percent for some audience segments) as well as strong ad recall.
The time is now
Only 5 months until the 2010 elections. Extend your TV ad campaigns online now.
Kimbal Musk, CEO of OneRiot, claims that brands or websites that want to connect with users in a social or realtime environment need to advertise in realtime.
According to Musk, realtime ads are ads that “are created as they become relevant across the realtime web. Realtime ads” he says, “can be Tweets, search ads or display ads that contain content that is relevant right now.”
Indeed, one of the keys to the success of the Scott Brown for U.S. Senate campaign was the campaign’s ability to immediately capitalize on audience reaction to the final Brown-Coakley debate.
Immediately after the debate, without retrafficking any ad tags, the campaign replaced the creative in a video ad running on BostonHerald.com with “Momentum” creative that stoked the building enthusiasm.
Voters chose to watch Brown’s video ad nearly twice as often as the industry average for video ads. They engaged twice as often as viewers engage with video ads overall. The campaign’s click through rate exceeded the industry standard for display ads by almost double.
In a recent article on ClickZ, Kate Kaye interviews partners from a number of digital consulting agencies that have launched in recent months. These agencies are hoping to profit from the wave of candidate and advocacy campaigns convinced by the success of Obama’s presidential run and the Scott Brown for Senate effort that “incorporating a digital media strategy into their overall approaches is vital.”
“As new media grows,” says Peter Pasi, EVP of Emotive, a digital agency serving Republicans, “campaigns are demanding a more varied skill set from their agencies.”
One of the skills that new digital agencies offer is the ability to avoid the silos that have so often separated digital campaign efforts and traditional disciplines, such as direct mail and television.
Justin Germany, co-founder and partner of political consultancy Craft, notes that when “we shoot [web video] for a client, it’s all multipurpose.” The lines between the web and television “start blurring, start disappearing.”
Craft co-founder Michael Turk says that agencies that push one medium over another may end up “advocating for things that might not be best for the client.”
“What you want to be able to do,” says Germany, “is have all guns blazing at once.”
Learn more about how the Scott Brown for Senate campaign benefited by taking the power of TV to the Internet.
As a participant in a panel (scheduled for 12:30 PM on April 20) called Rick Rolled! The Power of Online Video Content, Gupta will discuss Mixpo’s dynamic video advertising solution for politics.
To read about dynamic video advertising and see it in action, download a datasheet.
Viral videos are a cheap way to gain attention for a political candidate. That’s the message of Bill Whitaker’s CBS news report called Political Attack Ads Hit the Net.
Whitaker contrasts online ads, such as recent ads featuring a Meg Whitman avatar and a bloated balloon version of Barbara Boxer, with expensive TV ads (costing up to $10,000 per 30 seconds) that voters can skip. Motivated voters seek out and share political ads online.
While, as Millward Brown points out, only a small proportion of ads actually achieve high viral viewing, integrating an online video ad with other media efforts is one of the top 10 ways to encourage viral spread.
Learn more about integrating TV and online political advertising efforts.
“Video advertising is about performance, whether an advertiser measures it by awareness, traffic or converting site visitors to sales or leads.” So says Bill Todd in a post on the Online VideoInsider blog.
Political strategists know only too well that they have a limited window of opportunity to influence voters. Naturally, they want their online video advertising campaigns to perform as effectively as possible.
But how do strategists know what combination of creative and interactivity will actually deliver the best results? Typically, they have to guess.
Mixpo eliminates guesswork by making it easy to build optimization into the process of running an Xspot campaign.
Strategists can easily put together different versions of an Xspot to test which start frames attract the most viewers, which video content best holds viewers’ attention, or which calls to action and links to more detailed information deliver the most clicks.
The versions rotate randomly through the same Player. After a specified number of impressions, the Mixpo platform automatically replaces the rotating versions with the best performing Xspot.
Take a look at our Dynamic Video Advertising for Politics datasheet to see 2 versions of a 30-second TV spot customized to deliver 2 sets of campaign objectives.
Visit the product blog to read more about auto-optimization.
Just before the January 11 Brown-Coakley debate in Massachusetts, the Scott Brown for U.S. Senate campaign began running a Mixpo Xspot in the Boston Herald.
As MSNBC’s Chuck Todd emphasized in his Daily Rundown, audience reaction to the debate gave the Brown campaign an enormous boost in momentum.
To take advantage of this breaking change, the Brown campaign included a second “Momentum” Xspot in its Boston Herald ad rotation. The new ad began running immediately.
Responding instantly to debates, opponents’ comments, poll results, and other shifts in political sentiment is key to any politician’s success.
With Mixpo’s Rapid Response capability, you can swap messaging, switch creative, insert polls or list-building forms, link to more detailed video content, and more without ever re-trafficking an ad tag. Changes go live immediately everywhere an Xspot is published.
Watch this demo Scott Brown Xspot to see examples of rapid-response messaging.
Note The messages included in this Xspot are for demo purposes only and never ran during the actual Scott Brown campaign.
Learn more about dynamic video advertising for politics.
On March 10, Karen Jagoda, host of the e-Voter Institute’s Digital Politics podcast, interviewed Mixpo CEO, Anupam Gupta. Hear Gupta describe why he believes that, as political strategists discover the power of dynamic online video advertising, they will devote a greater percentage of their media budgets to online advertising.
For a description of how Mixpo Xspots helped Scott Brown crush Martha Coakley and drive campaign voluteers, read Kate Kaye’s March 11 article on ClickZ.
Learn more about Mixpo’s dynamic video advertising solution for politics.
Never miss an opportunity to get someone’s email address. That’s the key piece of advice the article called Online Advocacy Tools: Email Lists gives to advocacy organizations and political campaigns.
“Successful campaigns,” the article continues, “make every effort to convert casual visitors into active supporters,” who, typically, become a primary source of contributions.
Using easy-to-customize calls to action, you can convert any Mixpo Xspot into a list-building tool. Because viewers who join a list through an Xspot have chosen to watch and interact with the ad, they represent a highly-qualified group of leads.
Watch this Scott Brown demo Xspot to experience the list building features for yourself.
While the Xspot plays, expand the INFO menu and click the Volunteer Today! link. Click the Become a Scott Brown Supporter! overlay to open a custom lead capture form.
Note These lead capture calls to action are for demo purposes only and weren’t actually used during the Scott Brown campaign.
Learn more about dynamic video advertising for politics.
Contact us to learn more about building lists with Xspots.
A senate candidate ends a general campaign Xspot by giving voters the choice to branch to more detailed Xspots covering 3 hot-button issues.
At the end of a short presidential campaign Xspot, viewers, based on their IP addresses, are automatically redirected to Xspots featuring local gubernatorial races.
These are just two examples of what’s possible with the new telescoping, or redirect, feature available in the Mixpo platform.
Click the Economic Crisis overlay toward the end of this Scott Brown demo Xspot to experience a simple example of telescoping in action.
Note This telescoping example is for demo purposes only and was not used in an actual Scott Brown campaign ad.
Telescoping is just one of several new Mixpo features released recently as part of a package aimed at political campaigns. Learn more about the full package by visiting our political microsite.
To talk with a Mixpo representative about dynamic video advertising for politics, contact us.
