Data Advances Transform TV Ad Targeting, Costs

Improved data technology is revolutionizing political TV ad targeting and spending, stresses a recent report by The Wall Street Journal. Borrowing from traditional direct-mail targeting methods, data analysts now can mine information about where a person lives, how he or she has voted and what products have been purchased to predict future political behavior -- and then match those voters to TV viewer data about what shows individuals watch and when they watch them. This allows TV ad targeting to drill down to a much deeper level than blanket TV ad buys using traditional audience stats. For example, DirecTV Group Inc. and Dish Network Corp., the country's two biggest satellite-TV providers, now offer direct access to chosen households, so one person might see a campaign ad during a show that his next-door neighbor won't see even if watching the same show. Cablevision Systems Corp. and Comcast Spotlight, a division of Comcast Corp., also have started providing campaigns with detailed, real-time information about what people are watching. Sensitive to possible privacy concerns, ad buyers and sellers stressed to WSJ that individual privacy is being protected by encryption, removal of names and identifiers, and third-party matching of anonymous voter and TV viewer data. But the bottom line is that these new data tools are allowing campaigns to reach pivotal voters at lower TV-ad costs. Advocates of the new TV targeting for both Republicans and Democrats told WSJ that they can help a campaign stretch its ad budget by as much as 30%. That's certainly good news when political campaigns will spend about 57% of their overall advertising budgets on broadcast TV, and another 15% on cable, according to projections by Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group! For examples of how real campaigns have used the new TV targeting, read the WSJ story: http://online.wsj.com/articles/political-ads-take-targeting-to-the-next-level-1405381606