Leading Local Insights
Leading Local Insights
Political Advertisers Flock to CTV/OTT: A New Era in Campaign Spending
Political ads are dominating Connected TV (CTV) and Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms. On this episode, BIA’s Nicole Ovadia welcomes Rich Crone, Director of Political at Jamloop, to discuss how campaigns use streaming data to precision-target voters. With BIA projecting $11.7 billion in 2024 political ad spending, CTV/OTT is getting more of the increased ad spend.
Crone breaks down the Biden-Harris and Trump-MAGA campaigns' strategies, showing how redistricting and voter apathy impact spending. Crone also highlights how the flexibility and precision of CTV and OTT makes them ideal for campaigns and unique ballot initiatives that seek to hit specific voter segments. Hear about what’s happening in Nebraska, Montana, and other pivotal battlegrounds, where CTV and OTT platforms are proving invaluable as traditional media saturates. Tune in to hear about the shifting landscape of local political advertising.
Sponsored by JamLoop: JamLoop is the leading CTV advertising platform for political campaigns of all sizes to launch within 24 hrs. Reach your local audiences fast, whether it’s for municipal, county, state, or nationwide campaigns. Advanced data segmentation gives you immediate access to targeting key voters across 1200+ segments, 300+ premium CTV publishers, at a zip code level - combined with real-time tracking and optimization. Learn more at www.jamloop.com.
Hello and welcome to BIA Advisory Services Leading Local Insights podcast. My name is Nicola Ovadia and I'm the VP of Forecasting and Analysis here at BIA. I am thrilled to host this third podcast in our special series where we are focused on all things political. With the election coming up in November, there's a lot to discuss and unpack, including who will spend, where will they spend and on what media will they spend. For this podcast, we're going to focus on CTV OTT spending and thankfully, we have a seasoned expert with us today to talk through all of our questions. Rich Crone is the Director of Political at JamLoop, where he is focused on connecting political campaigns and candidates with CTV OTT inventory. Rich also brings his vast experience in cable and television broadcasts to the conversation, making him uniquely qualified to talk about how political spending used to happen, what's happening now and exciting changes that we're already seeing today for coming on the horizon. Rich, thank you so much for being here today and please say hello to all your fans out there.
Rich Crone:Oh, that's very kind. I first want to say thank you to BIA Advisory Services because you guys are experts in the local advertising and information space and I just want to give recognition for the work that you're doing and then to kind of this outreach to your broadcast and media partners that listen and I just truly grateful for the time just to be able to talk all things CTV going forward in this political cycle.
Nicole Ovadia:Thank you so much. You are so kind and we are so excited to have you. Before we get started, though, I do want to level set a little bit. So could you tell us and those in the audience what is JamLoop and what is it that you do specifically?
Rich Crone:TV, DSP or a demand side platform, and we serve the inventory and impressions for local, state and federal campaigns due to our 300 publishers that we are the actual platform and we talk to these 300 publishers using over 30 different data providers to be able to target an audience for a campaign, right down to the zip code.
Nicole Ovadia:Amazing and your role there specifically.
Rich Crone:I am our director of political as being able to work with these campaigns directly, and that's either through the agencies, the consultants, the campaigns themselves, or statewide organizations and any county organizations as well. So we have a full sort of dedicated effort to reach this political community with this growing space and CTV.
Nicole Ovadia:I mean, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, BIA, we're estimating $11.7 billion will be spent on political advertising in 2024. Of that, $1 billion will be spent on CTVOTT. That's an increase of almost $900 million from 2022, which is not that long ago. I mean it's incredible. I mean it is off the charts in terms of media growth projections. So that's what BIA is saying, Rich, what do you think? Is that lining up with what you're seeing and what you're expecting? Because you're more on the demand side. So please judge my forecasts.
Rich Crone:Well, to that point I live by the Socratic paradox which is, I know, I know nothing and we've heard sort of you know forecast the beginning of the year ranging from 10 billion to up as high as I saw some saying 16 billion. I think your forecast of 11.7 billion at this point in time is pretty accurate. Right, I'll tell you. You know you always have a margin of error, but I do think the 11.7 billion overall right now is a good spot To that end. However, I likely think that the CTV portion will be a little bit higher than just 1 billion. I'm probably looking at the 1.3, 1.4 billion, looking at, we can say, overall, like 11%. But truthfully, I mean no one knows sort of the sliding scale of the broadcast, the cable and the CTV. I do know the broadcast will still take the largest percentage. Cable is impacted just a lot from the CTV presence and growth. One thing that of all considerations and forecasts, the number one growth category will be CTV. It's just depending on how and where that shakes out.
Nicole Ovadia:Amazing. I totally agree with you that CTV/ OTT is growing, but I do think we have to talk about this growth in two different ways. We have to talk about the growth in audience and we have to talk about the growth in money. So let's talk about them separately, if we can. First, audience Audiences are growing on CTV/ OTT. Nobody is denying that. But what do these audiences look like? I'm hearing a lot about quote quality inventory. Can you even talk to us what does that mean? Is quality inventory the type of inventory that's growing? Does it even matter? And how is all of this affecting the political, especially purchasing and the movement of dollars, as you've discussed? From other media to CTV/ OTT, discussed from other media to CTV, ott.
Rich Crone:Great, great question. Dollars follow eyeballs right and this sort of evolution of television and sort of within these political campaigns. What we're seeing here is, you know, from the broadcasting cable to the CTV or streaming TV space is sort of the evolution of people to become more comfortable and confident and using sort of their the devices of either the smart TVs on the wall, the phone in their hand, and to really like, like you had said, to separate out the audiences and the money. It's really sort of the seismic shift that went on probably 20 years ago when cable was just about to burgeon and sort of go inside of broadcast. We're kind of seeing that the strategic targeting of streaming and you had said, quality inventory. Really truly it's a group of, you know, premium publishers that are providing the inventory of how people are consuming content as a targeted profile.
Rich Crone:So back in the day, you know, at my broadcasting cable days, I could tell you when and where the spot was going to place. I couldn't really tell you who was going to watch it here in the streaming, just due to the targeting in advance. You're able to tell you who is going to watch it, but you can't tell when and where it's going to fire based upon the algorithm that's hitting that target audience. So, to ask and answer your question about quality inventory, I really think it just shifts to quality impression and, to that end, a quality impression. And to borrow the old axiom, a rose is a rose is a rose. I truly think a quality impression is one that hits your target audience at whatever time and whatever network or whatever platform.
Nicole Ovadia:So interesting. It's just how that's changing. I mean, and especially when I think about that with political races, part of what makes political so interesting is that the buying is not necessarily done. I to see themselves, and so I could see them being much more drawn to the over the air television, and you know, just knowing that I'm on in the, in the news hour, you know, and that's important for a politician, but what you're saying is actually like potential voters or potential donators like I can reach them, it doesn't matter what time and it doesn't necessarily matter what screen. Wouldn't you rather we reach the people you're trying to reach, or is it more important for you to turn on the local news and see yourself? Right, that's. That's such an interesting conversation that I don't think we have with other verticals as much.
Rich Crone:And totally working with candidates directly. We have seen that actually last fall we had a campaign running and the candidate didn't see their ad and it was almost. It wasn't argumentative, but it was just to say you were not necessarily your target audience based upon who your profile was and I do believe just sort of you know, and some of the old car dealers want to see their face. There's probably some of that in these political campaigns and candidates that want to see their face and it's almost, you know and knowing that that messaging is important, that they see. It we're more concerned about did we reach the target voter file that you wanted to be able to reach?
Nicole Ovadia:Right, but client management, I mean, it's just so important Like you could have the best solution possible, but you know, if you don't manage your clients right in that relationship, yeah, that's very interesting. So, speaking of clients and faces to be seen, let's start at the top of the ticket and work our way down. So, presidential race how much money are you seeing being spent and how do you expect those dollars to shift? So just to tell the audience, we are recording this podcast just before Labor Day. So, rich, I'd like to ask you I'm hearing a lot about both parties really kind of backing off. Things are quiet now. I'm hearing a lot about how inventory is reserved but it's not necessarily being activated just yet and people are saying, okay, post-labor Day, maybe the middle of September.
Nicole Ovadia:It's going to take a little bit for both parties to start ramping up their messaging. Now that they are shifting to really policy-related messages. Things might be quiet for a little while and then, come October 1st or once we get into the debates and whatnot that kind of season, which is in the middle of September as well things will start to ramp up. That's making some people very nervous because we started this podcast. We're talking about nearly $12 billion in political, but a lot of the broadcasters are saying when's it going to start? Can you confirm, deny, what are you hearing, what are you seeing in terms of the presidential race and how do you expect the dollars to play out and be spent between now and the election?
Rich Crone:Great question. Before we go forward, let's take a step back, right, please. So President Biden spent $610 million in the 2020 campaign, right so? And going from 2023 to the first half of 2024, the Biden campaign spent $300 million, right so that? And there was not the energy, or shall we say, activation, from either side in this early part of the year on the presidential level, however.
Rich Crone:So, as soon as Harris comes into the race, a lot of momentum, a lot of money, and so they just reserved, through the summer, $150 million from July 22nd, the launch of their campaign through Labor Day in the seven battleground states Everybody's well aware of those seven battlegrounds and just last week, have done, like you said, the advanced placement and placing $370 million from Labor Day to Election Day.
Rich Crone:So, within that, though, they've actually already said 200 million of that will be in digital advertising, specifically, and CTV, so that's probably the highest sort of percentage that's been reserved in advance, as well as, like you said, the PACs and the different organizations that already put a stake in the ground in those battleground states and on the flip side.
Rich Crone:So that's $520 million coming from Harris' campaign. $265 is really coming from the Trump campaign and then the MAGA PAC being able to influence that and what that does that look like? Uh, you know, really truly, they're setting that up for like a September roll, but each, each, each side and each candidate wants to own October right and that is where the biggest weight and historically and traditionally um 65 percent of all the revenue for all campaigns come in from Labor Day to Election Day. So I do believe, with kind of some voter apathy, in the early presidential cycle, primaries weren't that robust. They had very limited activity on the lower levels with redistricting kind of pinning up some dollars. I do think we're about to launch into a robust season of presidential all the way down the ballot.
Nicole Ovadia:Could you say that one more time? How much is spent between Labor Day and election typically?
Rich Crone:65 to 70 percent is pretty much run from Labor Day, so and that I do believe it was a little lighter. And that's kind of where you say our broadcast people and media folks that are listening to this podcast. They were wondering, just like us, as every a lot of organizations were looking at. So, for example, there are 435, you know US congressional seats and there's, there's data that shows there was probably less than 10% of those were actually competitive just due to the redistricting right. They were saying the general public doesn't know that as much, let alone some of the candidates who are actually running in this just to see the reality of the competitive nature. And from consultants and the community that I've, you know, just, this is my ninth political cycle and still learning everything, something new every time, one sort of the reason it's so competitive, the reason that there's so much money, is because competition means conflict, conflict means interest, interest means money, right, and if there's no conflict, there's no money, there's no conflict, there's no interest, there's no money.
Nicole Ovadia:Okay, well, you have just set up the very next question, Speaking of conflict, can we talk about Nebraska? What is going on in Nebraska? So what we're seeing is that there are we'll call them opposite issue two different sides with ballot initiatives this election cycle in terms of women's rights or abortion rights, and so this might be the first time that we've ever had both sides like these opposite initiatives happening in the exact same election. Can you talk about you know? Has this ever happened before? What are you expecting in terms of spending here, and is this indicative of spending that we're going to see in other states?
Rich Crone:Well, great question. You're right. There is a battle. For the first time and this is groundbreaking Never before has there been opposing sides. Let's just say women's health, pro-life, pro-choice on the same ballot right, health of pro-life pro-choice on the same ballot right, and so there's money and messaging to try to influence that. So while Nebraska is sort of the front line of having a issue that's on both sides of the ballot, or having a ballot measure for both sides, I will say Maryland measure for both sides. I will say Maryland, arizona, nevada, florida all of these also have ballot measures, but Nebraska is the only one that has both sides. We're seeing increased spending there through these statewide organizations that are getting support from the national organizations to work right in that Nebraska state To that end. Just last week in Arkansas, the legislature dismissed the abortion ballot measure, and so that is no longer a competitive area, which will now direct to some of these other states that have the ballot measure coming up in November.
Nicole Ovadia:It's interesting that most of those ballot measure states you mentioned seem very purple. I mean, you said you know, you talked about Nevada, you talked about Arizona and these are already highly contested states and so I mean, are we just seeing more money is going to be flooded into these? I guess my question here is is this indicative of we're going to see most of the spending in these quote purple states and just not a lot happening in traditional blue, traditional red states, outside of fundraising dollars in those states? Is that your expectation?
Rich Crone:Yes, and I think to let. What you just said is where they feel that there's the fight. That's where the flow of the money will come to support either side in that capacity. And I do believe, like you know, Arizona and Nevada already have just sort of being a battleground on the presidential scale, let alone come in with this specific issue as well. So there's a groundswell of money coming to those places.
Nicole Ovadia:And some of the other highly contested states and markets and whatnot. Montana is another one that I just keep hearing is just off the charts in terms of there are not enough impressions. So when I hear something like that, ctvott seems like very attractive. I mean, first of all, if I'm a broadcaster in the state of Texas, I can still sell impressions up there in you know, Montana, so I don't have to worry about, like I think, a lot of political dollars coming from traditional television radio stations let's call them those. You know I'm sitting here in Brooklyn. If I were at a radio station or television station in New York I'd be like, well, not really much coming my way, but I wish I lived in Montana right now. But CTVOTT makes that approachable for more people. So could you talk about Montana in general and also could you talk about how people can take advantage of these races in other markets, like, how do I get a piece of that? You know, I'm sure our listeners are all thinking right now that sounds great. How do I get it?
Rich Crone:Well, I think Montana is a mountain of money that's coming there and being available, like you said. I've heard different stories of how high the rates are getting on the local broadcast stations as well as the cable systems. An alternative of available impressions is CTV, the cable systems. An alternative of available impressions is CTV. But to answer your question, in other places, I think Jamloop, we are a purpose built for sort of the local market, as BIA is sort of, with the focus on the local market. We can help in those problem areas, in these down ballot races and in places that need sort of available impressions to be able to help those campaigns in their own backyard.
Nicole Ovadia:Yes, and so, first and foremost, anybody listening now who has any questions or needs or wants help navigating this space the CTV/ OTT space, especially related to political call Rich. He's ready to receive your calls and emails. So reach out to Rich at JamLoop and I promise he will help you out and Rich. I also have one more question that I want to ask and it's really about the future what happens after the election? So what happens in 2025 related to political? I mean? I think what I'm hearing from you is there will be initiatives and ballot, like whether it's online gambling, abortion, gun control there's a lot of different initiatives that are more and more important to people outside of the four year presidential election cycle. So what are you expecting in 2025? And could you possibly talk to us about the midterms in 26 and 28, how you think CTV/ OTT, especially, will be a new player or an emerging player in all of these upcoming elections?
Rich Crone:Well, before we give you 25, 26, 28, I want to give you some real life examples of how CTV is being used right here, right now, to help these campaigns.
Rich Crone:For number one, we worked with a county group that had 11 different candidates from sort of state house, state senate, as well as two judges, a board of education and then a couple of county commissioners, and so we took their county representation and be able to target the CTV impressions to each one of those respective districts by going granular, right down to each and every one of their target audiences. Number two, another example, was that we were able to a statewide organization came to us and said hey, we want a US House district, we want a State House district and a State Senate district and we also want to target a few zip codes. So our team was able to get them on and in an afternoon they became live, being able to have that save time in a fast and furious sort of campaign season. Time is the greatest currency and our ability of our team is to help them save time, to get the impressions in these places and to be a resource to them in that capacity.
Nicole Ovadia:And then lastly-, oh, I'm sorry I have to jump in there because it also sounds like you could help a lot of other campaigns. So, thinking about the Harris and the Trump campaign, I'm thinking about how their messaging is just changing on the dime almost daily, right? So before it was let's introduce Harris to, or reintroduce Harris to the country, and now there's a lot of messaging that's switching to abortion and I'm wondering where and how. So the CTV/ OTT, the nimbleness with which you can swap out content and creative and AB test and whatnot, must be very attractive to large campaigns, to small campaigns, and can you talk about how that's being used?
Rich Crone:before I let you talk about the future again, yes, I wanted to keep focused on the present until we get to the future. Yes, and I will say, for example, in Florida we had a primary running and the candidate brought their first-party data file and they were targeting their list and we were able to have the messaging just go to that target list. But they also updated throughout the primary of people who they knew had already voted and they were able to provide that information and then we were able to no longer reach that household or that person who had already voted. And I do think that CTV has some sort of cost-effective advantage by being able to change that messaging out throughout the course of a campaign. And what you had said about the different creative, where there's no log deadlines, there's no hey, I'll get you on, you know, tuesday, this is live and that our team is ready with their hair on fire to be able to insert that commercial and get you, you know, getting that new creative in a live campaign to answer response to the opposing side. And so we understand that creative sort of fluency and being able to respond accordingly. I would say.
Rich Crone:Lastly, one thing that I discovered in the CTV space is the growing sort of opportunity within the Hispanic community, realizing that the Hispanic population is now roughly 20% of the US, that our ability to be able to have, with 40 plus Spanish language only publishers, we're able to do a multilingual campaign, as we did in Colorado for a candidate in the primary there that had Spanish language and English running as a multilingual campaign for his district. So I just wanted to give those examples of our present sort of activation with CTV through Jamloop. But now to go back to the future I would say 2025, we will reset with those state legislative races in Virginia and New Jersey. Once again, I do think issue is the new political. We will see those continual ballot measures fight it out from 2025 forward 2026 midterms. We'll all go back to Georgia once again.
Rich Crone:I think what we saw in 2020, the whole epicenter was Georgia, Georgia, Georgia kind of goes back to even 2000, when everything was Florida, Florida, Florida. My prediction is this year is 2024 is Pennsylvania, Florida, Florida. My prediction this year is 2024 is Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania. But 2026 will be once again Georgia, Georgia, Georgia with an open governor's seat, a fight for the Republicans to retake Ossoff, John Ossoff's Democratic seat in the US Senate. Every sort of statewide office will still be open and running for 2026. So that fight will continue and what happens here in the next, you know, roughly 10 weeks, we'll set up 2028 for whoever wins and either side will have domino impact and effects for each party of who the candidates will be in 2028. And I go back to the Socratic paradox. No one really knows, but we do our best to be as prepared and ready, willing and able to help and see what CTV can do now and in the future.
Nicole Ovadia:Yeah, and for 2025,. I mean I always, every time I say, oh, $11.7 billion in 2024, a little birdie in the back of my mind is like what if there's a runoff in Georgia? There might be some. And I'm like, oh, please, not again, not again, no runoff.
Rich Crone:So I won't get that Christmas back. That was epic and I don't know if we'll ever see two Senate races deciding the right for the Senate.
Nicole Ovadia:but you never know, you never know, I know. So I'm like I'm pretty sure it's all going to be in 2024, but you never know, right? Wow, rich, thank you so much for being here today and for sharing all of your thoughts and insights. This has been extremely educational and eye-opening for me. I am so excited for this upcoming political cycle and everything all the incredible changes that we're seeing in terms of the way that media is being bought, the way it's being used, the messaging it's being used, the messaging involved it's just so fascinating and the growth of CTV OTT. bia.
Nicole Ovadia:Jamloop being right in the middle of all of that and on the precipice and richcrone@ jamloop. com that you and your company are doing to help people, as political candidates JamLoop this new space in inefficient and ways that will move their campaign forward. We here at BIA will continue to stay close to this and we will continue to update our forecast as necessary. I might need to take my OTT number up a little bit, as Rich has alluded to earlier in this podcast, but we'll readdress that. Alluded to earlier in this podcast, but we'll readdress that For everybody out there listening in the world around us. Thank you so much for being here and for joining us. If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at podcast, at biacom, and we look forward to bringing you more insightful conversations on local media throughout the year ahead. Rich, let's say goodbye real quick and again, thank you so much for everything.
Rich Crone:Thank you, nicole. I appreciate the opportunity. And here again, my email is richcrohn C-R-O-N-E at jamloopcom. My number is 404-409-5370. And I'll leave you with why vote for Jam, luke, because everybody's getting that out there and four simple things we save time, you can buy value, you can see transparency and achieve fulfillment. So I truly appreciate that opportunity and we're thankful for all the work that you're doing with BIA.
Nicole Ovadia:Thank you, Rich. We look forward to having you back on another podcast in the not too distant future so we can talk about how all the money was spent and how right we were. How's that? Thank you, Nicole. Have a great day to everyone out there and have a safe election season.