WASHINGTON, D.C.-The 2016 presidential election cycle is the first one in which campaigns have been able to target voters with addressable television advertising. “So we’ve been awfully busy,” said Mark Failla, Director of Political Ad Sales at D2 Media Sales.
D2 is a limited partnership between DIRECTV and DISH that was created just in time for the mid-year elections in 2014, Failla explained earlier this month in an interview at the Beet.TV summit on politics and advertising.
“It was very well received in 2014 and now we’ve really expanded our relationships with a lot of agencies and political advertisers,” said Failla.
This year alone, D2 has worked with more than 100 different political campaigns—both issue or non-candidate campaigns and campaigns for individual candidates.
“We’ve been fortunate to work with nearly every single presidential candidate starting last November and or their PAC’s,” along with many senate campaigns, Failla added.
Besides more precise targeting of households, among the prime selling points for addressable political ads is the reduction of waste from “DMA bleed,” wherein a designated market area encompasses more than one desired state.
“You’re also able to equalize the impressions or commercials that are served to heavy TV viewers or to light TV viewers, which is another extremely important factor,” said Failla.
Sold on an impression basis, addressable ads are only paid for when they are actually seen. In addition, D2 can tell buyers which networks their ads are being viewed on, “And that can help inform their other buys,” said Failla.
You are watching videos from Beet.TV politics and advertising summit presented by OpenX along with Intermarkets. Please find additional videos from the series here.
