The 2024 Elections Shows the Limits of CTV

Plus, Death of an Ad Salesman?

My 11-year old recently asked me about abortion - “is that when they kick you out of your house?”

Hey, at least I don’t live in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin.

Let me explain.

The reason the abortion issue has come up is that my kids watch a ton of YouTube, and ads for and against local Congressman Anthony D'Esposito are all over the app. There are either the anti-D'Esposito ads, which feature testimonials from women talking about how D'Esposito is open to a national abortion ban (they say), or testimonials from D'Esposito himself saying this isn’t true, along with ads about whether he’s a bad cop, great cop, and whether his opponent raised taxes and let everyone in at the border.

To be fair, D'Esposito ads are not limited to YouTube- they are all over the tube. And, I don’t let my kids log in on the YouTube CTV app, so we may be getting a lot of ‘general’ local YouTube ad targeting. Plus, you can’t blame platforms for the creative these campaigns are running.

Still, the abortion-themed ads are showing up within videos from creators like the gamer SypherPK and Mr. Beast, to a TV set (or IP address) that is constantly watching clips from creators who appeal to young people.

My point is that the targeting and strategy feel like a fail, especially how much we tout the addressability of CTV, and TV in general.

Ok, so maybe the 2024 election is like nothing else in media and advertising history. Maybe my house, my internet provider, TV habits, non-swing-state market - all make me an outlier.

Or maybe this experience is revealing the ad targeting limits of television.

For instance:

• At my house, we constantly see ads for and against Congressional candidate Mondaire Jones, despite the fact that he’s running in upstate New York, not my district on Long Island

• We’ve seen tons of ads for Pat Ryan - some of the best political ads I’ve ever seen -by the way - yet we can’t vote for him here either.

• We see lots of ads from Super PACs telling me how bad Kamala Harris is. Spoiler alert, I’m not voting from Trump.

To be sure, these ads are running in CTV, on linear TV, live sports, you name it. So I understand, there are lots of variables here. Sometimes candidates have to buy TV ads that run across the entire New York DMA, not just in specific regions (I even get ads for New Jersey politicians). Sometimes it’s probably more efficient to buy national Trump ads than to target them.

Still, political campaigns are often cited at one of thee perfect examples of how data-driven-TV advertising is supposed to work going forward. Theoretically:

• You should be able to target by zip code

• You should be able to target by party affiliation (I’m a registered Democrat, with a voting history - aren’t I on some kind of ‘device graph’?)

• You should even be able to target by issue (for instances, some viewers/voters would be very motivated by abortion messaging, while others care about crime, taxes economy, etc. Yet the D'Esposito ads, and those of his opponents, seem to have no rhyme or reason.

I’m not expecting personalized ads from every local state assemblyman. But again, for all the talk about the power of CTV, the level of targeting available via addressable TV - this is supposed to be basic stuff.

Like I said, thankfully I don’t live in actual swing state - which has to be a nightmare right now. Who knows what kinds of crazy stuff my kids would be hearing. Maybe the ad targeting is more precise in those areas where the stakes are so high? Maybe we’re getting flooded with local ads here in New York, and these candidates just aren’t as sophisticated?

There’s no way for me to know.

“I think we still have a long ways to grow is really being able to use first-party data not only for targeting but for measurement as well,” Jason Manningham, CEO of Blockgraph told on my podcast this week. His hope is to make it easier for smaller advertisers to use their own data to better target TV ads.

Of course, this was sort of supposed to be happening already, as every big media company talks up its self-serve programmatic platform, clean rooms, etc. “The TV industry still has a long ways to go as well is in regards to who they're offering first party uh activations with so they've historically focused not surprisingly on their biggest clients the top 200 advertisers,” Manningham added.

Let’s hope political advertisers can figure this out next time around. My wonder is, are the candidates this year spending so money that they are just flooding the zone in these markets, targeting be damned? Are they overwhelming the system?

Or are the tools and capabilities oversold in this medium?

And if so, what does that mean for other advertisers?

Sell off

Have you noticed just how many big name ad sales execs are stepping down?

Recently, we saw Warner Discovery sales chief Jon Steinlauf announce he was leaving his post. Similarly, we’ve seen imminent departures from the CW’s Michael Strober, Netflix’s Peter Naylor (though that seemed driven by Netflix’s shift toward its own ad tech), and Dan Lovinger, NBCU, who seemingly help build a very successful Olympics sales machine.

What’s going on here? Is this just the inevitable result of widespread cost-cutting at big media companies that are facing shrinking revenues and profits? Or is this another sign that the era of ‘big name’ sales execs is nearing an end, as more automation (finally) takes hold in TV?

Hey F-Face, Shop Here

Lastly, check out this mega report that TVRev’s Alan Wolk and I put together on the Retail Media space, and it’s potential in CTV. I’m hoping you’ll find this one useful.