Nielson reports that while lockdown restrictions are decreasing, connected TV viewership remains well above pre-COVID-19 levels. Even with the option to leave the house, consumers are choosing to stream, indicating a potential long-term impact on consumption.
The OTT streaming industry has increased in both subscriber counts and time spent watching. As more and more people tune in during the day and co-viewing habits grow, advertisers are in a unique position to capture their audiences at different times of the day with both day and night viewing habits on the rise.
Pew’s survey shows that nearly 50% of American’s rely on one of eight publishers for political & election news. The demographic differences found in each of these sources’ following can be utilized by advertisers to effectively target voters of specific age, sex or partisanship across digital platforms and in the OTT space.
Time spent streaming has soared as people across the US shelter-in-place. A recent Nielsen analysis has shown that streaming content has increased by 35% from the end of February to mid-March with streaming now encapsulating 23% of the total time spent on the big screen.
Even before the coronavirus outbreak, streaming was up with free ad-supported players like Pluto seeing massive growth and total viewing hours increase, and the pandemic is extrapolating that growth.
Daily news content consumption has increased as more people seek information from home. Nearly all forms of news outlets, including app downloads, cable news, broadcast newscasts, and social media, have garnered increased traffic from users who seek more information amid the coronavirus outbreak.
While Spotify just surpassed Pandora as the most popular music streaming service in the US, Pandora still has a leg up with a much larger ad-supported audience and the ability to run political advertising.
Roku is jockeying to become a bigger player in the connected TV space. Moving into original content would increase their influence and potential ad revenue from cord cutters and cord nevers.
eMarketer: “Facebook and Google control 60.8% of the total US digital ad market but they have an even tighter grip on political ad revenues, with a combined 77.6% this election cycle.”
For the upcoming 2020 election voters who are less likely to watch the traditional political advertisements on live TV are instead being targeted by social media influencers. Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign has successfully utilized this strategy reaching a new set of voters. We can expect other candidates to follow suit in this political advertising trend.
Political advertisers are paying attention to the third of US households who do not pay for the traditional TV services. Digital political ads will hit an all-time high reaching past the $1 billion mark for the first time, fueled by Democratic presidential primary candidates competing to reach those voters—in a record-breaking political cycle.
A recent analysis from Nielsen Total Audience Report shows advertisers are finding more ways to reach their consumers with an abundance of content available.
Facebook concludes to keep political advertising and popular targeting strategies used by political campaigns. The platform will give users more control over ads they choose to see and greater transparency capabilities.
Twitter’s announcement to end political advertising comes with many 2020 contenders calling Facebook to follow suit. All while they are currently running Facebook ads.
Twitter announced big news on Wednesday. Leading into the 2020 election, they have decided to drop political advertising starting next month.
Google’s search query change will help optimize natural language instead of picking out keywords from a user’s search. The aim is to drive better results based on contextual results. As always the more you deliver what people want, the higher you will rank.
Roku’s acquisition of Dataxu is predicted to help the company draw in more advertisers by owning its own programmatic buying tool to grow beyond its own platform.
Disney is banking on its new streaming service. In order to compete with Netflix and NBC, the mega-brand has spent billions to add Fox, Marvel, and Star Wars to its lineup.
WhatsApp is introducing ads to their version of stories, Status. Historically, there hasn’t been any advertising in WhatsApp, a messaging app that’s popular among some demographic groups in the US and with a large presence outside of the US.
Podcast advertising is on its way to becoming easier to buy and target by audience, akin to programmatic display and video.
TiVo’s quarterly survey found 52% of respondents regularly watch OTT-delivered content compared to 66% viewing live TV.
Political campaigns can now receive donations from $5 – $200 through Alexa.
As the app becomes a campaign tool for 2020 candidates, Snapchat launched a new very transparent ad library. The library gives you spend, impressions, age, region, and interest targeting, link, agency that placed it, and includes ads sold and run globally.
Facebook is updating its requirements for political advertisers prior to the 2020 election cycle.
90% of Xennials (18 – 29 y.o.) plan to vote in the next presidential election. Political advertisers are honing in on connected TV to reach these young voters.
