How OTT Was Used In The Political Midterms
"2018 exposed a lot of growing pains in the OTT space" says Sharon Aho, OTT Media Director at BrabenderCox. "The best experiences I had were
with platforms that had been in the OTT space for a while and were able to dive deep on targeting. Some of the headache platforms seemed to be struggling with pacing issues."
Aho is
one of several presenters at the upcoming TV & Video Insider Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona on February 24th-27th. There, she will share lessons from the 2018 midterms in which she acted as a GOP
media buyer.
BrabenderCox used OTT to deliver specific creative to specific audiences "on the biggest screen in the house" she says. "We took advantage of delivering a non-skippable
message to an engaged audience." Her agency believes in the power of cross-screen advertising, never tipping the scales toward one over the others. OTT, she says, "just happens to be really good at
letting us deliver specific ad creative to very specific audiences."
Aho says it's an exciting time for OTT because the old and new worlds are merging. "The best parts of each will be
the pieces that survive in the multi-screen world. We're starting to see more and more agreement on the common measurements among screens."
"We're realizing that OTT is the perfect
vehicle to bring the traditional linear culture together with digital. And I think across the whole OTT space the most successful folks will be the ones who realize the entire pie grows when we all
stop talking past each other, quit the petty turf wars over media mix, and get back to the mission - which is to put awesome creative on the screens our audiences are watching."
As
for its future, Aho say it may eventually replace the set-top box, particularly after 5G rolls out but "appointment/linear television will survive for some content like sports and news. It will find
an equilibrium with OTT on massive scale.
"In political advertising, the real driving force is the data that fuels our move from simplistic geographic targeting toward household
targeting."