Erin Vieira got her first taste of political advertising as part of Politico’s 2007 launch team. She went on to lead political sales at ad network Undertone before joining Roku in 2019 to build a political ads team.
This election cycle, Erin believes political campaigns will reset how they approach TV advertising.
“If you are only present in linear, you’re missing people,” she says. “By moving their budgets into streaming, political advertisers would be so much more efficient in reaching net new households, because they need to get more voters to the polls than ever.”
We spoke to Erin about the unique opportunities for political advertisers in streaming and how Roku is helping national and down-ballot campaigns to reach voters.
What media landscape changes should political advertisers be aware of for the 2024 cycle?
First, overall streaming budgets are not yet rightsized to the time spent in streaming. With ad budgets still pouring into linear TV, we see a huge overabundance and repetition of ad exposures to a shrinking linear audience.
Once they understand the importance of shifting linear TV budgets to streaming, advertisers must contend with fragmentation. With more streaming ad inventory available than ever before, political strategists must take steps to understand the basic ownership of inventory and data across streaming channels. This knowledge will help them control for reach and frequency and drive maximum impact, whether for a presidential campaign or a down-ballot race.
Furthermore, it's difficult to predict where voters are streaming. Streamers add and drop new channels frequently, and this serial churn makes it hard to know where advertising budgets should be committed. There’s also the challenge of reaching voters who subscribe to ad-free tiers of SVOD channels. Once streamers click into their channel of choice, they won’t see any ads, making it even more complicated to reach them. So how can political campaigns ensure their advertising dollars are making an impact?
What are the unique opportunities for political advertisers in streaming?
Streaming offers considerable value to advertisers that want to reach defined audiences. You don’t need huge budgets, as you do in linear, to reach voters on the largest screen in the home. Production costs have come down as well. Once you lower the barriers to making video creative, more campaigns will participate in video advertising and streaming on the big screen.
We know that cord-cutting is growing in significant battleground states, meaning voters in these states are less likely to see ads on linear TV because they do not have linear TV. By shifting dollars from linear to streaming, political advertisers in these battlegrounds stand to both save money and ensure their message reaches more viewers.
Second, there's an opportunity for campaigns to use their own data like never before, for instance to reach households in a particular district where they need to get out the vote. And by working with a streaming platform like Roku, they can achieve precise reach capabilities far beyond what TV has ever provided.
Data collaboration environments, such as clean rooms, present an amazing opportunity to achieve this precision. Not only can such collaboration environments future-proof a clients’ data strategy, but it also enables faster collaboration for campaigns that are in a rush to launch. I think we’ll see a lot of development in this area over the next two years.
How does Roku help political campaigns reach voters?
With Roku’s 80M+ global active accounts, we ensure campaigns reach a vast array of voters across the country. The reason for our popularity is simple: Roku devices provide a simple and impactful streaming experience at an affordable price point and can be purchased from major retailers. And our devices are distributed across the country ensuring advertisers can reach voters in the districts and areas that matter to their campaign.
In addition to this incredible reach, the scale of Roku’s operating system allows an advertiser to control for fragmentation and churn. As the #1 selling TV OS in the U.S. reaching 80 million global active accounts and counting, Roku offers a very strong foundation for CTV ad campaigns to reach.¹
Working with a platform like Roku enables campaigns to reach streaming audiences across both AVOD and SVOD environments.
What is your #1 prediction for the future of political advertising?
Advertisers will shift more and more budgets from linear to TV streaming. About 13% of total political ad spend is expected to be attributed to CTV this upcoming election cycle, which is up YoY from the last election.² The most curious and innovative campaigns will begin to fully take advantage of a holistic approach to TV planning and activation – utilizing the capabilities of ACR to its greatest extent, while also balancing the advantages of programmatic with bespoke and creative partnerships with the #1 selling TV operating system in the U.S.
Contact us to learn more about launching a streaming campaign on Roku.
¹ Circana, Retail Tracking Service, Unit Sales, Oct-Dec 2023 combined
² AdImpact
