Tru Optik Launches Political Data Cloud for Connected TV and Streaming Audio Advertising

By STS News Desk On Jun 17, 2019

Tru Optik Launches Political Data Cloud for Connected TV and Streaming Audio Advertising

Enables Advanced Audience Targeting and Cross-Device Measurement for Political and Issue Campaigns

The 2020 US election cycle is expected to be the most expensive in history with an anticipated $10 billion or more being spent on advertising to influence voters across the nation. Successful campaigns will acknowledge the major changes in media consumption behavior and leverage new advanced targeting capabilities to reach specific audiences across over-the-top TV (OTT), connected TV (CTV) and streaming audio.

Tru Optik, the leading audience intelligence and data-management platform (DMP) for OTT and CTV, announced the launch of the Tru Optik Political Data Cloud, enabling political advertisers to use both OTT and streaming audio to target specific voter groups on a local, state or national level across such factors as party affiliation, past voting behavior and issue orientation. Political data can be combined with behavioral, demographic and interest-based information, to create custom voter segments actionable across over 80 million U.S. homes through leading publishers and ad tech platforms.

The Tru Optik Political Data Cloud, unveiled at Cannes Lions, aggregates voter and behavioral segments from nearly a dozen leading data providers including firms affiliated with the major political parties, such as TargetSmart as well as unaffiliated providers including L2, Comscore and Dataline.

Digital media accounted for less than 15 percent of ad spending in the 2016 presidential election. That figure is expected to more than double in 2020, with CTV and streaming audio experiencing especially sharp growth.

“We’re already talking to media companies and political ad agencies whose clients are eager to launch connected TV campaigns,” said Paul Westcott, Senior Vice President of L2. “The Tru Optik Political Data Cloud allows political advertisers to use our data to precisely target and reach specific voter segments across streaming television and radio.”

“Make no mistake, the media battleground that will separate many winners from losers in 2020 will be through the ability to effectively deploy targeted connected TV and streaming audio advertising,” said Andre Swanston, CEO of Tru Optik. “These are now mainstream media, with much more targeting power than traditional TV and radio, and exceptional reach among millennial and multi-cultural households. Tru Optik’s Political Data Cloud lets politicians and advocacy groups reach the voters most receptive to their platform or cause in a privacy compliant manner with a combination of precision and scale that until now was not possible.”

Political campaigns are dynamic by nature. “The quality of data and insights surrounding an ad need to be precise, effective and timely. Integrating our data with Tru Optik means our clients have the tools to reach desired audiences and the flexibility to adjust those audiences throughout the campaign cycle,” added Matt Taverna, Chief Revenue Officer, TargetSmart.

“We are thrilled to add political viewership segments from our Activation solution suite to Tru Optik’s Political Data Cloud,” said Anthony Psacharopoulos, Executive Vice President, Comscore. “Connected TV and over-the-top platforms are shaping up to be key advertising mediums for 2020 elections, and we are excited to help our political marketing partners improve the efficacy and impact of their campaigns.”

“As previous elections reached record highs, there is no doubt that the 2020 political advertising spend will significantly increase across streaming television. Supporting political advertisers with data to reach highly coveted and segmented audiences in targeted and measurable ways is a critical focus. Tru Optik’s Political Data Cloud solution will enable XUMO to meet political advertisers needs,” said Bill Condon, Senior Vice President of Advertiser Partnerships, at XUMO.

“Our mission is to help streaming audio publishers and podcasters fully monetize their inventory, which means enabling them to segment their listeners in ways that are meaningful to advertisers. With the 2020 political cycle already underway, we are excited to extend our relationship with Tru Optik by making the Political Data Cloud available to our clients so that our publishers can offer this new breakthrough solution to political advertisers,” said John Rosso, President, Market Development at Triton Digital.

“Amobee has been at the forefront of leveraging data to drive impact for addressable targeting across Connected TV and all digital video formats. We’re excited to continue our partnership with Tru Optik and further enable scalable, privacy-compliant access to these data sets through our integration of the Political Data Cloud,” said Aleck Schleider, Senior Vice President, Client and Data Strategy at Amobee.