As we approach one of the most hotly contested midterm elections in memory, we already know one winner: digital advertising has clearly emerged as the preferred medium for both candidates and voters.

Digital advertising technology has continued to advance almost as fast as the political landscape, providing campaigns with more options than ever to effectively reach their audiences. But campaign strategists will also need to keep a close eye on the regulatory environment as regulators sort through potential concerns brought to light in the 2016 election cycle.

This environment demands a digital ad strategy that is equal parts advanced technology and human intuition. With more than 15 years of experience in helping political campaigns and organizations successfully navigate this ever-changing landscape, Division-D has built its business by helping political advertisers identify the right strategies to reach voters who are increasingly mobile and constantly immersed in content.

As we help our clients build their 2018 strategies, we are seeing four key trends driving this latest election cycle:

• Seizing the big-screen digital opportunity. Connected TVs (or CTVs) have opened a range of new opportunities for political advertisers, including more targeted traditional ads and pre-roll video ads. These new types of ad buys deliver the best of both the digital and traditional TV advertising worlds – a more captive and attentive audience and watching on a big screen, but with targeting for relevance that isn’t possible with traditional broadcast buys. 

• Making the digital-local connection. Particularly in mid-term election years, localized advertising is key. We’re seeing increased demand for its scalable network of local and regional newspaper and broadcast news websites. In addition to seeking strong reach across local channels, political advertisers are also looking for more finite geotargeting capabilities. If a congressional campaign needs to reach just one side of a city or county via a local outlet, the combination of a strong local news presence and hyperlocal geotargeting helps ensure no ad impression is wasted.
• Cutting through the display ad clutter. We’re also seeing renewed interest in higher-impact ad formats like the Rising Star Billboard, which covers the entire width of the page, as well as the interstitial ad, which loads between pages in a separate window. These formats have proven to deliver strong engagement compared with traditional display ads. 

• Targeting messages to the right voters, at the right time.Voter file targeting and voter affiliation targeting continue to advance, enabling advertisers to get their message in front of the right segment of voters at the right time. For example, a candidate may want to focus their message on likely undecided voters in the midst of a campaign, then shift to their likely base to help get out the vote as the election nears. This type of targeting has been common for the past several election cycles, and continues to improve over time. 

Campaigns and interest groups that focus their strategies in these emerging areas, while also maintaining the flexibility to navigate a changing regulatory environment, will be well-positioned to share their messages with the highest levels of efficiency and impact throughout the midterm election cycle.

Wells Fargo’s integrated marketing and advertising campaign, called “Re-Established,” seems to be rebuilding the company's giant consumer trust problem with help from Oath, digital content and ads after the company found some 3.5 million potentially fake bank and credit card accounts in 2017.

Oath, a Verizon company, began working with Wells Fargo years ago as a distribution partner, but helped to spearhead the digital part of its “Re-Established” campaign early in 2018. The campaign will run through the year across Oath’s platforms — display, video and native ad units  — on Yahoo, Yahoo Sports MSN, and across native assets on multiple properties.

The campaign’s message, established in 1852 and re-established in 2018, was designed by creative agency BBDO in San Francisco, along with the media agency OMD in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Oath took the role as distribution partner for digital.

While Oath supports the digital media element, the ads are also running across print and broadcast.

“It’s probably one of the largest investments the company has ever made on an advertising campaign,” acknowledges Michael Lacorazza, executive vice president and head of integration at Wells Fargo.

Early internal data shows consumers are responding positively to the message. Video tends to gain the greatest emotional impact, Lacorazza said, but even some of the more static ad placements that can reinforce the message play a role in aiding in the recall. The video runs on linear broadcast television, streaming programming, social media, and across the Oath platform, among other places.

The TV spots started to run in early May, and Oath jumped in with digital mid-month.

Well Fargo’s marketers measure operational messages such as click-through rates and attitudinal sentiment about the brand, such as awareness of the message of the campaign. It also measures the probability that the consumer will continue to do business with Wells Fargo.

Marketers are tracking much higher consumer engagement rates with content that is related, which means consumers like the message. The team also plans to use other measurements to determine the success of the campaign -- including daily polls for different segments that track against the brand’s objectives, and ultimately the sales outcome through a media mix model after completing the timeline.   

The daily polls also suggest that consumers are acknowledging that the authentic apologies are being heard and accepted for the mistakes made by a few at Wells Fargo, Lacorazza said. “People are more willing and open to do business with us than they have been in recent history,” he said. “It’s early days, only a couple of months, but so far we’ve seen a positive response.”

The majority of traffic to the site comes from mobile devices, about 71%, which remains consistent with most of Wells Fargo’s site campaigns, which confirms the company’s mobile-first approach to site design. 

Click-through rates from ads running across Oath are “pretty good,” Lacorazza said, but many site visitors also come through organic or paid-search campaigns on AOL, Bing, Google, and Yahoo, or direct to the site.

The digital part of the campaign is running through regular and programmatic channels. “Building the brand really does matter; it does lift all boats,” said John Piontkowski, vice president and industry lead of finance at Oath, refereeing to the lift from digital and programmatic campaigns.

The speed at which pages load in browsers has begun to determine those that will serve up higher in mobile searches, according to data released this week.

The Searchmetrics study, released prior to Google’s mobile speed update, scheduled for release in July, suggests that marketers should take note. The search results appearing in Google positions one to five load significantly faster than those that run lower down, with nearly 32% loading within one second.

Pages using Google’s faster-loading system tied to Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) appear in the first search results page for around 61% of searches.

Searchmetrics analyzed the connection between mobile page speeds and AMP across ecommerce, finance, health, media and travel, providing insights both globally and by industry.

The biggest link between page speed and how pages rank was found in the top five results. The higher the ranking in search engine query results, the faster the average page speed, according to Searchmetrics white paper Mobile Speed Study 2018.

The research shows that the average load time for pages ranking from one to 15 is less than three seconds for all industries analyzed. The pages that Google ranks in the top five positions returned in search queries tend to be faster on average than those that fall in positions six to 15.

There are some differences between verticals. Pages displayed for ecommerce and media-related searches tend to load a little slower than average.

The Searchmetrics study also analyzed the growth within search results of AMP. While Google has said that AMP does not provide a boost in rankings, content on AMP-enabled pages loads very rapidly, according to the findings.

The findings show that at least one AMP-enabled listing appears on the first page in 61% of searches. On average, when AMP appears, there are 4.3 AMP-enabled pages listed in all Page One search results, whether that is within traditional organic results, “top stories,” carousels from a single publisher or mixed carousels.

Some 87% of media-related searches now show at least on AMP-enabled result on the first page. The same is true for 67% of finance searches, 59% of e-commerce searches and 56% of travel searches.

Warner Bros.’ DC Comics division has opened sign-ups for its upcoming DC-branded streaming video and comic books service, DC Universe.

Pricing and launch date for DC Universe are still TBD, but users can now plug in their email and get in line to try out the beta version of the service. Beta access will start in August.

DC Universe will feature a slate of original shows based on DC Comics characters, as well as a library of classic TV series and movies, such as the “Batman” animated series, and the “Superman” movies starring Christopher Reeve.

Original shows will include “Doom Patrol,” “Harley Quinn” and “Titans,” a live-action take on the “Teen Titans” animated series. It will also feature a digital archive of DC comics, a community element, and exclusive merchandise.

At launch, the service will be available on the web, on smartphones and on connected TV devices like Roku and Apple TV.

So far, most of the niche streaming services in the market aggregate library content around niches like British television or horror movies, but DC Universe is one of the first to be built around characters from a well-established and still growing universe.

The World Federation of Advertisers has issued its eight “principles for partnership” in a

published last week . In it, the WFA outlines some ways to improve (rebuild?) the relationship between marketers and media agencies.

Gerhard Louw, senior manager, Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile’s International Media Management & Digital Transformation, WFA co-chair of the Media Forum, is quoted in the document: “We believe in the need to rebalance the industry around the principle of greater respect for all parties.”

That is a lofty aspiration in our broken-trust world. So what are the eight “commandments”?

1. Zero tolerance for ad fraud, with compensation for breaches.
2. Strict brand safety protection.
3. Minimum viewability thresholds.
4. Transparency throughout the supply chain.
5. Third-party verification and measurement.
6. Addressing walled-garden issues.
7. Improving standards with data transparency.
8. Improving the user experience.

These are all absolutely relevant and necessary topics to address.

“Why should brands pay for ad fraud breaches? Why should we support a flawed ecosystem?” asks Leana Less, vice president global connections and media, The Coca-Cola Company.

Adds Oliver Maletz, global head of communications and media, VW: “Current viewability standards are in no way sufficient. As advertisers, we should push hard for viewability guarantees with either returned investment or equivalent compensation units.”

And Jerry Daykin, head of global media partnerships at Diageo, says: “Behaviors which seek to limit the access of our technology or to withdraw our data are totally unacceptable. Rejecting third-party, impartial measurement standards is inadmissible.” (All quotes come from the WFA document).

I think at least all marketers can agree with these statements.

The challenge is that while the charter lays out clear principles and demands and clarifies which industry initiatives the WFA supports on each of these issues, it's unclear what happens if the rest of the industry does not play ball. Obviously, this charter indirectly also implicates the media supply side and the middle-men ecosystem, but fails to mention any sanctions or punishment.

This lack is probably expected from an industry body, here to try and coax the wider media industry partners into adoption, rather than to “shock and awe” partners into action.

Another concern is that the consumer comes last in the WFA document -- it's number eight on the list. I would have made this number one, because even with all the other issues resolved, if consumers don’t engage with the content they’re offered, there is no point in addressing viewability, for instance.

And, as we know, there are disturbing trends in consumer engagement with media. Trust in traditional news media is waning. Facebook engagement is slipping in developed nations. TV viewership continues to erode slowly. The press is struggling.

Perhaps the WFA should add a ninth commandment addressing the need for a diverse, trusted and commercially viable media ecosystem. Without that, we have no business, after all.

Best Western Hotels has teamed with IBM Watson Advertising to create a new, artificial intelligence-powered interactive ad.

The Best Western Watson Ad aims to personalizes vacation planning by leveraging the consumer’s questions and use the answers to trigger additional questions, which the technology then uses to provide travel tips and make recommendations based on travel preferences.

"This cutting-edge AI-powered ad will allow us to drive more meaningful engagement with travelers, while showcasing all that today's Best Western has to offer," stated Dorothy Dowling, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Best Western Hotels and Resorts. "As the first hospitality brand to launch a Watson Ads campaign, we look forward to continuing our position as a frontrunner in innovation."

Consumers can start a conversation with the ad by engaging it and providing information on upcoming or desired travel, which starts a series of dialogue prompts that guide the consumer through a conversation relating to travel needs.

“The AI-powered ad is driven by the consumer's questions and desire to learn more,” states the announcement. “A consumer may share that they are ‘hitting the road to visit the mountains this weekend,’ and the ad would ask for more information around activities that are planned, such as hiking or sightseeing. From there, the consumer can choose to book a room at a Best Western, take a virtual 360 tour of a Best Western hotel or learn more about the amenities available at Best Western locations.”

Watson AI ads use machine learning and natural language processing to make sense of unstructured data sets and enable two-way conversations.

The location-based, augmented reality game relating to “The Walking Dead” is being launched globally on July 12, according to AMC and Next Games.

“The Walking Dead: Our World” lets players fight walkers on the streets, in a park or in their living room. The AR app will be available for iOS and Android. The game was announced earlier without a release date.

Like Pokémon Go, the game lets players see characters, in this case zombies, and take pictures or shoot them, as shown in a video from Next Games, the developer of “The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land” and the latest AR game.  Players can team with others to join weekly challenges as they collect characters in the app.

“Players won’t need to face the apocalypse alone; with Rick, Daryl, Michonne and all their favorite characters from “The Walking Dead” fighting by their side,” stated the announcement by AMC.

Jurassic World also recently launched an augmented reality mobile app to help promote the movie.

Verizon is officially pulling the plug on its go90 video app. The company will shut down the service on Saturday, moving its content to its Oath media properties, including Yahoo and Huffpost.

The shuttering of go90 is not entirely surprising. In February, Oath CEO Tim Armstrong said the company planned to shift the content elsewhere.

“The brand will remain. I don’t know for how long, but for now it will remain,” Armstrong said at the time.

“Go90 [content] will be redistributed inside the super-large distribution we have overall,” Armstrong added. “There's a bunch that should be in HuffPost, a bunch of stuff that should be in Yahoo Sports, a bunch of stuff that should be in Yahoo Finance, so you will see the power of those partnerships get distributed.”

Go90 launched in late 2015 as a free, ad-supported mobile streaming video service geared to consumers who watch content on their phones. Despite a significant push from Verizon that included spending millions of dollars on original programming, it never quite gained the traction that other free streaming services had. 

Now, as the company said in a statement, it “will focus on building its digital-first brands at scale in sports, finance, news and entertainment.&rdquo

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