
How We Helped The Kennedy Center Reach New Audiences by Leveraging Programmatic Display and CTV
Services We Provided:
Digital Advertising$19.50
CPA (Programmatic Display)
77
purchases from new audiences (Programmatic Display)
163K
impressions of CTV commercial
21
CTV purchases tracked
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a CI client since 2014, is based in Washington, D.C. and known as the national cultural center of the United States. The Kennedy Center presents over 2 thousand performances each year across genres including theater, music, opera, and dance. In an average year, they welcome over 2 million visitors and 1.6 million ticket buyers to their multiple venues.
The Kennedy Center has long had Google Display as a cornerstone of their marketing strategy, but in their current season it was no longer meeting expectations. To augment Google Display’s broad reach with premium placements, we decided to test programmatic display. This approach allowed us to maintain the advantages of display while addressing performance challenges through more precise targeting and optimized delivery. This served as a powerful tool for audience acquisition and re-engagement, driving ticket sales by reaching both new prospects and loyal patrons at key moments in their decision-making journey. At the same time, we leaned into CTV’s strengths, using it to deliver high-quality video content to wide audiences. Our CTV strategy focused on building awareness by engaging theater-loving audiences across the DC metro area with compelling video content.
Our Strategy for Success
Programmatic Display
Programmatic display can be a strong player for arts organizations because it combines robust targeting strategies with premium publisher placements, allowing us to reach the best audience prospects on high quality sites across the web. For The Kennedy Center’s programmatic display efforts, we were able to target site visitors, a CRM list, as well as behavioral targeting prospects—including those interested in theater and live performances. Banners were served across a range of inventory to reach prospects where they were browsing online, including premium site placements
Our Campaign Served The Kennedy Center’s Clue ad on CBS News…
…and in The Washington Post:
CTV
CTV ads are delivered through streaming services, a rich opportunity for advertising: there are about 1.8 billion subscriptions, with over 200 million worldwide for Netflix alone. In 2024, 75% of adult TV viewing happened on a connected TV device. In addition to significant reach through all major streaming services, CTV campaigns are primed to drive strong messaging recall, as all ads are non-skippable and served during moments of high content engagement. Calling back to the stats highlighted at the top of the post: our CTV efforts yielded 163K impressions and 21 CTV purchases for The Kennedy Center’s Clue.
Takeaways
Although programmatic does require additional media investment, the full investment from The Kennedy Center was $12K total to support both CTV and programmatic (runs for both were around 4-5 weeks). So while budget is a concern, you no longer need massive budgets to see success in programmatic channels.
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