The Facebook Embargo

October 26, 2020

If you haven’t already heard, Facebook is going on the offensive against political advertisers. In the last twelve months, Facebook has allowed users to opt out of political ads, prevented creating last minute ads before the election, and will ban political ads after the election. So it looks like that inexpensive and effective way to reach the electorate just evaporated into thin air for the next few months. Beyond the obvious, what have political advertisers up and down the ticket lost?

A 2020 scholarly article titled Political Advertising Online and Offline took a deeper dive into the how Facebook advertising has been used. It’s a fascinating dive from a scientific perspective on Facebook political advertising. The researched noticed that Facebook advertising increases advertising quantity, can increase fundraising, and allows placing the right message in front of the right audience. Better yet, an individual running for city council in a town of 1,000 could afford to run ads as targeting as both Presidential candidates. I mean, all levels of candidates are going to need an individual like myself to get the most out of Facebook advertising, but the door was previously open without barriers to entry.

This is where having the right team can make the difference in winning and losing an election. Facebook was great. Better yet, social media platforms across the board were great for political advertising. But they are not the end all, be all of advertising. They are merely a tool. And if your media buyer knows what they’re doing, they know there are other tools in the toolshed. Just as capable, just as reliable, maybe not as shiny, but they will get the job done. So why are you using a specialist in one category when you could be using an agency specializing in all advertising?

When the Dust Settles

November 9, 2020

The dust is finally starting to settle. On first count, the President of the United States has unofficially been selected, the House leans left, and control of the Senate is potentially in the hands of Georgians. Nothing unusual to see here in 2020. But how did we get here?

According to an Advertising Analytics update, It took $8,395,330,216 across 5,618 elections to get to this point. Did I mention this equates to 9.4 million ads across traditional and digital media? To put this into comparison, the 2018 midterm elections came out to over $5.7 billion dollars. In 2016, all federal campaigns came out to $6.5 billion dollars. The total spend for 2020 is astronomical, and how it was used was just as amazing.

The Trump campaign took a strong focus on YouTube in the election. For both Election Day and the day prior to Election Day, the Trump campaign purchased the YouTube Masthead. Exact costs are unknown, but it’s estimated to cost $2,000,000 per day. However, Trump was one of the last organizations to purchase it. Going forward, advertisers will be able to purchase the masthead on a per impression basis. This is a radical change from the full day reservations that have been allowed up until now. It’s unknown if Trumps use of the masthead led to this change, but now no campaign or company will be able to buy it out right for a day.

The Biden campaign, on the other hand focused on a more standard advertising course. Broadcast television and Facebook ads took the lead. But unlike previous presidential candidates, Vice President turn President-elect Biden focused on national buys instead of local buys. This is an unusual move for a candidate. And it was made possible by the truckloads of cash his campaign was able to pull in. National buys, unlike local DMA level buys, have insurmountable reach across the country. But they come with a price tag no candidate dreamed of paying, until now.

As we move forward, candidates up and down the ballot will start preparing for 2022. There were many new techniques and challenges that presented themselves in 2020. Candidates across the country each approached the challenges in their own way, thus creating new playbooks that may or may not be used again. Digital advertising continues to grow across the races, but it looks like the tried and true “Broadcast is King” mentality may have won the 2020 elections.

T minus 24 Hours

November 2, 2020

It’s election day’s eve. The candidates are doing their last minute rounds, political ads are primarily positive, and the world waits to see what the outcome is. A lot of focus, as it should be, is centered on the candidates. What did they say? What didn’t they say? How does their past look? Are they strong enough to handle the future? Is America ready for them? But we don’t focus a lot around the election advertising.

I know what you’re thinking. What about all all the reports on how many BILLIONS of dollars are spent on political advertising. Or all of the crazy reports on Facebook political advertising. Now before you think I’ve jumped off the deep end and am crazy, let me explain.

The media covers the surface level political advertising regularly. We hear about candidate So And So spend millions of dollars in their district. But how did they spend that money. What audiences was it directed at? Did those audiences turn out? Or were they bored to death with two ads at a frequency high enough to be considered cruel and unusual punishment? It’s an unspoken norm that candidates should not have money in the bank by the end of election day. If there is an extra dollar at the end, then it could have been one more dollar they spent to reach one more persuadable voter that could have tipped the election in their favor.

I respect that. But what if a slight portion was allocated to run a post mortem on the ad campaign of that cycle? Think of the valuable lessons that could be learned from looking at what was spent, on which audience, when, how, and compare it to how they voted? And I’m not just talking about digital ads. It should be across the entire advertising campaign. From day one to election night. From Outdoor Boards and TV to that small annoying banner ad the bottom of most screens. Corporate America does this well. They care just as much about the end result as how they got that result.

There’s a saying from George Santayana that’s worth ending on, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Let’s do more than remember the past. Let’s analyze it like our life depended on it.

One GRP

October 20, 2020

What is a GRP? In the traditional media world, it stands for Gross Rating Point. It’s a simple currency used when planning and buying broadcast and cable ads. Say for example, you buy a :30 second ad space in a 6am news and it gets 2 GRPs. What exactly are you getting?

You are reaching 2% of your target audience. If you were to purchase 50 6am news spots over the course of a week, then you would have 100 GRPs and be reaching everyone in your market. This is a highly simplified example and there are complex variables that come into play, but in simplistic terms, 1 GRP equals reaching 1% of your target audience.

But not all broadcast and cable programs are created equal. No one knows exactly how many people will watch a specific program. When a media buyer goes to buy 100 GRPs in a market, they are buying programs based on a guess of which ones will gain high ratings, and which programs will not. There are tools and tricks of the trade to help make an educated guess, but no system is foolproof. This is where trust in your media buyer is key. Do they buy on gut feeling? Are they looking at a 4 book average? Or is it 12 book? Do they use Comscore? What about Nielsen? And how well do they know the market they are buying in? These are all questions to think about when choosing a media buying agency for a political campaign. Because unlike the corporate world, when the campaign ends, makegoods from the stations are worthless.

How I Got Here

October 4, 2020

How does a politics major from Drake University end up in advertising? I believed in the invisible hand of a free market society. Most people with a politics degree use it as a pathway to law or into political campaigning. Both crossed my mind and I did take a practice LSAT, but neither screamed for me to follow them. Instead, I pursued advertising.

Politics is inevitable. Advertising, both corporate and political, is inevitable. Political advertising interfering with corporate advertising every two years is inevitable. But corporate America advertising never tries to understand political advertising and how to work through it. They just accept it as an inevitability and destruction to their campaigns for six months. And that’s where I sold my value. I understood the politics, and was quickly able to pick up the real-world corporate advertising. When these two concepts are combined, an amazing force is created.

In terms of advertising, there has been a see-sawing motion between who leads who. Some decades politics took the lead, and others had corporate America. As a guy working corporate America advertising, and heavily researching political advertising, I can say that corporate America is leading. Digital ads are great, an getting a million targeted impressions sounds nifty. Hell, for a few bucks a day, you can run a six times frequency targeted ad at a small audience for months on end. Digital is filled with infinite inventory and countless targeting. But is it working?

Advertising is a beautiful place where anyone can be right. With enough ingenuity and justification, any tactic, budget, target, and timeframe can make sense. But how effective was it? Did it actually move the needle? Was there research behind the plan? Or did some guy just say this is what we need to do because I said so and have won 70% of campaigns I managed?And will be the focus. It’s time research and science take a look at political advertising. No longer should ad campaigns be designed because it worked for candidate Z in the last election. Let’s throw it all on the table and figure out what gets the electorate to vote. And hopefully toss out a few ideas still in use from the 1950’s.