Study: Web to get little political ad money
Cory Bergman January 22nd, 2008
We just got our hands on a preview of tomorrow’s Borrell Associates report, “2008 Outlook: Online Political Advertising,” and even Gordon Borrell admits he was surprised at the results. With $4.8 billion of political ad dollars to spend this year, Borrell forecasts just $20 million for online media — less than .5% of the total (yes, that’s one-half of one percent). And half of that $20 million will be spent on search advertising. “I would have thought it would have been much larger than this,” writes Gordon in an email to Lost Remote. “But in the age of disintermediation, people go directly to candidates’ sites for information, rather than candidates having to pay a lot of money to get their messages out to the public. A lot of that still goes on, of course, in direct mail and broadcasting… but not online.”
I suspected this would be the case a few months ago when I spoke to a media buyer who specializes in political advertising. The message was very clear: the campaigns advertise on search engines and political blogs to drive fundraising. To drive the vote, nothing beats TV, which Borrell predicts will take in a 60 percent share of the total. That isn’t the say local TV sites won’t pick up some political revenue here and there. “Local stations should look at this an opportunity to funnel some of that spending into multi-media packages,” suggests the report. But clearly, no bonanza awaits online.
3 Comments Add your own
1. Anonymous | January 22nd, 2008 at 7:53 pm
“But in the age of disintermediation, people go directly to candidates’ sites for information…” This statement is absurd on it’s face. For one thing tusers only go to a candidate’s site if they’re predisposed to do so, where the purpose of advertising is to help form that intent. This perspective though is similar to what advertisers in general thought at first about web advertising…”all we have to do is build our own site and they will come”. But can confirm political agency feedback that the real intent of online advertising for candidates is for fundraising, not reaching voters. They won’t really know whether online advertising merits a share of the pie until they give it a fair shot, which it does not appear is going to happen this go-around. It seems to me though that the real reasons have to do with inertia built up around the traditional playbook more than any real logic.
2. Dan | January 22nd, 2008 at 9:41 pm
It has to do with risk, and the unknown.
Politicians are the opposite of risk takers and certainly,
Washington knows little about what’s really going on
as far as marketing is concerned in the 21st century.
So you fall back to what you know about.
There is no surprise to me about this report.
I am surprised that all of you “new media” types
did not understand this about what was happening
out there. But hey, I guess experience counts for
something… mine I mean.
Dan
3. tdc | January 23rd, 2008 at 4:53 am
and another study says $110M.
so what?
they evidently don’t figure in that every dollar candidates spend producing THEIR OWN web presence is a dollar spent on advertising.
just because it isn’t spent through an agency on old media’s rules does not mean it’s not real $ being spent.
content is advertising.
create your own.
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