JUST A FEW MORE DAYS and it’ll all be over. I’m not talking about the election to determine our next president. If this race is as close as being predicted, we won’t know who’s won until all the votes have been counted and recounted and challenged in court and counted again and litigated and relitigated and… well, you know the drill.
I’m talking about political advertising. By sometime late Tuesday night, the voting… not the election, the voting, will be over. Which means every dollar committed to convincing us to cast our ballot one way or the other will have been spent. Can I get an “Amen?”
I never thought I’d long for the day when my TV ad breaks would be filled with messages about another Medicare deadline or abused and neglected dogs or lotions that make certain body parts smell better, but here we are.
Filling the Airwaves
According to the political news website Axios, local TV stations are experiencing an “advertising windfall” this election cycle. Yes… TV stations! In spite of all the new platforms available to advertisers trying reach their target markets… traditional TV still rules. Why? It reaches an older audience, and older folks are more likely to vote.
Rick Rhoades, General Manager of TV6, agrees with the early findings. “I do sense that more money has been spent in our market than previous years with multiple TV stations, direct mail and now digital ads. I’m guessing the overall market spend is higher than previous years but I don’t have the data on that yet.”
One casualty of the political promotion tsunami is local advertising. Rhoades says, “We try to avoid local ad displacement during the political years. Most, if not all of our local advertisers understand what they are up against every two years. We do try and offer additional value to them after the election which most are appreciative of.”
Brian Trauring, Corporate News Director for local CBS affiliate WZMQ, says they are also sensitive to local businesses and their need for airtime. “We were able to manage inventory without impacting local advertisers.”
In hella competitive markets, prime ad time is subject to bidding wars, where ad rates have no ceiling. And the best part of political advertising for those counting on the revenue? It has to be paid up front. Election years are in fact a “windfall” for the industry, which actually means they must be doing something right.
In case you thought the stations should give viewers a break and put a limit on political ads, or at least filter out the ones you don’t agree with, the FCC requires them to accept and run all political ads purchased by qualified candidates. So there.
How Long is Too Long?
One problem is the length of our campaigns. In the United States, the next campaign for president will start… Wednesday. Sure, our airwaves won’t be flooded with political ads, yet, but you can bet positioning for the next election will be well underway before we know the results of the current one.
Maybe we should take a cue from other democracies, like the United Kingdom. Their campaign lasts 25 days. Mexico? Gasp! It goes a full three months. Here? It’s been referred to as “the permanent campaign.” That wouldn’t be so bad except it also means permanent fundraising.
I recall a United States Senator complaining that he had to raise thousands of dollars every day in order to fund his campaign for re-election. I don’t know how much less a shorter campaign would cost, but it’s got to be something. And I would think the senator could find other things to do with his time. I would think.
Nowhere to Turn
Of course, the political messaging we’re all tired of isn’t just coming from the flat screen. We’re being force fed a never ending stream of text messages, emails, robo-calls, direct mail, and social media ads, all designed to influence our decision. Which brings us to… do all these ads even matter?
They must, or those professional political operatives are wasting a heck of a lot of money. But how often have you actually seen an ad and it caused you to change your mind from what you’ve already determined based on 4 years of information overload? In my case… never.
We Made It
I don’t fault the people running campaigns for going all in for their candidate. If you can raise it, you’ve got to spend it. But win or lose, I think they’ll be plenty happy to wake up Wednesday morning with this campaign season in the rear view mirror. That goes for me too.
I’m Doug Garrison, and I approve this message.