Question of the day
Monday, Sep 11, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
Sorry for the delay this morning.
Here’s the setup:
It would seem that after spending an estimated $8 million buying media coverage in 2006 — $4.5 million during the primary election alone — Gov. Rod Blagojevich should have his bases covered. However, the campaign has not spent one dollar on online advertising yet, a sign that the Illinois governor may be missing an important aspect of proven Internet campaigning, several experts say. […]
Of the estimated $1.75 billion spent on political advertising in 2004, only about $15 million, or less than one percent, was spent for online advertising, according to TNS Media Intelligence. In comparison, retail companies now spend nearly 10 percent of their ad budgets online and are increasing that share every year because they get a good response, Jagoda said. She estimates that political campaigns are at least six years behind retailers when it comes to understanding how to use online ads.
“So far campaigns have placed online ads on political sites such as the New York Times’s editorial pages but that’s all wrong. If they wanted to reach a bigger but targeted audience they could try to advertise where people actually go, such as on Yahoo or weather.com,” Jagoda said.
And now the question: Are you surprised that neither candidate has run Internet ads yet? Should they? Explain.
- Bill Baar - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 9:17 am:
JBT especially because she has less cash… she should be posting lots of podcasts.
- zatoichi - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 9:30 am:
How many people actually use the Internet for this type of info? The political geeks on this blog maybe. When I’m surfing I basically look at the ads as hassles that simply take up band width and time. Virtually never bother to read them. Don’t see how or why they would be effective. There is probably some study showing how cost effective they are based on hits. Based on my reading time for online ads, the effectiveness is almost zero.
- Wumpus - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 9:33 am:
Rod probably knows nothing of this so called “Internet” and JBT has no money. Let bloggers do the work for them. Pop ups annoy me and people on sites such as these tend to have our minds made up already.
Richie Rich, are you trying to pay for a new car or vacation?
- Cassandra - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 9:35 am:
The website is ok as far as it goes but it is rather dark and the printing on the right is too small and dense when you consider that most readers will be in a hurry and not willing to stop and try and decipher anything.
Why not a daily podcast talking about what the campaign is doing and what they need. It doesn’t have to be JBT every day, could be Birkett, the campaign manager, other supporters.
And their e-mail alerts are virtually nonexistent. By now they should be sending out daily e-mails to subscribers. I signed up and I rarely get any.
Looks like they skimped on the campaign computer personnel. And that’s not good given that JBT is 62. Blago isn’t that young either but rampant ageism in our society would suggest that JBT needs to go out of her way to emphasize internet and even newer technology in her campaign.
- VanillaMan - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 9:36 am:
I do not click on internet ads. I do not believe TV ads. I do not believe radio ads. I do not read newspaper ads. I do not listen to telephone sales calls.
I choose what to read, see, and hear. If a politician wants my attention, they need to create news. If what they did is interesting, I’ll investigate using the sources I choose.
Being “in my face” doesn’t work. I am not a passive information receiver. That is what 21st Century technologies have allowed me to become.
- Anon - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 9:50 am:
Actually, the Blogojevich campaign has been posting its ads on YouTube, but I find it funny that the most watched one has only been watched 125 times, and most are far less than that.
However, it pales in comparison to the more than 41,000 viewings on YouTube of the gov’s appearance on the Daily show, which was not very complimentary to him. If interested, it’s at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3wXheHJnfw
Anybody can post this kind of stuff these days, and it can have a pretty big impact. Witness Sen. George Allen and the ‘macaca’ video episode, which might cost him his reelection and a run for president, all because someone posted a video on YouTube.
- anon - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 9:51 am:
Uh Rich? Isn’t this question a little self-serving since you sell on-line ads? It’s a good question but I think you should disclose that you might be a beneficiary.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 9:55 am:
Anon, if people are so dense that they can’t see the two ads in this blog, why should I bother explaining anything further?
Besides, I doubt either campaign will ever advertise here. People here have pretty much made up their minds.
- Tim - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 10:06 am:
No, internet is over rated, just ask Howard Dean.
- Carl Nyberg - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 10:32 am:
IMO neither candidate should run Internet ads that cost money, at least not on political websites.
Internet ads are most useful for Congressional candidates trying to achieve name recognition with donors across the country.
A Democratic Congressional candidate competes with other Dems for money early in the election cycle. A good Internet ad campaign can vault a candidate in the rankings of recipients of campaign contributions.
Blagojevich and Topinka are known by everyone following politics in Illinois. I suppose Topinka could make a case for doing a national Internet ad campaign to raise money, but I doubt she’d score a bunch of money.
The only websites it might make sense to buy on would be sports blogs or other non-political blogs with strong following in Illinois. It might make sense to advertise on a Bears or Sox blog.
Now hiring a PR flack specializing in getting a positive message onto blogs would make sense. But this is a different question.
- NW burbs - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 10:43 am:
So many people here are missing the point.
Bush-Cheney 04 won election due in part (not the only reason, but a big one) because they microtargeted the heck out of their voters.
The point — as Rich clearly demonstrated in the quote he pulled — isn’t to put political ads on political and opinion sites and blogs. (That said, it may be beneficial at times for certain campaigns to post ads to political-specific blogs/sites in order to attract attention among the base for volunteers and or fundraising — like Melissa Bean’s ad at ArchPundit or United Republican Fund’s ad at Illinois Review.)
The main point the original author is trying to make is to put an ad about your environmental policies on gardening websites.
Or, to put an ad about your education and child-development policies on parenting websites.
Or, to put an ad about your business and economic policies on business sites.
If you get even a 1% bump in votes from those sorts of micro-targeted ads, cumulatively it may be enough to put you in office. (And with response rates among Internet ads being what they are, 1% is real low.)
Duh. With attitudes like those expressed in this thread it’s no wonder politico advertising strategy is “6 years behind.”
The web provides campaigns with near-perfect opportunities to microtarget voters — that they’re not doing it is testimony to political consultants’ ineptitude, and says nothing about the Internet itself.
And Tim, Gov. Dean (as usual) was simply ahead of the curve. If he’d been nominated he likely would’ve been elected, and America could be ahead of the curve now too (rather than behind the 8-ball).
Ask Barack Obama, Jim Webb and Ned Lamont how well that Internet thing is working out for them.
- Left Leaner - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 12:10 pm:
VanillaMan - Wow! Thanks for the insight into your world. That was a response magnificently focused on just you.
Both candidates would be wise to increase their internet exposure a little. But ads and fancy websites only do so much - mostly reach the people who are going to vote for you anyway.
Most importantly, they need to make sure that they keep the bloggers out there talking. Case in point, Obama’s on his way to passing a rather significant piece of legislation thanks to bloggers on the left AND right. NW burbs was also dead on with his Bush-Cheney 04 statement.
- North of I-80 - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 1:16 pm:
No. Firewalls + pop-up / ad blockers screen out about 95% of ads. Those few I see are assumed to be links to virus or hacker-infested sites. TV coverage gets to the most.
- Marie - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 3:37 pm:
The author of the article got the wrong quote out of Kent Redfield. Weird.
Maybe the politicians are shrewder than the advertising wonks would think. Or hope. The buzz (good or bad) generated in online media, i.e., newspapers and blogs and whatever, is just free advertising for the campaigns. And, that kind of free advertising is probably a hundred times better than dollars spent advertising on weather.com.
- just watching - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 3:50 pm:
Rich, do you know if the advertisers are able to specify a geographic area that the internet ads will show up on? Just curious, I never knew if using sites like Yahoo or others like it would be realistic for smaller legislative races.
- Troy News Guy - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 4:27 pm:
To the original question: am I surprised they have not advertised online? No. It is hard to convince powers-that-be in campaigns the internet is worth spending money on when they are already screaming about their web hosting bill. Unless and until some candidate has the brains and wherewithal to win based on internet ads they will stay away. Of course, that does not apply to paying brain-dead techies on staff from posting (usually) anonymous postings on appropriate blogs!
- tell me another - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 6:24 pm:
My theory is, the real target demographic both sides are trying hardest to reach now are the people in Chicago and surrounds, that are less educated, less wealthy, and frankly less intellectually curious, and thus readily swayed by the kind of simplistic, manipulative TV ads we’ve seen so far, particularly Blago’s. As they said in Blazing Saddles… “simple people of the soil…… you know,… morons.” Such folks as this target group tend not to have or use internet access in a meaningful way. Too much reading for their education level, easier to just be told a message. Too much money for a computer and online account. Too busy working 2-3 minimum-wage jobs to find the time to surf the web, or too poor and unemployed to get access.
Internet campaigns are demonstrably good for fundraising, particularly at rapidly harvesting micro-amounts in meaningful quantity, and generally juicing up the base, and getting the really active folks up on your agenda and talking points, as well as organizing disparate grass-roots groups into larger aggregates.
But if you’re trying to simply flummox the “great unwashed”, to drop a negativity bomb on your opponent on people without the mental tools to discern lies from truth, traditional media is still where it’s at.
It hits you for a moment and is gone, leaving a payload of whatever tailored impression was desired, and little residue to be analyzed. Like Goebbles demonstrated, repeat a lie a lot and many unquestioning folks will begin to accept it as fact.
Like MacLuhan talked about active and passive media, these guys prefer to reach a faceless mass blob of the statistical majority of ignorant imbeciles with a simple meme, rather than trying to sell complex ideas to individual people with the tools to analyze and evaluate the message in an active process.
- Martha Mitchell - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 10:28 pm:
Folks, the governor’s campaign is already targeting the people he wants to vote for him. He is saturating the U.S. mail with information, (multiples on each topic) about AllKids, Vet Care, Senior Care, SaveRx, preschool, etc., using the free services of state printshops and their postage. Not only have hundreds of thousands of these flyers, postcards, letters and applications been sent out, it has cost his campaign NOT ONE RED CENT. We, the voters, are paying for his campaign literature and most don’t even know it.
He has targeted just the people Tell Me Another describes, the people to whom these services are deemed most necessary. Not only will we be paying for his mismanagement for decades to come, we’ll be paying for his campaign also.
- Martha Mitchell - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 10:29 pm:
Oh and by the way, guess whose picture and name are in the largest font in these flyers?
- the wonderboy - Monday, Sep 11, 06 @ 11:31 pm:
Perhaps a little data would be beneficial…
http://www.ipdi.org/UploadedFiles/putting_online_influentials_to_work.pdf
Every campaign should use the internet (and internet ads), most just don’t know how or why. Key word to know when analyzing the impact of the internet…INFLUENTIALS. Those are the people that guide public opinion, and they are the ones using the net for political purposes. Failure to connect with such individuals is a dangerous mistake…
- Reddbyrd - Tuesday, Sep 12, 06 @ 6:28 am:
If I had acampaign I would spend all $ on CaptFax blog ads….it is the surest path to victory!