Election year is almost here, and with the start of 2008 closing in fast, consumers need to brace themselves from an onslaught of 2008 Presidential Election advertising. Thanks to a Bear Stearns analysis we can see a breakdown of where those political advertising budgets are being invested.
First, it looks as though CBS will be the big winner with $165 in political advertising, but that's still not enough to compete with local advertising that will capture $1.9 billion of the $2.5 billion 2008 Presidential Election advertising total. Here's the breakdown of how those local political advertising investments are allocated:
- 60% is placed in news content (primarily through major network-affiliated TV stations)
- 9.8% is placed in talk radio
- 8.4% is placed in drama
- 6.8% is placed in game shows
- 5.4% is placed in sitcoms
- 4.6% is placed in variety
- 3.0% is placed in feature films and 'other'
- 2.5% is placed in sports
I'm actually somewhat surprised by this allocation of 2008 Presidential Election advertising dollars. Of course, I'm not a political expert, but from a marketing perspective, doesn't it seem like people who watch news programming are probably more likely to have strong political opinions and know who they want to vote for, not from television ads but from researching the candidates? In fact, in today's world of Web 2.0 most of that research is probably done online, thus the need for a strong viral component to 2008 Presidential Election advertising. With that said, wouldn't it make more sense to invest more advertising dollars in television programming viewed by people who would be more open to the political ad messaging because they may not have selected a candidate yet?
Again, politics is absolutely not my area, so I could be totally wrong on this. If you have some experience in political advertising, please leave a comment and help explain why this advertising budget allocation is the best for 2008 Presidential Candidates. I'm curious to get more insight into the strategy behind the ad spends.
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