President & CEO - Fullerton Strategies. Ex WeWork, Obama Admin, New York State and more
One thing became clear on election night - paid advertising as we know it is dead. We saw that it is completely overrated in convincing people to support a candidate or even convince someone to buy a product (in this case the Democrats were the product). The Harris campaign spend about HALF A BILLION more on advertising than the Trump campaign - and suffered a much worse loss than Hillary had in 2016 to the same candidate. I don't blame this on the Harris campaign. They had no time and did a remarkable job in only three months. Their work was impressive to say the least. But the media landscape has completely changed. And let's be real - people aren't watching TV ads anymore. When the ads come on, we all pull out our phones. I'm not saying there shouldn't be ads, but $1.4 billion worth? No way. But then where should the money go? Well, we are still digging into that, but it's clear campaigns, organizations and businesses need a new approach. Ads won't cut it. You need to build a network of people supporting whatever you are focusing on. This means partnering with influencers to carry your message for you. It means partnering with podcasters and YouTubers to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. I've done this in the business world and the government world with great success. You don't need to spend a lot to see value. There will be many more discussions about this in the coming days/weeks/months ahead, but if you want to get ahead of the rush, now is the time to think how this can best work for you and your goals - whether they be messaging, revenue or changing hearts and minds. If you're interested in talking more about this - shoot me a note or leave a comment below. #advertising #marketing #Influencers #podcasts
I don't disagree with you regarding working with new mediums, but want to point to some interesting data that Matthew Yglesias shared in his Slow Boring substack (https://www.slowboring.com/p/post-election-mailbag). Paid media matters, but so does the broader candidate + party perception. "There was a very strong six-point national swing toward Trump, but among the states with complete data, the swing was notably smaller in the core battleground states than it was nationally. This is important, because it underscores that the net impact of the ad war was strongly favorable to Harris — by a margin of 2-3 points. That’s both to the credit of the Democratic Party’s ad makers and ad testers, but also an important breadcrumb for larger lessons. If we study what Democrats’ ads say, we know what kind of message in earned media could have made Democrats more popular nationally. Not always popular enough to win in the face of headwinds, but it’s still useful information."
I know that Citizens United will remain the law of the land for the foreseeable future, but it's still shocking to me just how much money gets poured into campaigns. I saw that expenditures for 2024 were approximately $16 billion. That could fund: 1) more than the entire federal budget for Head Start programs ($12 billion), 2) a full year of K-12 education for a million children, based on the average national spending per pupil (in NY, where we spend more, it would cover approximately half a million kids, for an entire year); 3) half the 24-25 budget for Pell Grants to help low-income students attend college.
I think the word "dead" is a bit of an exaggeration. Why does it always have to be a decision of x OR y? Why can't it be x AND y? Both the brand/product telling its story and an outsider speaking on their behalf. Maybe the emphasis/budget allocation is different than a 100% traditional ad campaign which makes it more efficient. Also, the 'and' allocation probably reaches a larger audience in some cases. Another thought: back in the 50s, celebrities acted as influencers/spokespeople for products in their TV shows -- e.g., Milton Berle, Lucille Ball, etc. The advertising channel may have changed, but the tactic is the same with today's online influencers and podcasters. The difference is that advertisers could get greater reach back then with just one TV show -- today, a combination of tactics is needed to cumulate reach. Question for you -- do you find that marketing a product is similar to marketing a politician? I would think the decision making regarding which politician to support is different (i.e., messier) than the decision making for which toothpaste to buy.
I’m not sure there will be tv places for them to squander it in 2 or 4 years.
Politely disagree. The ads run during the World Series that showed Harris saying out loud that she supported taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners dealt a devastating blow to her campaign. Equivalent to the Willie Horton ad. The DJT propaganda machine was in full effect, appealing to fear and intolerance, and succeeding.
Serious question: who is the Joe Rogan/ Tim Cast / Patrick Bet David for union workers/ union issues? Let's start there.
Growth marketer who probably should drink less iced coffee.
4wRespectful counterpoint: In swing states (where the Harris campaign would be running a respectable amount of paid media, in addition to the rest of the campaign) Democratic turnout was far better than in "safe" states. And I'm struggling to find the link to the better data, but it seems when you correct for the national vote trend against Democrats, she did far better in these swing states. Since the influencer media is, by its nature, not targeted by state it would stand to reason that the main differential impact there was the field and paid media campaigns. This is not to say the other media (influencers) don't have a (undervalued and growing) place in the budget -- but I wouldn't lead with "Ads are dead" aside from the obvious optimization for the algo. :) https://www.semafor.com/article/11/15/2024/democratic-turnout-plummeted-in-2024-but-only-in-safe-states