subject: Will Politicians Find Online A Political Secrecy Haven In Wake Of Tv Cost Disclosure Rules? [print this page] They say, "Be careful what you put online. It's there forever." In this case, media planners will find just the opposite during the upcoming political season. Planners who spend on TV will now find their rates opened up and published to anyone who wants to see them. Conversely, those same planners/buyers who put that same TV spot online can have complete rate confidentiality, and possibly increase their effectiveness while they're at it (so says a recent study.)
The "Lowest Unit Cost" rule has been around for years. For those unfamiliar, it requires TV stations to "open up their books" and offer political campaigns to match the very lowest rate at which they've sold that program for in a specified period. Ever wonder why buying TV is so insanely expensive during political season? The stations want max price from the political campaigns - so no discounts for you! This is, of course, not true online. Nor does the new law requiring transparency cover online. What moves do you make as a result of this if you're a political campaign?
First, no politician or PAC is going to stop buying on TV, and everyone gets the same rates anyway assuming the station has been honest. The only potential fallout could be in disclosing total amount a PAC or campaign spends, but do voters really care anymore? Is $50MM really that much more shocking than $35MM? I don't think they do, or it will matter. Second, the study highlighted above shows that TV advertising's effectiveness is actually increased when paired with an online video plan! So, rather than suggesting there might be changes in spending habits as a result of this new law, there should be changes in spending habits (i.e. spending 5%+ of your budget online for persuasion and get out the vote messaging) to boost the efficacy of your TV ads.
The notion that a multi-media approach for persuading consumers is not new, but political campaigns have rarely listened in the past. Instead, they've chosen to max out TV schedules at 1,000 GRPs or more per week. Will this be the year Politicians take 50 of those GRPs and put them online in order to make the other 950 work like the old 1,000? I doubt it, but I'd love to be proven wrong. What do you think?
by: Jay Friedman
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