American elections are more expensive than ever in history, and a main driver of that price tag is ad spending. Out of the record-setting $14 billion spent on elections in 2020, an estimated $8.5 billion of it went to TV, radio and digital ads. Campaigns, committees and outside groups flood the airwaves and digital platforms with millions of ads every year in the hopes of swaying voters. But the ever-evolving media landscape has completely transformed the conventional wisdom about political advertising—and, perhaps, weakened its immediate potency. With so much content competing for people’s attention, a single ad is far less likely to sway a voter than it used to. In 2020, there were 18 media markets where campaigns spent at least $100 million on political ads, according to Ad Impact's analysis of the recent cycle, indicating just how competitive the battle for voters' attention has become. This means savvy political organizations need to approach advertising from a holistic lens, spending over a longer period of time to create a narrative for voters that will cut through the noise.
Blue Tent talked with political advertising experts to better understand the industry practices of political advertising to provide better context to our organization reports. Keep these perspectives in mind as you evaluate which group to give your donations.
TV Is Still Important—But In a Different Way
Political advertising used to be much more simple. Campaigns would purchase ads on “linear television” (the traditional type of TV, these days referring to broadcast and cable) and that spot would reach a significant number of eyeballs. Played at the right time and on the right networks, campaigns could reach many voters with TV alone. The old conventional wisdom dictated only, or mostly, spending on TV ads in the last six weeks before Election Day, when voters are most likely to be paying attention to the race. Early-in-the-year TV spots were considered a waste, the thinking went, since voters wouldn’t remember a political ad when not thinking about elections.
Spending on traditional media (TV and radio) still dominates ad spending over digital, but its uses and efficacy have changed dramatically in recent years. Americans’ time spent with traditional media has decreased as time with digital media has skyrocketed—a trend that increased dramatically during the pandemic. TV is by no means obsolete: The 2021 Nielsen Total Audience Report found that on average, people 50 and older spend the majority of their media time with linear TV and radio. Demographic research by Catalist finds 45 and older voters make up more than 60% of the electorate. Older and suburban voters are top amongst the strongest TV watchers, making linear TV advertising crucial for certain districts and necessary for all campaigns hoping to reach all segments of its audience.
Traditional TV still has some unique advantages: For one, it has the cheapest cost per eyeball. Though linear TV ads have a high barrier to entry, the costs of a massive TV ad buy can be more efficient than making a digital buy of similar size. Traditional TV is still the easiest way to reach a massive audience in a short amount of time, something to consider for organizations with fewer consulting resources looking to make an impact. Similarly, traditional radio audiences have shrunk over the years, but still provide campaigns access to an attentive audience. In 2020, the Biden campaign reportedly outspent Trump significantly on radio, hoping to reach rural and religious voters in key swing states. The Ad Impact study also noted campaigns utilized highly targeted strategies on radio, like running Spanish-language ads in key cities.
But digital media has dramatically changed who watches traditional TV, and what they’re watching. Younger demographics spend the majority of their media time with digital devices, and even older demographics spend significant time on a tablet or smartphone. Perhaps the most complicated new element in the mix is “connected TV,” or streaming service show platforms (think Hulu, Disney+, etc.). There’s an ongoing debate regarding whether connected TV should be considered part of the “traditional” or the “digital” advertising buckets, but what’s certain is that streaming has further complicated the planning and strategy for political organizations looking to reach the most people efficiently.
Advertising experts who spoke with Blue Tent noted that political ad strategy requires an all-of-the-above approach, making the days of leaning almost entirely on TV advertising obsolete. While TV ads are still likely to take up the bulk of an organization’s ad spending budget, it should be accompanied by ads on a variety of other platforms.
Digital Platforms Changed the Game
Digital media is almost a catch-all term. What classifies as “digital” includes banner ads on websites, YouTube videos, social media posts (both sponsored and free), ads on music streaming services, and spots on digital TV streaming platforms. Digital media is evolving constantly, so it’s important for campaigns to keep up and meet voters where they’re at. This requires groups doing political advertising to work harder to figure out their target demographics and which types of media they’re using.
Digital media isn’t exactly eating into traditional media time; instead, it’s adding to the average American’s media consumption overall. As a result, Americans are saturated with media like never before. This has made the impact of a single political ad far weaker, because voters see so many advertisements, political or not, on a daily basis, making it easy to forget or ignore one particular spot. There’s also no industry-standard metric for how effective an ad is, so different firms and campaigns will have different opinions on why one spot is better than another. What does seem important, as one expert told Blue Tent, is: “Frequency, frequency, frequency.”
Taken on its own, digital media has the unique advantages of being cheaper on the surface than traditional advertising (the ads themselves, at least, are cheaper, but there are often added staffing expenses that come with crafting a digital ad campaign) and is more transparent about its pricing (allowing campaigns to react more quickly to opponents’ moves). Though maintaining a digital campaign takes more real-time monitoring, digital platforms allow campaigns and organizations to be more agile and consistent with their messaging. This means an effective digital strategy will consistently run ads across platforms over a longer period of time leading up to election day, and requires campaigns and political organizations to solidify its messaging early on so it can reinforce that message over and over.
A memo published in early 2021 from the Super PAC Priorities USA made public some of the debate over traditional-versus-digital advertising that's been happening privately among ad experts for years. Titled "How Democrats Can Optimize Media Spending And Stop Wasting Millions," the memo argues the party has focused too much on TV and could yield better results by leaning more on digital mediums--and start that spending earlier to engage better with a more savvy electorate. One eye-popping stat from the report claimed 75 percent of the TV ads supporting House candidates run in the final weeks before Election Day aired outside of the targeted district. While traditional TV still maintains a massive audience that campaigns will need to reach, expect campaigns to get smarter about this kind of waste.
What to Pay Attention to
It seems counterintuitive, but you could argue that the big-money era of politics has coincided with a media landscape that has made it harder to “buy” an election. Simply pumping money into ads and outspending your opponent won’t guarantee a win. While maintaining a spending pace with your opponent is necessary, campaigns need a message that will connect with voters to cut through the saturation of the media landscape. This raises the importance of having a strong candidate, a strong message, and advertising to maintain that message in voters’ minds.
Advertising ideally shouldn’t be siloed from the rest of an organization’s strategy, experts told us. The most effective groups are the ones using person-to-person relational organizing, which is then supplemented with ads to help spread the buzz. Conservative media’s echo chamber keeps conservative messages circulating even in a non-election year, giving liberal groups all the more incentive to start advertising as early as possible to establish their own narrative and command voters’ attention.
Blue Tent hesitates to make definitive judgments about particular organizations’ ad strategies because, as mentioned above, it is difficult to fairly assess that an ad strategy “worked” without deeper analysis that is often unavailable. However, there are a couple of factors we’d recommend donors look for in an organization’s spending history when evaluating whether or not to contribute:
- Diversity of medium: Is the group spending all of its money on a single medium, or does it appear to use a variety of platforms?
- Trying to buy it late: Is the group spending consistently over a sufficient period of time, or is it prioritizing late ads? If spending on late ads, does the race in question call for that kind of spending, or is it potentially wasteful?
- Internal testing: Does the group have an internal metric to evaluate its ads? How does it measure the success of its messaging campaigns overall?
Outsized spending to vendors: There’s no hard-and-fast rule on how much groups should pay advertising firms and media buyers, but it’s important to keep an eye out for groups that take a monthly retainer fee in addition to fees for each individual ad buy.
Conclusion
When you make a donation to a candidate, party committee or super PAC, there’s a good chance that your money will be used to pay for TV or digital advertising. As a political donor, you should seek to understand and follow this spending. You should also ask yourself how much you want to support such approaches to influencing electoral outcomes. Today, donors have a growing array of options for supporting grassroots groups that are working to build progressive power year-round—so when election time comes, people are already organized and mobilized. Donors can also support policy and advocacy groups that are working every day to advance a progressive agenda in the corridors of power. Donors should pay close attention to these giving opportunities and diversify how they allocate their resources—to invest in both ongoing efforts to build power and create change while also ensuring that Democratic candidates have the resources they need to compete at election time.