Tag: ads
Yes, Those Political Ads Are Following You

Yes, Those Political Ads Are Following You

By Tim Higgins, Bloomberg News (TNS)

WASHINGTON — When Scott Tranter, a Washington political strategy adviser, wants to figure out which TV shows Republican voters are watching, he calls Rentrak, a company that uses information pulled from set-top cable and satellite boxes to track viewing habits. Rentrak’s data help Tranter determine exactly where candidates can get the most value for their ad dollars. Rather than advising campaigns to spend $3,000 on prime-time broadcast slots in Des Moines, he tells them to buy airtime during reruns of “Law & Order” on TNT, at a fraction of the cost.

It’s a strategy devised and perfected by former Barack Obama campaign staffer Carol Davidsen, who joined Rentrak in January to oversee political analytics. “My job isn’t to target TV, my job is to figure out that you’re a vote I care about, and what do you do with your time all day long,” says Tranter, whose firm, Optimus, does work for Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, according to federal election records. “Carol’s very good at piecing all of these different technologies together.”

By hiring Davidsen, Rentrak has solidified its hold on the data driving political ad spending for the 2016 campaign.

Incorporated in 1977, the company originally tracked movie rental inventories, then reinvented itself as a monitoring service for box-office sales. As people began watching movies on cable and on demand, Rentrak developed relationships with service providers to get viewership data it sold to movie studios and advertisers.

On Sept. 29, the company announced it would merge with ComScore, a leader in tracking digital media consumption, in a deal valued at more than $800 million. The merger could allow the combined company to track voters across all their screens. “It’s going to be a good catalyst for companies and advertisers to think more along these lines,” says Brent McGoldrick, chief executive officer of Deep Root Analytics. One of Deep Root’s founders, Alex Lundry, is now head of data analytics for Jeb Bush’s campaign.

Near her desk, Davidsen keeps small maps of the swing states that will be most important in deciding the 2016 presidential election. As the director of integration and media targeting for Obama’s 2012 campaign, she created a tool known as “the Optimizer.” It not only used Rentrak numbers to spit out information on what the likeliest voters were watching but also told the campaign’s media buyers where they could reach the most voters for the lowest price.

Before the Optimizer, the campaign — like most of its predecessors — bought airtime during local news and prime-time broadcasts on the theory that those shows reached the most people. Davidsen’s analysis prompted the campaign’s ad buyers to triple their investment in cable ads, a strategy that made the spots 10 percent to 20 percent more effective, in the campaign’s estimation. The results brought as quick and fundamental a shift as Richard Nixon’s dour appearance in his 1960 presidential debate against John F. Kennedy, Davidsen argues. “After Kennedy, everyone got face powder,” she says. “You didn’t debate whether you were going to powder your face before you went on TV. This question was answered.”

In the 2014 midterms, ad buyers for Republican candidates boosted the number of political commercials on local cable by almost 75 percent over the 2010 midterms, according to NCC Media, which sells local ad space for most cable carriers. Channels such as HGTV, FX and the Food Network were suddenly inundated with campaign messages. “I definitely attribute that to better analytics behind TV advertising,” says Timothy Kay, director of political strategy at NCC. “Part of what’s great about the Rentrak data is that it’s given ratings to networks that we haven’t traditionally seen ratings on because of the small sample sizes that are shown by other media survey companies.”

Nielsen and other companies have also developed ways to track audiences across television and the Web. Smaller companies such as Rovi and FourthWall Media are also getting into the tracking business. But Rentrak has a unique advantage: its access to viewer data from markets across the country. By the end of the year, it expects to track about a fifth of U.S. TV viewing households.

CEO Bill Livek is betting the company’s investment in political advertising will pay off beyond the 2016 election. Businesses are trying to mimic the microtargeting techniques developed by political operatives, and Livek expects they’ll hire people who have relationships with Rentrak. “The smartest minds in America, and I mean that literally, work on these political campaigns,” he says. “Once the election is done they’ve got to get real work, and they end up working at some of the major brands.”

With a team of eight, Davidsen is trying to solve one of the problems that bedeviled her when she was on the campaign side in 2012: how to make sure the same people don’t see a candidate’s ads too many times. Even with its sophisticated analytics, the Obama campaign ultimately realized it was bombarding 6 percent of households in Ohio with more than 60 ads a week.

“That was not the desired intent,” Davidsen says, noting research that suggests voters can be provoked into voting against a candidate if they’re annoyed by seeing too many of the same TV ads. She says ad blitzes can bedevil better-funded campaigns, like Hillary Clinton’s or Bush’s. “The Hillary campaign’s problem is not going to be the lack of budget,” she says. “It’s going to be avoiding these 60 exposures.”

Playing with information goes back to childhood for Davidsen, who as a girl loved organizing her box of crayons more than coloring with them. “I just would ask questions of the crayon box, then organize the crayons to the answers to the questions. What are the feminine colors vs. the masculine colors? What are the citrusy colors?” she recalls. “I have a natural inclination to sort.”

Photo: Marco Rubio is one presidential candidate who is using firms that follow web users’ interests in order to target them for ads for him. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

Analysis: The Myths Of The Campaign Advertising Air War

Analysis: The Myths Of The Campaign Advertising Air War

By Ken Goldstein, Bloomberg News (TNS)

The first significant shots of the 2016 presidential television ad air war — likely to cost $2 billion or more by November 2016 — have been fired. The largest expenditures to date have been the multimillion-dollar buys each from New Day for America, the super PAC supporting John Kasich, and the Clinton campaign. Over the weekend, news broke of an impending $10 million buy from Right to Rise, the super PAC backing Jeb Bush’s candidacy, to be distributed among several early states.

For a media world that’s desperate to know how the war might go, these early blasts — measured in dollars — often take on an outsize significance. But it’s all too easy to misinterpret these early buys, and therefore misunderstand the battle.

The TV ad market is dizzyingly complex. Just looking at the amount of dollars spent in total or even in a particular market tells us little about what messages are reaching which targeted voters at what frequency — the key question that should concern political observers, practitioners and analysts. In fact, political advertising may be one aspect of politics where following the money isn’t the key to understanding.

Fogging the battlefield are numerous rules and pricing anomalies. First of all, different advertisers pay different amounts for spots on the same program — even spots in the same commercial pod. For example, within 60 days of a general election, and within 45 days of a primary, by federal law, candidates for federal office are guaranteed what’s called the lowest-unit-rate for buying advertising. And even outside the so-called LUR window, there can be enormous differences in the rates paid by candidates and groups for the exact same advertising. Take, for example, some recent buys on the only broadcast station in the crucial early primary state of New Hampshire, WMUR in Manchester.

During the first week of August, media buyers representing both candidates and groups ordered spots on ABC’s top rated “Good Morning America.” On Aug. 5, the Christie campaign paid $700 for a 30-second spot and Clinton’s campaign paid a proportional $1,400 for a 60-second spot. America Leads (Christie’s PAC) and New Day for America (Kasich’s PAC) also aired spots on “Good Morning America” that day, but paid almost three times as much — $2,000 for a 30-second spot from America Leads and $4,000 for a 60-second spot for New Day for America. Non-candidate money from groups, as a rule, buys much less ad than the same amount spent by the campaigns proper.

This was certainly the case in 2012 when, pretty much across the board, the Democrats were outspent by the GOP in the presidential race. But a much higher percentage of Republican money came from super PACs and other groups. As a result, the GOP spent more, but got less. Amazingly, the Romney campaign actually compounded this problem. Although Romney’s ad people, like their counterparts in Chicago, had the legal right to buy spots at the LUR, they often did not take full advantage of this right. Wanting particular (and more costly) guarantees of when their spots would air, the Romney campaign often paid more for the exact same advertising buys.

Journalists are rarely precise about the time periods and exact markets of the ad buys about which they tweet — $1 million spent in Cedar Rapids in one month is a lot, $1 million spent in five months targeting New Hampshire with purchases on pricey Boston stations, not so much.

The media obsession with ad dollars has been driven by the availability of what political professionals call the “competitive.” As Elizabeth Wilner, head of Kantar Media CMAG writes in the Cook Political Report, “Every week during the thick and even the thin of a presidential race (or any other race featuring TV ads), dozens to hundreds of e-mails fly between TV stations, local cable systems, ad sales rep firms and political media buyers informing the group of bids for airtime — not just their own but everyone else’s.”

This practice would be unethical and probably illegal if the stations were providing Budweiser’s ad agency with information on where Miller’s agency had just ordered advertising. It, however, has been the norm in politics for the last few election cycles. Media buyers process the information on what spot time has been ordered and use if for strategic purposes to track where their enemies — and increasingly their friends with whom they cannot coordinate — are buying ads. This information, provided as a service by the TV stations, is now also increasingly being passed along — sometimes even sold — by partisan media buyers to members of the news media, who then report the ad buys with bullet point after bullet point of dollar figures.

Some of the reporting around the competitive can also be foggy. For example, recent media coverage of a Rubio campaign order clearly used “competitive information” and spoke of the wisdom of an early buy that supposedly advantaged his campaign with early pricing and guarantees placements. But, in fact, rates are not yet available for many of the times that the Rubio campaign supposedly guaranteed placement. Unlike airlines, TV stations never really run out of seats and you can get bumped while about to board the plane if someone decides they want to pay more for the seat. Ad time is never really guaranteed (unless a campaign pays a very high guaranteed price) and ads don’t air at a certain price until they air at that price.

This is why the raw numbers of ad purchases don’t necessarily mean that much. They’re like partial unweighted survey data after the first night of calling in a political poll.

Still, even with all these warnings about measuring the political ad air war, the ad activity now, as well as the Clinton buy over the last couple of weeks, is worth our attention. To understand why, let’s remember that scholarly work on political communication — not to mention common sense — suggests that advertising should have a greater impact when people are less familiar with the candidates. Attitudes are more fluid and when one side has an advantage in communicating their message.

In fact, the dominant view of academics is that in general elections the partisan predispositions of voters and underlying economic factors either favor a candidate or they don’t and no amount of campaign spending or television advertising can change attitudes and outcomes. The skepticism also rests on the argument that even if such advertising had the potential to change entrenched minds and outweigh the effects of economic conditions, there would need to be measurable differences between the competing advertising campaigns — something not often seen in competitive battles.

But in primary battles, voters don’t have their partisanship to use as a shortcut and at this stage in the primary season, many Republican still are not familiar with their party’s contestants. Furthermore, unlike what we will see in battleground states in the general election and in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina as their nomination contests draw nearer, most candidates are not on TV spots, and television is not flooded with political advertising. In other words, if advertising is ever going to have an effect it is going to be now, when attitudes are soft and the air war can be one-sided.

While the effects are seldom huge, early advertising campaigns can provide important preliminary evidence or be a “tell” for the potential effectiveness of a campaign’s message. For instance, the pro-Kasich super PAC’s $2 million buy certainly seems have moved his numbers and helped get him in the conversation in New Hampshire — though the caveat should be quickly added that the nomination is a very, very long way.

With very little paid media opposition, it will be interesting to see if the buys on behalf of Jeb Bush resonate with Republican primary voters this fall. Even more interesting to political observers is the impact of the Clinton campaign’s ad buy, which has been up on the air unopposed for more than two weeks in Iowa and New Hampshire. Both campaigns are well-financed and staffed with top strategists; assessing the impact of these first buys will be our first evidence about whether the dogs will eat the dog food.

Photo: Ads, from which this still was taken, by the John Kasich-supporting SuperPAC New Day for America, recently aired on “Good Morning America.” New Day for America/YouTube

Groups Pour $20 Million Into TV, Print Ads For California Primary

Groups Pour $20 Million Into TV, Print Ads For California Primary

By Melanie Mason, Los Angeles Times

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As the June 3 primary election draws near, business interests, labor groups, environmentalists and wealthy individuals have poured more than $20 million into television and radio commercials, mail ads and other campaign aid for their preferred candidates in campaigns for state offices.

The vast sums are partly a reflection of California’s primary system, in which the top-two candidates, regardless of party, advance to the November ballot.

Candidates and their backers “now have to talk to all voters and not just members of their own party. That increases the cost of campaigns,” said Democratic strategist Michael Wagaman.

Among contests for statewide office, the schools superintendent’s race has attracted the most: Labor groups, led by the California Teachers Association, have spent nearly $2.6 million on broadcast and print ads to assist Tom Torlakson, the Democratic incumbent.

Additionally, the teachers union spent nearly $2 million on television “issue ads” that prominently featured Torlakson but did not expressly advocate for him.

Another Democrat, former charter schools executive Marshall Tuck, is backed by education activists who have sparred with the unions over issues such as teacher evaluations and dismissal.

California Senior Advocates League PAC, a committee primarily funded by philanthropist Eli Broad and Manhattan Beach businessman Bill Bloomfield, has spent nearly $700,000 on mail ads for Tuck. Bloomfield spent an additional $720,000 on pro-Tuck mailers on his own.

A third candidate, Republican Lydia Gutierrez, has not attracted independent support.

Bloomfield and his wife have dropped an additional $900,000 to independently support several other candidates, including GOP gubernatorial hopeful Neel Kashkari. Bloomfield’s spending, along with that of major Republican donor Charles Munger Jr., accounts for about 18 percent of all independent expenditures in state races for this primary.

Bloomfield, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2012, acknowledged some people’s objections to wealthy individuals playing an outsized role in campaigns.

But “we’re not going to sit back or wait for the rules to change,” he said. “Simply, we want a situation where the voters have the facts and can make their decision.”

Munger, a moderate Republican, contributed $350,000 to a committee seeking to boost Kashkari over his GOP rival, Assemblyman Tim Donnelly. In addition, Spirit of Democracy, a political committee primarily funded by Munger, has spent nearly $1.7 million in legislative races, all to aid Republicans.

“We’re looking to increase the strength of the Republican Party across the state, expand it and allow it to grow so that it can be more competitive,” said Richard Temple, a consultant for the group.

The battle over some legislative seats is particularly fierce, given the new term limits put in place in 2012.

“It seems to be much more intense this year,” said Martin Wilson, vice president of public affairs at the California Chamber of Commerce, noting that after the 2014 elections, the Legislature will be dominated by lawmakers who can serve up to 12 years in a single house.

“Once you get somebody in there, it’s harder to take them out,” Wilson said.

The spending is especially striking in a Bay Area Assembly race, where a contest between Democrats Steve Glazer and Tim Sbranti has become a ferocious proxy war between business and labor interests.

The race is the “Super Bowl of independent expenditures,” Wagaman said.

Business groups, including the chamber’s political committee JobsPAC, have poured in nearly $1.8 million to support Glazer, a former adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown who also worked as a consultant to JobsPAC.

“Steve Glazer is somebody that we at CalChamber know well, and have known for a long time,” said Wilson, describing Glazer as the “prototypical pro-business, pro-jobs candidate.”

Labor groups were infuriated by Glazer’s work in campaigns against union-backed candidates in 2012 and his opposition to transit strikes. They have unleashed more than $1.6 million to boost Sbranti, mayor of Dublin, a Bay Area suburb.

“Our committee wants to make sure Democrats elect a Democrat, not a Republican in Democrat clothing,” said Steven Maviglio, spokesman for Californians for Economic Prosperity, the pro-Sbranti committee funded primarily by the California Teachers Association and an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

“It’s pretty clear when someone is running an anti-union campaign, with contributions from Wal-Mart and Wall Street banks, that they’re not going to have the interests of the core Democratic constituency at heart,” Maviglio said.

Munger’s group has spent more than $130,000 to support Catharine Baker, the Republican candidate for the seat.

External players have also weighed in on internal Republican Party spats.

In a Riverside County state Senate race, a group funded partly by the Riverside Sheriffs Association has spent about $40,000 to oppose Bonnie Garcia, a former GOP assemblywoman.

That effort has been dwarfed by money from business groups, which, along with Munger, have put in $870,000 to back Garcia and oppose Jeff Stone, a Riverside County supervisor.

Munger and business groups are also at work in Thousand Oaks, where they have spent more than $600,000 to tout Mario de la Piedra, a 26-year-old Republican businessman and attack his GOP competitor, Pastor Rob McCoy, who they fear would be too conservative for the district. Moderate Democrat Jacqui Irwin is also running.

Over Memorial Day weekend, McCoy got a modest assist of his own: $12,100 in mail ads from the California Homeowners Association, a group funded in part by an insurance company owned by Peter C. Foy, a Ventura County supervisor.

Miggslive via Flickr