"About That" with Carl Mayer: Political Advertising: Episode 2

For access to Active International’s 2024 Local Political Outlook report, email info@activeinternational.com.

About Alaina Donnellon:

Alaina Donnellon has over 15 years of experience at Active International, specializing in the local video and audio marketplace. She has held positions of increasing responsibility in media buying, strategy and account management throughout her career. As Senior Vice President, Local Media, Alaina leads a dynamic team of over 50 media professionals with oversight on all local campaigns. Her role involves close collaboration with internal and external partners to craft strategic solutions, steering Active’s clients through the ever-evolving video and audio landscape.

Transcript:

Carl Mayer: Welcome to About That. I’m Carl Mayer and our topic today, Political Advertising. It’s anticipated there will be record spending this political season with just 100 days to go until Election Day. With me to discuss this is Alaina Donnellon, Senior Vice President of Local Media at Active International. Alaina, welcome to the show.

Alaina Donnellon: Thanks for having me.

Mayer: Now, with everything seemingly changing every day, how do you keep track of, well, everything that is changing?

Donnellon: Good question. It’s not easy. We have a very large team behind us in the Local Media group of about 50 media professionals. Many of them are in direct contact with the stations on a very regular basis in each individual local market. And they’re really, really good at keeping their finger on the pulse of all of the information that’s coming out of the stations, all the inventory that’s changing rapidly, especially as we’re in the middle of this election cycle. So they’re able to get us really great real time information that we’re able to analyze quickly and get back to our client agency partners to help educate them and work together to make sure that our campaigns are as successful as they can be during this tumultuous environment.

Mayer: As we record this, it was yesterday that President Biden dropped out of the race. And a lot of the talk has been about how much money Kamala Harris is getting, how much the PACs have raised, what’s the Trump campaign’s response. All that is important and it’s worth talking about. But the real story for advertisers is what’s going on in the local markets. Can you tell us more about that?

Donnellon: Yeah. So when we think about political spend, it’s easy to think about a lot of the larger states that we think of as presidential swing states. So there’s obviously a lot of money that’s being poured into states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and that’s going to continue to happen, especially as things unfold, as we get closer to the election date. But what we’re also finding is that there’s a lot happening in other markets that may not be on everybody’s radar.

So, for example, Baltimore is a market that is seeing a significant amount of spend because there’s a very competitive Senate race in Maryland. New York and LA, which are the two largest and most expensive markets in the country, they fall within states that typically lean blue when we look at things on a state level. So the presidential campaign isn’t so worried about those states, but there happens to be very competitive House races going on in districts within those markets.

So those two markets along with Portland OR which is another market that is seeing a lot of spend for House races, they’re going to be the top three that we’re seeing so far for spend towards House races for this election.

Mayer: Now I hear a lot about campaigns, candidate spending versus PAC and committee spending in a practical sense when they’re buying, what’s the difference?

Donnellon: There can be a big difference. So when we think about candidate spend, the candidates are entitled to what’s called the LUR, or the lowest unit rate, that a station is going to be able to provide. So that really enables them to get a very good rate for their advertising message. But the PACs on the other hand, the Super PACs and the committee’s, don’t have access to that same LUR. So they have to spend a lot more money for that same message.

What we’re finding this year is that we’re seeing some hybrid ads come together. We’re seeing this particularly from the Republican Senate Committee who has joined ads with some candidates and it has enabled them to get the access to that LUR and help that spend go further. So where they would have had to spend a little bit more to maybe get fewer messages out there, they’re able to spend a little bit less on each individual message and spread that around as they go into different markets.

Mayer: If they’re spending just as much money, but at lower prices, presumably that’s going to increase demand. You have record amounts already being spent and especially in states that would ordinarily not have gotten that kind of money. And who knows how much money is coming in now that there’s been a change in the Democratic ticket.

Let’s say I’m an advertiser who is not a political advertiser. I just want to have an effective campaign that runs during the election season. How can I accomplish that?

Donnellon: Being prepared is going to be key. So we work with a lot of clients and agencies that are looking for that exact thing. So it’s important to know that we’ve all been here before. You know, our advertisers have been here before. Our team certainly has, the media sellers have, our team has a lot of robust experience navigating through these political cycles. And for our advertisers, we can help them be prepared and focus on the market nuances that they need to know in order to be able to get through those challenges.

Some of the things that have worked really well for client partners has been to know when to, pivot within the day parts that they’re looking at, for example, on a TV campaign or be flexible with the flighting that they have if they can extend a couple of weeks onto their flight if it’s not a timely sale.

Another alternative that we have helped clients navigate through is looking at other channels such as CTV, which is a great option because it still extends that video message that our advertisers are looking for when they think about TV, but in a much less cluttered environment that we’re seeing in the broadcast and cable space.

Mayer: Now, this is a broad and fascinating topic. There’s no way that in one episode of the show we could really get fully into it. Luckily for all of us, you and the team just released a report getting into much more depth about political advertising. And if you would like to request that report, you can do so with the link in the description for this video. Alaina Donnellon, thank you very much for taking your finger off the political pulse just for a moment to join us here on About That.

Donnellon: Thanks for having me.

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