State of Political Advertising: Summer 2020

Now at the start of July Vice President Biden the overwhelmingly smaller spender in the primary is the presumptive Democratic nominee the number of COVID19 cases has surpassed 26 million as of June 29th the candidacies of Mayor Bloomberg and Mr Steyer are distant memories and the pandemic has significantly impacted many media companies leaving layoffs and diminishing advertising revenues in its wake To the latter point The Wall Street Journal reported this Juneamp8212citing a report from WPP plcamp8212that US advertising spending is being projected to fall by 13 in 2020 dropping to 2079 billion from 201939s 2388 billion Of course advertising in industries such as automotive and travel have been impacted in particular with travelrelated advertising spending falling markedly in the first quarter However in the view of Dan Sinagoga vice president political sales for Effectv whom I interviewed for this piece political advertising is poised to weather the stormamp8212and even potentially exceed preCOVID19 expectationsAlthough stopping just short of calling political advertising quotrecession proofquot Sinagoga affirmed his belief that political advertising would not experience the same degree of struggles as other areas To this point he described observing dips in March and April followed by spending picking up again in May and reaching normal levels by the beginning of June The implication continues to be that while consumers may postpone certain retail purchases on account of the virus the general election is still on November 3rdSinagoga39s view has also been shared by a number of other commentators and advertising experts To this point by midMay Zach Montellaro was reporting at Politico that quotPolitical ads are expected to explode even as economy tanksquot Citing a report from Advertising Analytics and Cross Screen Media Montellaro reported that 2020 projections for political spending had reached 67 billion a 12 increase from the initial 6 billion estimate forecasted prior to the pandemic39s arrival Sensing a point also alluded to by Casey Bessette and Lauren Richards of Sage Media Planning who were both also interviewed for this piece Montellaro put forward the idea that actually the virus may spur more spending due to reduced opportunities for candidates to campaign in person or to hold typical events This could become all the more the case if the Democratic National Committee elects to continue its plans to downsize the permitted attendance for the Democratic National Convention in AugustIn addition to altering the size of the Democratic Convention causing the Republican Convention to partially move from Charlotte NC to Jacksonville FL and affecting the campaign strategies of the candidates the pandemic resulted in a number of other adjustments These have ranged from rescheduled primaries to making more widespread the practice of mailin voting the latter of which featured prominently in the May 12th special election in California39s 25th congressional district Indeed some of these changes have come to bear on political advertising itself Bessette and Richards described the impact of greater numbers of voters voting by mail quotWe39re seeing a trend where instead of just advertising the week or two before the primary we39re starting to strike out our media plans four to six weeks out because people are voting that entire time and you can39t just rely on getting them the week before the electionquot And among other changes engendered by the pandemic surging viewership of television particularly during daytime has increasingly factored into decisionmaking about placing political advertisementsAlthough by all reports political advertising has fared better than other categories of advertisements needless to say political advertising is a function of campaign contributions And campaign contributions areamp8212almost by definitionamp8212susceptible to the ups and downs of an economy This is all the more the case given ongoing concerns about pandemicrelated unemployment And for candidates such as President Donald Trump or would have been Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders who have benefited from small dollar donors this might be all the more pressingBessette and Richards however have argued that the events of the past several months in the United States particularly when it comes to the pandemic may result in a greater number of Americans taking a serious interest in this election relative to past cycles and this certainly could be expressed in the form of increased donation dollars But in any event Bessette Richards and Sinagoga all shared a confidence that the 2020 election cycle would make for a particularly strong showing for political spending As Sinagoga put it quotWe39re very optimistic that with the significant recordsetting fundraising that took place leading into COVID19amp8212and what is going to take place as we get into the back part of the summeramp8212the wheels seem to be fully back on track and that39s going to outpace what we saw in 2016 and 2018 which was the largest political spending year ever at 5 billion and changequot And this remains their forecast even with Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer far more on the sidelines than they were in FebruaryClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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State of Political Advertising: Summer 2020

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Erich J. Prince

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