Voters Going Off the Grid

[brooklynite]

http://saymedia.typepad.com/_pdf/Voters-Arent-Watching-Your-Ads.pdf

Overview

The 2012 political season is likely to see spending on broadcast television advertising in excess of $3 billion, according to Moody’s and PQ media, an increase of 50% over the $2 billion spent during the 2010 mid-term elections, when TV spending represented about two-thirds of all political ad expenditures. Television’s ability to quickly reach large groups of people at high frequency has made it the workhorse of political advertising for the last 50 years. But while the spending trend continues to rise, advances in technology have empowered the audience to control both their programming and ad consumption experiences in ways that reduce the effectiveness of these advertising dollars. Recent behavioral shifts are enabled by technologies like DVRs, which allow time shifting and ad skipping, as well as online streaming and mobile viewing. With a $3 billion investment on the line, many political advertisers are analyzing whether and how their communications strategy needs to evolve to enable success in this crucial election cycle and beyond.

SAY Media has just concluded a bi-partisan study to evaluate the political advertising landscape in this time of changing behavior. The study was co-authored with two digital media consultancies and two well-known political pollsters, representing both the right and left sides of the political spectrum: from the Republican side, Targeted Victory and Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies and from the Democratic side, Chong & Koster and Thomas Eldon of SEA Polling. The goal of the research was to understand the changing media landscape, and specifically how it impacts a campaign’s ability to effectively and efficiently reach voters in the upcoming election. Together, we designed and fielded a national telephone survey among 800 likely voters. We further ran an additional 300 surveys each in Ohio and Florida to understand how media trends impacted voters in key battleground states.

Many Voters Are Not Watching Television When Broadcast

We asked likely voters how they consume video content across a variety of platforms. Our study found that 31% of all likely voters hadn’t watched any live TV in the week prior (by “live TV” we mean watching programming as it is broadcast over the air or cable without a delaying device like a DVR). In fact, we observed an even higher level of this kind of behavior in the key battleground state of Ohio, where nearly 40% have not watched live tv in the last week. There are no significant differences in this behavior by age, gender, or party affiliation. One-third of the voting population, therefore, is putting itself out of the reach of televised political advertisements, which often rely on immediacy to help shape perceptions in a dynamic messaging environment. Though this study was conducted in Spring 2011, there is no reason to believe that live television viewing will increase with the election season. In fact, broad audience trends indicate the opposite.

Hate to think all of Karl ROve's money was going to waste...

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. When political ads come on, we either turn off the TV or mute - we don't watch much anyway.

Can't stand them - and they are pretty constant here in NC

[groundloop]

2. Well, I guess there's one advantage to living in a deep red state -

Nobody bothers to run much political advertising here because the outcome is a forgone conclusion.

Also, $3 BILLION for political advertising is obscene. I can't help but think of how many teachers, police officers, and firefighters that could hire. Or how many bridges that could repair. I have to wonder how much this number has been inflated thanks to Citizens United.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. + a zillion for your second paragraph. It is obscene what is happening with pissing away so much.

It is an embarrassment for our country.

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. I turn off NPR in the morning the minute they start on politics

I don't care what they have to say, and I know it's all spin now anyway. I listen to the candidates themselves, though, obviously, I've long ago made my choice.

But I think this is indicative of most of the country now. The dynamic has changed utterly. Ads still work, of course, and coverage still moves the needle, but nowhere near as much as it used to.

[NCLefty]

5. I watch some political shows but I always FF through commercials.