2008 Primaries, Branding Politix, Buttons, Messaging • June 2nd, 2008

Cha-ching!

by Chris Lato

Once the ‘Holy cow! $200 million!’ shock wears off, what does this tell us?

First off, for all the talk about new ways of executing political communication (social media, internet, Facebook, you name it) TV is still king, far and away. If you want to catch a lot of attention and eyeballs, it is still the way to go if you have the dough.

But money isn’t enough. John McCain was outspent roughly three-to-one by Mitt Romney, and look who’s still standing. Sometimes all the marketing money in the world won’t get voters to buy what you’re selling – especially if your message is garbled and you have failed to define yourself, what you stand for and why you are running.

And, what a mind-blowing number for the Democrats. All this over a battle for the nomination that has been great fun to watch, yet has allowed John McCain to run his campaign unscathed by Democrat attacks for months. Admittedly, if the Dem nominee will have this level of support at his disposal, McCain will be pelted with a non-stop barrage of attack ads any time now.

Despite the $46 million spent by the Hillary Clinton campaign, the study points out that in a number of key states Barack Obama still had the airwaves all to himself for a significant period of time – and made his biggest gains for a two-week stretch in February. Pure tactical outmaneuvering, coupled with the means to make some big buys, that helped move the needle in Obama’s direction.

Get ready, Wisconsin – the political airwave war in the Battleground Badger State is about to get underway….

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 1:35 pm and is filed under 2008 Primaries, Branding Politix, Buttons, Messaging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.