• by November 22, 2004

YOU SAW THE CAMPAIGN, NOW HERE'S THE POST-BUY (OR IS IT POST-VOTE?) ANALYSIS - The outcome of the 2004 presidential campaign has been well documented, but the efficacy of presidential media strategies is only now coming to light via an unusual post-buy analysis courtesy of Draft Inc.

And while George W. Bush won reelection, it's unlikely that his campaign managers - or John Kerry's for that matter - would have won any media account reviews, concludes the direct response shop. At least not based on how well they invested a record sum of presidential campaign ad dollars.

"The huge amount of mass advertising in the final weeks of the campaign did little to change the minds of the vast majority of voters, many of whom had made their decisions early on," rips Howard Draft, chairman and CEO of Draft, citing results of a study the agency conducted on the impact of advertising and media on the decision-making of voters.

The study found that for all the concentrated spending both campaign teams invested in an advertising crescendo surrounding the so-called swing states, the vast majority of voters had made up their minds on who they were going to vote for either by the time their state's primaries were held or by the televised presidential debates.

In fact, the study reveals that only 4.7 percent of voters nationwide switched their choice of candidate during the course of the election. And while a slight majority (59 percent) of those that did switch did so relatively late in the game (from October through Election Day), Draft argues that a far more effective use of campaign resources would have been to come out early and utilize - what else? - direct response marketing techniques.

"The road to the Oval Office could best be paved by following a classic customer relationship management (CRM) model," advocates Draft, suggesting that any 2008 aspirants, "hook the customer (i.e., voter) as early in the campaigning process as possible, close the deal, then keep addressing issues important to the individual through Election Day using a variety of one-to-one communications."

Do you hear that, Jeb, Condoleezza, Rudy, Hillary, or whoever? The media mavens say you should come out swinging and never drop your guard.

But that's clearly not what W's, or Kerry's team did during the 2004 race. According to Draft's post-buy, 92 percent of $990 million in combined campaign spending was concentrated relatively late in the game on 16 battleground states. Not only was it largely ineffective, concludes that agency, but it wasn't exactly cost efficient, not even by direct marketing standards.

Here's the media math, according to Draft: Presidential candidates spent $910 million on advertising to sway undecideds or switch voters from one candidate to another, an average of $110 per opinion changer. At that rate, candidates might consider bypassing the advertising altogether and simply paying voters for their support. Oh yeah, that's right. Someone already did that. It's called tax cuts.