• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, January 17, 2017

Too much political advertising -- at the wrong time -- and too much of the same political advertising placements? These were some of the problems for political clients this past election season.

“At what point are you safe, does advertising draw attention to your campaign that is going to hurt you?” asks Ben Angle, senior media buyer/national media research of Planning & Placement, speaking at MediaPost's Marketing Politics event.

Angle says one of his clients in Florida -- a solar initiative --  was easier polling 70% or more early on in the summer and post labor day; they only need 60% to win. The media plan was to advertise from October through election day.

But out of nowhere, Angle says, it lost. “I jokingly said in the summer, it was the 'don’t mess it up campaign.' Somehow we messed up.”

Why? Angle doesn’t know specifically. However, he says the campaign "became a frequent topic in the press, among celebrities, among neighbors, because we started advertising.” Jimmy Buffett backed a video against the campaign. Looking at the post-mortem, Angle wonders: “What do we need to learn from that. Should we have not advertised at all?

Other mistakes: Elizabeth Kalmbach, VP/group media director of KSM Media, says they had regrets after they ran “formulaically” for some campaigns on TV.

She says this happened in trying to hit certain TRP levels -- total audience gross rating points -- thinking “less about placement areas -- trying to avoid parity of message, essentially because we were being dropped out -- going to the typical places our opponents were going.”