Political Advertising Sees Slowdown, Digital Remains Stable
- by Wayne Friedman , April 3, 2020
Political advertising -- for individual candidates, political action committees and other areas -- has been lower over the last few weeks, but political marketers are still buying messaging on key platforms.
Donald J. Trump For President Inc. has spent $1.4 million from March 22 through March 28 on Facebook and Google (with some 8,600 creatives on Facebook), according to Advertising Analytics.
The ad research company says Trump was the top digital political advertiser for the week. The week before, the Biden for President campaign was the top digital advertiser (March 15-March 21), spending $1.2 million on Facebook and Google.
In addition, the Democratic-supporting PAC Priorities USA had 1,074 airings for its “Hoax” spot creative that week. Google Transparency Report says Priorities USA spending totaled $150,000.
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Advertising Analytics says Priorities USA has booked $124,000 on broadcast and cable in media time for April 7 through April 13.
For the month of March (March 4th through April 2), there were 475 national TV airings (an estimated $2.26 million), according to iSpot.tv. This was sharply down from the same period in February -- 10,775 national TV airings for political advertising ($76.8 million).
Much of February’s high results was due to still big spending Democratic candidates Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer during the month -- just before getting out of the race.
But not all political marketers were down.
The Google Transparency Report shows total advertising spent for the Trump Make America Great Again Committee rose from $161,400 for the week ending March 7 to $412,100 (March 14) to $593,000 (March 21).
The Donald J. Trump For President Inc. went from $51,600 (March 7) to $118,000 (March 14) to $73,000 (March 21) for the same three-week period.
At the same time, the Bernie 2020 campaign went down from $461,000 (March 7) to $100,200 (March 14).
Biden For President also has been lower
-- from $232,200 (March 7) to $83,000 (March 21).
Advertising Analytics says Biden and Sanders have stopped all TV advertising as of March 17.
Historically, spending starts slowing down once a political party decides on its candidates, regardless whether there are two or more candidates still on primary ballots. Even without the virus, candidate spending was projected to fall during the summer as well. Normally, almost 75% of a year's political media buying gets crammed into the last two months of the campaign after the Labor Day holiday, as people start to make decisions after the summer vacxation.