• by Joe Mandese , March 18, 2008

Most people look at Campaign ’08 in terms of the influence it will have on America’s political agenda, society, and the world at large. Chuck Porter thinks of it in terms of how it will impact advertising.

Porter, the P in Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and this afternoon’s keynoter at OMMA Hollywood, predicted the big boon to the art and science of advertising would come not from creative hot shops like CP+B, but from this year’s presidential hopefuls.

“Here’s why,” he said, showing a smirky photo of Hilary, and commenting, “These people are really, really good at this. Maybe the best in the world.”

Porter said political candidates utilize techniques that generate the kind of marketing ROI that would make packaged goods marketers green with envy, measuring each ad placement and media buy “to the dollar.”

“I think we are going to learn form these political campaign something about the science of online marketing,” Porter declared.

Implying that a significant part of John McCain’s winning GOP strategy had to do with the fact that his campaign has been buying “upwards of 10,000 keywords a day” to generate traffic to his campaign site.

Mitt Romney, by comparison was spending 75% of his budget on broadcast TV, 25% on cable and a “negligible” amount online.

In fact, Romney’s core online strategy centered on the “Mitt TV Web Site,” featuring more than 100 videos of the defunct presidential hopeful.

“It may be that he didn’t spend much money online that is the reason why he’s out of the campaign, maybe more than the fact that he was a Mormon,” quipped Porter.