David Ogilvy once said “if it doesn’t sell, it’s not creative.” His advertising genius offers timeless insight into the reality that creativity does not matter as much as what works ie what sells a product. During this recession, companies are forced to adapt to the changing climate. Advertising strategy is no different. In their quarterly report covering media trends, ZenithOptimedia detailed how businesses are dramatically shifting their advertising spending to online buys at the expense of radio and TV defying ad spending expectations.

They point to the “transparency, accountability, and flexibility” of the internet causing this trend. At a time when pocketbooks are bare, the internet has proven a reliable place for shrinking advertising budgets.

ZenithOptimedia expects internet ad expenditures to expand 10.1% globally in 2009 and account for 15.1% of all ad expenditures by 2011. Both forecasts exceed previous expectations. The brunt of the growth can be attributed to paid search advertising for users looking for bargains. In the US, search advertising is expected to grow 20% in 2009 alone. Some credit Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, for the spike.

All other advertising mediums including TV, cinema, and outdoor are predicted to shrink by 7.1%, 4.8%, and 7%, respectively. The increased supply of television space is leading some in consumer goods to gobble up these cheaper television spots leading to greater market share. The rest are forced to adapt to digital billboards and other non-traditional forms of advertising. Newspapers are predicted to have a 14.7% decrease in purchasing along with 16.7% for magazines. Yet, magazines may fair better in the long term because of the web’s difficulty in replicating their model.

Nevertheless, minor growth predictions in 2010 and 2011 will not reverse the shift that new technologies have brought to the advertising business. Lower entry costs means greater competition. Each traditional media source is losing out to a new media competitor: TV networks to digital cable/video websites, newspapers to bloggers, and radio stations to podcasts.

At the same time, the power of television is undeniable. Despite rapid changes in internet connectivity and use, this more traditional form of media still reigns. Nielsen’s quarterly report on TV, internet, and mobile use for the first quarter of 2009 confirms this. While newer media outlets like the internet and mobile devices are making strong inroads, television viewership is at an all time high. The average American watches 153 hours of television per month, yet is only on the internet for 29 hours. So, while new media use is expanding, Americans still turn on their televisions more than their computers. Along with consumers, advertisers are shifting to the internet’s creativity medium, especially with precious ad dollars dwindling, but television still “sells.” 

Today, YouTube added a new feature to the advertising portion of their website. The addition of “Call-To-Action-Overlay” allows subscribers the ability to have a translucent pop-up ad appear at the bottom of the video linking to a third-party website.

The only catch: subscribers have to enter their video into YouTube’s Promoted Videos program. The new feature is free, per se, but subscribers are required to pay the advertising fee.

Before, sponsors had to include the website in the description of the video inconveniently off screen. As a result, many ignored these links and, thus, they were ineffective in driving significant traffic to the sponsors website.

Now, the options are endless for politicians, singers, musicians, video bloggers, interest groups, etc to dramatically increase flow to their website. The group “charity: water” was one of YouTube’s first beta tests for the project. They were able to raise $10,000 in one day for their cause of bringing clean water to developing countries. 

TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid puts it best,

Brands can link their commercials back to the products they’re selling. Publishers (like us) can link back to relevant articles. And politicians can link back to their campaign homepages or petitions. But there’s almost certainly some other kind of creative use for the new ads waiting to be tapped, just as YouTube’s annotations were used to create choose-your-own-adventure video journeys.

With YouTube making a significant mark on the 2008 election cycle, the options are endless for politicians, interest groups, and parties wanting to create avenues to their websites. Ad overlays capture the emotion felt from a video, streamline the connection between parties, and translate into dollars, advocacy, or support. A few politicians are already doing this. Senator Patrick Leahy is using an ad overlay in a video calling for investigations into the Bush administration linked to a website with a petition. Taking down this barrier has cracked the political advertising floodgates. Put your rain coat on.  

TNS-CMAG’s (Campaign Media Advertising Group) June newsletter on political advertising research shed’s light on 2009 campaign ad spending and off-year political advertising trends.

According to CMAG’S Evan Tracey,

The year following a presidential election is historically the least active in terms of political ad spending. However, current hot-button topics such as healthcare, energy issues, budget woes and job security are keeping commercial breaks full of advocacy advertisements.

To date, over $100 million has been spent on direct federal issue-related ads and even more on ads that address policy — a 10-fold increase from four years ago.

As the new political landscape takes shape, several states have already emerged as make-or-break for both parties. The importance of these must-win states is evident by the fact that a number of seats not up for grabs until 2010 are already seeing political ads, even before Memorial Day 2009. This strategy proved successful in the past as seen with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who was a big target in 2008 and began airing re-election ads in November of 2007. Just this week, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) began his re-election campaign with a new ad.

Already in 2009, we’ve seen a great deal spent on advertising for varying political and issue campaigns. CMAG points to a few spending highlights in the first half of the year:

• $15.9 million — total spent this year on TV advertising targeting mayor’s races around the country.
• New Jersey governor’s race has seen approximately $3 million in TV ad spending.
• More than $100 million has been spent on federal issue-related advertisements to date this year.
• A total of approximately $11.7 million has been spent on ads targeting ballot measures.

Here’s a chart illustrating the comparison of political related ad spending in off years.

With the recent announcement of Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, news agencies and partisan watch groups have eagerly taken on the job of defining this woman and what her appointment would mean for this country.

Sotomayor’s liberal leanings could greatly impact future decisions concerning hot-button social issues like gay rights and abortion. Comments made in lectures at Berkeley Law School and at Duke University are providing plenty of fodder for conservative opponents.

Coalition for Constitutional Values has released a nationwide ad campaign in support of Sotomayor’s nomination. With a six-figure buy, the thirty second commercial provides a brief biography and pictures of the potential Justice with Obama’s nomination speech emphasizing Sotomayor’s qualifications.

In rebuttal, but on a much smaller scale, conservative Judicial Confirmation Network’s attack ad uses Sotomayor’s Berkeley comment saying Latina women will more often make better decisions than white men to question her ability to provide “equal justice under the law.” The web ad is up on most major news sites and is being passed around via email through conservative activists.

Obama’s approval rating is high and the Democrats enjoy a majority in the Senate, making her confirmation likely. This brings up an important question: is it necessary or appropriate to run campaign-style ads for a Supreme Court Justice nominee? Sotomayor’s confirmation is dependent on the votes of a mere 100 senators.  Does publicizing the nominee to arouse public interest and opinion carry any weight? 

Neither ad mentions any of Sotomayor’s previous rulings that would give insight to her stance on any major issue. These ads provide no firm understanding of where she stands. Both rely on her character, which each side is easily manipulating in their favor.

Only time will tell; when hearings begin in July, we will see if ads have any effect in the court of public opinion or on partisan voting blocs.

Roll Call’s John McArdle writes, “The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is set to launch a recess ad offensive today, hitting Democrats in 43 districts for helping to “rubber stamp” spending bills for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).”

List of Democrats targeted by NRCC
John Adler (NJ-03); Jason Altmire (PA-04); Michael Arcuri (NY-24); Tim Bishop (NY-01); John Boccieri (OH-16); Leonard Boswell (IA-03); Allen Boyd (FL-02); Chris Carney (PA-10); Gerry Connolly (VA-11); Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-03); Peter DeFazio (OR-04); Steve Driehaus (OH-01); Chet Edwards (TX-17); Brad Ellsworth (IN-08); Gabby Giffords (AZ-08); Alan Grayson (FL-08); John Hall (NY-19); Debbie Halvorson (IL-11); Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD-AL); Baron Hill (IN-09); Jim Himes (CT-04); Steve Kagen (WI-08); Paul Kanjorski (PA-11); Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15); Larry Kissell (NC-08); Ron Klein (FL-22); Dan Maffei (NY-25); Eric Massa (NY-29); Jerry McNerney (CA-11); Charlie Melancon (LA-03); Dennis Moore (KS-03); Gary Peters (MI-09); Loretta Sanchez (CA-47); Mark Schauer (MI-07); Kurt Schrader (OR-05); Joe Sestak (PA-07); Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01); Heath Shuler (NC-11); Vic Snyder (AR-02); Zack Space (OH-18); John Spratt (SC-05); Bart Stupak (MI-01) and Dina Titus (NV-03).

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, under new chairman JOHN CORNYN, has a new website and brand new spot targeting Senate Majority Leader HARRY REID.

The effort, the first targeting a 2010 senate candidate, flies under the website called www.REIDistributewealth.com .

The new spot, titled, “Trillion” was released this week.  The details of the broadcast buy are unclear. 

The NRSC’s interest in targeting Reid stem from what Republicans consider his staunch partisan approach and what appears to be his electoral vulnerabilities.

A Las Vegas Review-Journal article on Monday cited recent polling, by a conservative political action group, showing Reid vulnerable among Nevada voters.

Reid was viewed favorably by 47 percent and unfavorably by 47 percent of Nevadans surveyed by the Salt Lake City-based polling firm NSON Opinion Research for the Legacy PAC, a California-based activist group that hopes to target Reid for defeat in 2010.

In the survey of 400 Nevada voters, which carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points, 47.3 percent viewed Reid favorably, including 27.3 percent who had a very favorable view and 20 percent whose opinion was somewhat favorable.

Among the 46.8 percent who had an unfavorable opinion of Reid, 8.8 percent of those polled viewed him somewhat unfavorably, while a whopping 38 percent had a very unfavorable view.

Nielson has produced some very interesting post-Election ad spending analysis.  If you interested in reading more about Nielson’s work in this area I highly recommend Nielson Wire/Politics.  

In a recent post titled, How Obama’s Local Buys Added Up, Nielsen examines all the ad buys by the 2008 Presidential candidates.  The conclusion: local spot TV was the principle component of the Barack Obama TV buy strategy.

Spot television is all advertising time that is available from local TV stations.  Local Spot advertising is selectively buying on one or more targeted stations in each market separately.  These are purchased through the individual stations.  This is different from National Spots, which is advertising handled at a larger scale, where an advertising will cover several markets over a large region or across the country. 

Acoording to Nielson, “President-elect Barack Obama placed one-and-a-half times as many spot TV ads than John McCain during the general election season (6/08 to 11/08), and almost twice as many ads dating back to the beginning of January when the primaries were just heating up.”

The local numbers show a much bigger discrepancy than those for national cable and network buys. Sen. McCain kept pace w/ President-elect Obama in those categories, with Obama edging out his rival by just 136 ad buys in the cable and network combined, dating back to January.

Other notable campaign facts from Nielsen’s research

• Obama’s ads were on the airwaves over twice as much as McCain’s in the final month before the election (210,245 vs. 97,023 ad buys).
• McCain took early advantage of Obama’s long primary battle with Hillary Clinton, which ended on June 3rd. McCain bought over three and a half times more spot TV ads than Obama in June (26,594 to 7,251), the only month that McCain beat his opponent in that category.
• McCain made a major push with national buys in September, out placing Obama 10 to 1 in cable and network ad buys.
• The two candidates alone combined for almost 850,000 total ad buys dating back to January.

Complete Ad Spends: Jan-Nov 2008

What are America’s “fictional Everyman couple” doing now? The stars of the famed 1994 TV ad, Harry and Louise are back for some more – 14 years later to be exact.

The original spot centered around two actors, who effectively portrayed an average working class couple, distraught by the flawed healthcare system which was then being touted by first-lady Hillary Rodham Clinton .  The spot became the focal point of the opposition’s message, which effectively derailed Clinton’s socialized healthcare reform agenda.

This time conveying a somewhat different message, the couple engages in another discussion on healthcare, this time encouraging John McCain and Barack Obama to make healthcare reform a center of their message for America:

The spot will air through both conventions on a variety of cable and broadcast media. It is intended to influence both party’s leaders and policy makers expected to visit Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul media markets over the next three weeks.

See the original Harry and Louise spot after the jump

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With more evidence to show that gas prices are trickling down throughout the economy, broadcast TV advertising has taken a hit.

With less cars being purchased, car companies have pulled back on some of their advertising. This has generated a net decrease in broadcast TV ad revenue of 4.8%. AdAge’s Brian Steinberg observed last week:

Network TV ad revenue was down 4.8% in the quarter, and local broadcast ad revenue fell 9.1%, while syndicated TV ad revenue was up 9.1%, the TVB said, citing statistics culled from TNS Media Intelligence. For the first half of 2008, network TV ad revenue fell 1.5%, local broadcast ad revenue fell 3.8% and syndicated TV was up 10.2%, the industry organization said. 

The figures come as media buyers have said that third-quarter scatter advertising, or ad time purchased closer to the time it airs, has been sluggish, and also as advertisers have dithered over whether or not to trim some of the dollars they committed to network TV in the upfront. Media buyers say clients and networks have seemed nervous about whether all the money put down by advertisers during upfront negotiations will remain available as marketers try to navigate their way through a tougher-than-expected economic time. 

As the political market heats up, media buyers have seen a sharp increase in third-quarter scatter advertising, airtime that is purchased close to the air date. This type of buying is very typical in the political media purchasing world.

Political media consultants are gearing up to make very large purchases on behalf of candidate committees, IEs, IAs, PACs, Coordinated Expenditures and any other type of committee I may have forgotten.  These buys will sharply change the amount purchased and the inventory available across all platforms – broadcast networks, spot cable, national cable, Direct TV, Dish Network, radio broadcast, and XM/Sirius radio.

As reported last week, the RNC and McCain have almost $96 million on hand. Much of that money needs to be spent before McCain takes public financing after he accepts the nomination at the beginning of next month. Obama and the DNC have yet to publicly report their figures. 

It will be interesting to see the change in ad revenue from this election cycle alone. $1.6 billion was spent on political TV in 2004, far surpassing the $771 million spent in 2000.

The full article is available here.