The Political Window and its Effect on Your Marketing Efforts

The Arizona advertising ecosystem is about to enter another political window. Political parties, political action committees, and candidates thrust millions of dollars in advertising into the market to convince you to vote a particular way. This cyclical event happens every two years for congressional races and every four years for presidential elections.

The desire to grasp the mantle of political leadership fuels spending vast sums of money on print and broadcast platforms. This has become especially pronounced in the past decade as our country has become more polarized. It is also especially impactful on Arizona as we have become more unpredictable in the manner in which we vote. That makes us a battleground state, therefore we are subject to greater amounts of political advertising than most other states.

The political window is a designated time for political advertising to receive pricing considerations from print, radio, and television. A station doesn’t need to accept political advertising but any station that does must follow the law as stipulated by the Federal Elections Act of 1971.

The political window is 45 days before any type of primary and 60 days before a general election. During this time, stations that accept political advertising must follow the rules and keep accurate records of any political advertising buy made on their platform. Today, political advertising windows apply only to traditional forms of advertising: print, radio, and television.

Influencing the electorate is big business. Budgets are typically stewarded by specialty ad agencies that place large station buys in a less-than-strategic fashion. I say this because they typically have a lot of money to spend in a very short time. This, combined with a non-preemptable lowest unit rate lends itself to overspending and high rates of frequency for campaigns that have big budgets.

This, in turn, displaces ‘regular’ advertisers and creates some level of market disruption for what amounts to 25% of a given year. This creates challenges for clients, agencies, and reps. Essentially political money pours in and local, loyal clients are pre-empted.

Digital platforms (social media, OTT platforms, YouTube, etc.) are not encumbered by the same rules as the aforementioned traditional media platforms. This is most likely due to the amount of inventory available in the digital space and the fact that the platforms sell their inventory much differently than traditional media. Political advertisers are most definitely using digital platforms and in doing so, disrupting those platforms as well. It’s just not as pronounced as the impact it has on platforms that have a more limited amount of inventory.

Before the blog becomes more of a furball than the impending election itself, let’s steer our way from the media law lecture to some practical advice for advertisers who must navigate this period in hopes that it doesn’t disrupt their business.

PLAN – These windows are quite predictable. Depending on your category, your budget, the advertising platforms you use, and the agency or rep you work with it might be worthwhile to move off or revise your buy with some traditional platforms and be sure to provide extra monitoring to any digital efforts you do during the political window.

LEARN & UNDERSTAND – Educate yourself on how political advertising works by speaking with your agency or account representative. Many stations limit political advertisers to rotators to minimize displacement and provide more flexibility in placement.

It’s also important to know that during particularly heated or uncertain political times consumers tend to hold off on big-ticket purchases. You may want to consider running aggressive sales before a political window to minimize any impact on your annual sales.

MANAGE – The disruptions that occur with political advertising windows create more fallout (preemption) and higher CPMs than what you may be used to. Have a more aggressive makegood plan in place to minimize any issues with traditional media. Digital advertisers should pay particular attention to a slide in quality with their CTV or OTT campaigns. Be sure to hold your providers accountable should CTV ads end up on less desirable screens.

DIVERSIFY YOUR CAMPAIGN – if you are one of those brands that are still doing a lot of traditional media, look to engage in other methods of advertising during the political window. You may also look to increase your paid search efforts as that is unaffected by political advertisers. Perhaps a new social media platform or the use of an influencer is in order. Either way, don’t stand pat waiting for a bad quarter due to a lack of outreach.

COMMUNICATE – Speak to your agency/rep before, during, and after the political window. Ask how the political window impacted your campaign. A good traditional media rep with any kind of experience should proactively discuss this with you and have a plan that minimizes the political window’s impact.

As you can probably tell, ReThinc Advertising does not specialize in political advertising. We do work with a wide array of industries in six different states that engage both digital and traditional forms of advertising. We are proactive in understanding what impact the political window will have on our campaigns and make certain to minimize any issues so that our clients will continue to have the success they’ve grown accustomed to in working with us.

If you’re looking to better understand political advertising or its potential impact on your marketing efforts you can send me an email at ed.olsen@rethincadvertising.com or give me a call at 602.284.6722.