As political experts assess Republican Mitt
Romney's failed U.S. presidential bid, an
analysis of how his campaign and
President Barack Obama's winning team
used cable TV to target ads at specific
groups of voters may offer some valuable
tips for the future.
During the final weeks before the
November 6 election, with polls showing
a tight race, Obama's campaign exploited
cable TV's diverse line-up to target
women on channels such as Food Network
and Lifetime and men on networks such
as ESPN.
The Obama team used the fragmentation
of cable TV's audience to its fullest
advantage to target tailored messages to
voters in battleground states.
Meanwhile, Romney's campaign relied on
a more traditional mass saturation of
broadcast TV. The Romney camp was
entirely dark on cable TV for two of the
campaign's last seven days.
"We don't know why. This was a week
before the election and you're in the fight
for your life," said Timothy Kay, political
director for NCC Media, a cable TV
industry consortium.
The race had narrowed to key counties in
several battleground states, the kind of
isolation ideally suited for cable's
geographical targeting and niche-
marketing capabilities.
Republican Party operatives dismayed by
Romney's defeat continue to debate what
went wrong in a campaign awash in cash
and run by a candidate with a business
background. The former Massachusetts
governor's campaign, like Democrat
Obama's, spent a record-setting amount
of cash; in Romney's case, it was $580
million in 20 months.
Obama's campaign outspent Romney's
campaign on advertising by as much as
$200 million, according to a Reuters
analysis. But when spending by pro-
Romney and pro-Obama outside groups is
considered, Romney had the edge in
overall TV advertising spending.
Republican consultants and advertising
experts said Romney had enough money
to compete with Obama's final advertising
effort. Yet Obama cruised to a
commanding Electoral College victory
after a final concentration on a small
group of battleground states.
"In market after market, the Obama
campaign ended up putting more ads on
target than the Romney campaign did,"
said Ken Goldstein, president of Kantar
Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group,
a nonpartisan consulting firm that tracked
political ads and worked with both
campaigns.
Stephanie Kincaid, who managed
Romney's advertising campaign, declined
to answer questions and referred
inquiries to top Romney campaign officials
Stuart Stevens and Russell Schriefer, her
bosses at The Stevens and Schriefer
Group, a political consulting firm. They did
not respond to phone calls.
OBAMA'S ADVANTAGE
Cable television political advertising
jumped from $136 million in 2006 to
$650 million in 2012, although broadcast
TV still garnered 80 percent of the
campaign advertising spending last year.
Even with major broadcast networks and
their affiliates, the Obama campaign
appeared to out-perform the Romney
camp.
A campaign spending review shows the
Obama camp frequently spent far less
than Romney for ads aired by the same
stations during the same shows.
For example, a review of TV station filings
with the Federal Communications
Commission showed Romney, on the
Sunday before Election Day, paid $1,100
for an ad aired during CBS's "Face the
Nation" program on WRAL in Raleigh,
North Carolina. Obama paid $200 for a
comparable ad on the same station
during the same program.
Part of the reason for the Obama
campaign's pricing advantage is that the
president faced no Democratic primary
challenge and was able to buy autumn TV
time months in advance when the slots -
like airline tickets - were discounted.
Romney faced a tough battle for the
Republican nomination.
The Romney campaign also simply did not
have enough bodies to handle the labor-
intensive business of planning, negotiating
and placing ads on hundreds of TV stations
simultaneously, according to several
Republican consultants and media analysts
who asked not to be identified.
Obama's campaign had 30 full-time media
buyers. The Romney campaign relied
heavily on a single person, Kincaid, with
help from one or two others from time to
time, according to sources close to the
campaign. Senior officials with the
campaign declined to discuss its
advertising staffing.
"It's the equivalent of having a budget
the size of a Coca- Cola commercial
campaign and having two people
managing it, where a Madison Avenue
agency might have 50 people," said NCC's
Kay. Kincaid and her small staff were
overwhelmed, according to numerous
political vendors who dealt with them.
Jim Margolis, an Obama campaign senior
adviser whose firm GMMB handled its
advertising, said the campaign also took
advantage of information provided by
companies like Rentrak Corp, a Portland,
Oregon-based company that monitors the
digital boxes attached to TVs in
households using satellite dishes.
EXPLOITING FRAGMENTATION
In the past, political advertisers relied on
the major networks rather than cable TV
in a quest to reach the most television
viewers.
But cable TV's increasing popularity has
brought dramatic fragmentation to
television viewership. In many markets,
cable offers a hundred or more channels,
giving advertisers a chance to target
specific demographics.
For instance, the Obama campaign
identified zip codes surrounding Ohio tire-
manufacturing plants and purchased cable
ads touting Obama's efforts to block tire
imports from China.
Obama ran 600,000 cable ads to the
Romney's 300,000 around the nation
during the campaign, said NCC's Kay.
Obama's cable TV push started in April.
Romney's began in September.
Obama's team also mixed and matched
its messages to sharpen the appeal in key
counties.
"My impression was there was much
more examination and analytics done
with the Obama campaign," Kay said.
"The Romney campaign had the same
rigid schedule in every state."
 © Thomson Reuters 2013
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