Seat at the Table

Jon Fine’s Business Week column on election TV ads shows off the new media bias that can mislead so many communicators. While many people have moved and are moving from TV/print to getting information online, many people still get their information from so-called old media. Once again, ignore old media at your peril.

As Jon points out, unlike marketers, campaign consultants are in a zero sum game. They either win and election or lose. That means they don’t have the luxury of experiementing with cutting edge marketing, they must go with what works. While many people do get information online, consultants know that many are still watching television and ads. They also know that only a small portion of the population has Tivo or similar capabilities which means people actually watch the ads, versus ignoring online ads while reading online information.

Personally, I’m not a big television advertisement fan. It seems a bit expensive for an ad outlet that so many people hate. And while I do think political ads will move to digital platforms like Websites, mobile and more, it will only happen as viewer habits move and to other non-TV mediums. It will happen, but it takes more than a few years of Internet penetration to change decade old viewer habits.

And I live in Connecticut where Lieberman lost to Lamont, due, many said, to online activism. Online activism may have helped boost Lamont, but I sure saw a lot of Lamont TV ads being used to push down Lieberman. Event Lamon’ts campaign seemed to know that old media isn’t old. It’s just older. And often, the older more experienced entity can be a lot more effective than the louder but still developing one.