The Net Difference

American Demographics,  Oct 1, 2004  by Noah Rubin Brier

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Getting political messages out is what Bill Hillsman does. He has worked on some very successful political campaigns, from Paul Wellston's upset senate triumph in Minnesota in 1990, to Jesse Ventura's 1998 out-of-nowhere gubernatorial triumph. He is the chief creative officer at North Woods Advertising in Minnesota and he broke down his approach to political media buying.

"We invest a lot more in the creativity and the production of the message, which allows us to run less broadcast TV," Hillsman says. "It allows us to target more with cable TV. Then we use things like a radio overlay that's aimed at either a specific geographic or demographic component," he explains. "We also always use an online component. Not in terms of advertising, but in terms of reinforcing the Web site in other media." Hillsman says that his use of other media, like newspapers, is tactical. "If you place a [newspaper] ad in the Sunday before an election it's usually money very well spent for undecided voters."

Still, few people in the country would minimize the power of television to reach political constituents. Almost anyone with a political opinion points to the presidential debates as one of the most important events in the run-up to the election. There is no better medium through which to reach millions of people with your message all at once. The campaigns are still pumping plenty of money into TV. However, as the Internet and devices like TiVo fragment TV audiences, the impact may change. "Somewhere in the not-too-distant future, I think we'll see television's powers diminished in some of the ways radio's were. The Internet's power as an interactive medium will continue to grow. On the Internet, you have people being able to interact with each other, which doesn't really happen on radio or television," Trippi says.

Media fragmentation is already evident. People pick up political information from across the media landscape: a magazine article here, a televised speech there or an online news story somewhere in the middle. Nearly all of these sources exert meaningful influence on political opinion. According to the American Demographics/comScore survey, when asked to name which sources have the greatest impact on people's political stances, 9 in 15 of the sources cited received at least a 10 percent response. What's more, seven media received a response of 25 percent or more. Not only are people getting their information from sources across the board, but those sources are also influencing political convictions.

When asked if political reporting online has made them more interested in politics, more than 1 in 4 responded that it had. In addition, 22 percent responded that online political information had made them more actively involved in politics. This is a significant number when considered in the context of the total voting population, which was just below 55 percent of the country in the 2000 presidential election. The results from this survey do not necessarily reflect the overall population, just those who spend time online. Notably, however, 79 percent of respondents indicated they had voted before, and 89 percent reported that they plan to vote in the 2004 elections. These figures represent a much higher proportion of voters than is expected from the general population in 2004.