CTG & the Adwatch
by Jerome Armstrong, Wed Sep 06, 2006 at 04:19:22 AM EDT
First, an update on Crashing the Gate (now available in paperback). I've been finishing up with doing an audio recording of the book, and am further than half way. The launch of the Fall book tour is happening this week. Markos (I wasn't invited) is going out on a college tour, and he has the tour dates listed on Daily Kos. There's also a CTG Facebook page for friends interested. I do an event at MIT (panel) on October 5th, and speaking up in Burlington, VT at the ACME "Facing the Media Crisis" Summit on October 7th.
Second, I want to bring up a CTG point related to the Adwatch campaign that's been done some here on MyDD. My initial internal reaction to the Adwatch was to be critical of the frontpage criticism of democratic campaigns and to wish it begone. But the more I thought and saw it go on, the more I realized how important this is. Let me just make a few bullet points to get the discussion rolling:
*We are all Democrats here, no one is going to be persuaded to vote or not. These media consultants go unscrutinized by the base voters cycle after cycle. Sure, you can say 'lets wait till after the election' but what sort of accountability project is going to happen after-the-fact, when everyone is ready to move on, or is no longer paying attention.
*The focus on the Courage poll (as much as I love it) as the sole benchmark is misplaced concreteness. We all know that local situations dictate different tactics and strategies, and that Democrats can and do win strong majorities without a message centered on the lessons of the Courage poll. For me, the strongest lesson is the 'tribe' identifying factor of voters. It's something that really came home to me (especially the nuts and bolts of doing it) after reading through Applebee's America. There are things in the Courage poll that are worthy to learn and replicate, but not always.
*Re-read chapter 3 of CTG (Hey, I just had to read it outloud), especially the section of "The Commissions Racket" and "Old Ads, New Age". The critiqe by Olgilvy's McIver and by Hillsman of Mellman's beltway thinking related to persuasion and memorability is something that shuld be delved into at greater lengths. If you get what the political media consultants like Shrum and McMahon think about persuasion (worship it) and memorability (discount it), you'll understand why you seemingly see the same damn ad every cycle-- they are trying to drum it into your head (and you'll also understand why Madison Ave scratches their head at the lack of memorability in most political advertising).
*Since we are entering into the TV season, it's important to recognize that nobody in New York product advertising pays by commission anymore-- that racket only exists in DC. From CTG:
Commission-based advertising provides the wrong kind of incentives, where frequency trumps quality. "If media is your biggest line item and you're trying to save money on media, doesn't it make sense that if somebody actually paid attention to the commercial the first time and liked it and was involved in it and actually absorbed the information the first time, then you can run less media?" asks Hillsman, who has been a thorn in the side of the consulting establishment for years. "You don't have to get these frequency levels of eight or nine or ten with a good commercial. " This makes sense, but not for consultants working on commission, wanting huge ad expenditures to pad their bottom line.*Look, the fact is that most of these people doing television ads have very little schooling and training in the business of marketing and advertising. The ones that did, were all squeezed out in the 1980's as the professional class (The Permanent Campaign) of media consultants rose out of the ranks of communication and political campaign departments (and even field, haha). But it's where alot of the money is in political campaigns.
*I'd like to see the Adwatch go one step further and link politial media consultants with their ads. Create some accountability and transparency. We've got to make our funding have an impact, not get wasted on re-tread 1980's-style ads that have no memorability. MyDD has pages for all of the Senate/Gov/House seats, why not do one for where 70-80% of the money in these campaigns go to? Especially for Netroots candidates, their consultants should be listed.
*We need more tools. Recruit some marketing/advertising execs from Madison Ave to critique these ads here on MyDD. I think it'd be great if we had someone that actually did a lot of product advertising to write about the ads in the context of the extensive research that's already been done to measure advertising effectiveness.
Tags: Adwatch, Crashing the Gate (all tags)
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