Where's the Bang for Political Consulting Bucks?

Candidates pouring money into the coffers of political consultants, especially for TV ads, aren't getting much bang for their bucks so far in this election cycle. In fact, a December 2015 New York Times piece by Adam Sheingate, chairman of the Johns Hopkins University political science department, looked at 2016 presidential hopefuls' spending on political consulting firms and noted an often inverse relationship between dollar outlays and poll rankings. For example, Jeb Bush has spent over $50 million to date with a handful of political consulting firms (mainly for TV ads) to earn 3% support in recent CNN/ORC polls, while Donald Trump spent just $1.2 million in the same period to earn a 39% support position in the polls. A ranking of 10 Republican candidates by consultant spending through the end of 2015 has Bush in the lead, with Carson coming in second (for 10% poll support) and Christie in third place for 5% poll results. (Poll leader Trump ranks ninth in spending out of 10.) On the Democratic side, front-runner Hillary Clinton spent the most on consultants at about $18.5 million in 2015--spread evenly over TV, digital media, direct mail/fundraising and polling--but it has earned her higher poll numbers than Bernie Sanders with his $4.9 million consultant outlay. Thanks mainly to media ad costs, 2016 is on track to outdo 2012 in terms of political consulting spending. In 2012, consultants billed federal candidates, parties and super PACs more than $3.6 billion for products and services, Sheingate notes, with 70% of that amount going to firms specializing in the production and placement of media (mainly TV). As of December 10, 2015, candidates and their affiliated super PACs have already spent more than $163 million on consulting services, compared with just $43 million spent on consulting at the same point in 2012 campaigns. By the way, $45 million of 2015's $163 million is accounted for by Jeb Bush's media (TV) dollars, point out Sheingate. For more detail on spending by candidate and promotional channel, see http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/opinion/campaign-stops/the-political-consultant-racket.html?_r=0

Marketing Pro Ranks GOP Hopefuls' Social Efforts

Social media branding is a must-have for today's presidential hopefuls, so how are the leading GOP contenders doing from a purely marketing standpoint? A recent MarketingProfs article by Jeremy Page, a network marketing blogger, provides one political outsider's ranking of the top six Republican presidential candidates based just on social media marketing performance. You may not agree with the rankings, but there are lessons worth gleaning. For example, Page puts Jeb Bush at the tail end of GOP contenders based on a lackluster social media presence (just 363,000 Twitter followers) and policy-oriented posts that create a persona without emotional resonance. Social media, especially Twitter, "isn't the place to be overly sensible and pragmatic," warns Page. Marco Rubio comes in fifth place with his strategy of keeping an uncontentious, low profile while building a social following (over 1 million Twitter followers). Page urges Rubio to do more to reinforce his brand as a "candidate of the people" with retweets and posts that leverage "your community for your social media content." Fourth place is awarded to long-shot Carly Fiorina for using social media to push a persona of openness, showcasing her willingness to answer questions via Q&As on niche, real-time streaming platforms like Periscope, for example. Ted Cruz gets a No. 3 position for an innovative digital strategy that stresses crowdfunding and gamification. Via Cruz Crowd, followers can recruit friends to join a personal Cruz Crowd donation page and then monitor money raised via Facebook and Twitter, plus earn game badges. With the competitive Cruz Crew app, players earn points based on actions to spread the word. Ben Carson is No. 2 thanks to his use of Facebook to leverage 4.6 million fans (compared with Hillary Clinton's 1.5 million and Trump's 3.8 million Facebook followers) via heartfelt long-form letters, plus polls and petitions to collect e-mail addresses. At the top of the heap is (no surprise) Donald Trump, who presents his tax plan on Periscope, hosts #AskTrump Q&As, and rallies fans on Facebook and Twitter with unfiltered "real" posts that keep him constantly in the media spotlight (for free). Page's takeaway: "Use social media to be controversial and troll the media." For more, see http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/29033/ranking-gop-presidential-candidates-according-to-digital-strategy

In 2016 Race, Public Snubs Media Fact-Checkers

This election cycle has seen more than its share of candidate flubs, exaggerations and falsehoods, but it's the mainstream media fact-checkers who are getting bad ratings from the voting public, not political prevaricators. GOP front-runner Donald Trump also may lead in untruths, for example. A recent NBC News report notes that fact-checking project Politifact rates 41% of Trump's statements as "false" to date, and 21% as "pants on fire" false. Ben Carson has 43% of his assertions labeled false by Politifact, with 13% at the worst pants-on-fire level. The Democrats' lead candidate Hillary Clinton is not seen as 100% truthful either; Politifact rates 11% of her statements as false and 1% as pants-on-fire wrong, per NBC. Why aren't media call-outs of such political dishonesty affecting poll numbers? The NBC story supplies one explanation: According to a new Pew Research Center study, the American public has more distrust for the news media than ever before, with a whopping 65% saying the news media has a negative impact on the country, up from 57% in 2010. That's a worse rating than respondents give for popular villains like banks and large corporations, and close to the disfavor allotted Congress. The more conservative the respondent, the more likely they are to be down on the media. Pew found that 82% of surveyed conservatives thought of the media as a negative force, which may explain why media challenges bounce off Trump among his Republican fans. For more, read the NBC report at http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/booing-fact-checkers-how-low-trust-media-shaping-2016-n468986

Campaigns Fueled by Varied Funding Burn Rates

Campaign fundraisers face a balancing act when it comes to "burn rate"--the proportion of cash intake to cash outlay in the same time period. Too high and they risk coming up short later; too low and they fail to invest enough for future success. Here are a few benchmarks from current presidential campaigns courtesy of a recent article by The Atlantic magazine. Ben Carson's fundraising raked in an impressive $20.8 million in the third quarter, but he spent 69% of it on efforts to raise more money, relying heavily on traditional direct mail and telemarketing, which have the advantage of growing grassroots support but the disadvantage of being more expensive than digital channels. Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton had an even higher 86% burn rate, but she spent mainly on media buys, payroll and online advertising--outlay aimed at campaign infrastructure and future viability. In contrast to both Carson and Clinton, socialist Bernie Sanders is frugal, with a burn rate under 45%. He spent mainly on digital consulting and advertising, relying on ActBlue, an online platform for donations to liberal causes, for fundraising. ActBlue is a tool that gets donors by "gamifying" giving at low cost (less than 4% commission). Unfortunately for Carson and other GOP candidates like Ted Cruz, who also has a high burn rate per the article, there isn't a Republican equivalent for online donations. For more, especially about Carson's strategy, read http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/where-is-ben-carsons-money-going/410839/

Why the Carson Campaign Is a Facebook Fan

GOP hopeful Ben Carson's campaign is a fan of Facebook's political ad platform--to the point that Ken Dawson, Carson's head of digital strategy, calls it "the heart of our campaign" in an October interview with Scott Detrow of NPR's political news. Indeed, Carson's Facebook page has over 4 million followers for its posts, videos and candidate chats, Detrow reports. But Facebook's biggest appeal for Carson and other candidates is its ability to specifically target ads. Campaigns have three basic ad-targeting tools. Campaigns can import a list of existing supporters for ad promotion, for example; Dawson says the Carson team loads e-mail lists garnered from website sign-ups, donations, event attendance and other sources, and then tailors ad frequency, content and call-to-action by segment. To expand targeted ad reach, campaigns can also ask Facebook to build custom "look-alike" audiences, matching the characteristics of existing active donors, for example. Finally, campaigns can use the information provided in Facebook profiles and appended by Facebook's data partner Acxiom to select ad audiences by demographics such as location, age and gender, as well as by behaviors such as pages liked and purchase history. For more: http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/26/451271794/like-it-or-not-political-campaigns-are-using-facebook-to-target-you