Kerry got biggest bang for his ad bucks

Two weeks before Christmas, retired Gen. Wesley Clark began showing up on Tucson televisions and for nearly two months the only way to avoid him and his message was to switch off the set. Campaign commercials touting Clark's humble upbringing, military experience and lot as a political outsider aired 1,479 times on local TV stations. Add a pair of half-hour "infomercials" and Clark spent 846 minutes - more than 14 solid hours - trying to convince Pima County's television-viewing voters that he is the man to beat President Bush in November.

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Clark pumped $378,515 into his television campaign here - $26.23 for each of the 14,430 votes he got in Pima County, according to records on file at local television stations. Kerry, on the other hand, didn't air his first campaign ad in Tucson until the day of the New Hampshire primary, one week before voters here went to the polls. In that short time, ads focusing on Kerry's military experience ran 101 times, consuming less than one hour of air time and costing just $25,365. Kerry spent just $1.05 in television ad costs for each of the 24,192 votes he got in Pima County.

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"Clark's ads were very good, but Kerry's TV ads went to another level," Eckerstrom said. "They told of his Vietnam experience and how that experience translated into championing people's issues. It was magic."

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Joe Lieberman got the worst return on his television investment in Pima County. The former vice presidential nominee and a frequent Arizona visitor during the campaign bought 516 ads that aired for more than 275 minutes at a cost of $105,115.He received 2,892 votes in Pima County, translating into $36.35 per vote.

The only other candidate to buy ad time in Tucson was former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who bought 391 ads for 274 minutes at a cost of $140,721. For each of his 9,800 Pima County votes, Dean shelled out $14.36 for television advertising.

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=020504a1_campaignspending

Clark: $26.23/vote
Dean: $14.36/vote
Kerry: $1.05/vote
Lieberman: $36.35/vote

Thank you John!

:-)

I was at a Kerry rally in Maine today. Met his daughter Vanessa and Ted Kennedy. She's a 3rd year med student and I think will council her Dad wisely on medicare/drug issues. Ted was great...he is such a charasmatic guy...he was really fired up about John's candidacy.

All in all, a great day!

met her in chicago.

You don't think Kerry's success had anything to do with the party the media threw for him after the big Iowa and NH bump??

I'm not saying Kerry's stuff wasn't great, I don't know since I didn't see them, but it's very hard to determine how much of an effect his ads had in that sort of environment.

What possible motivation could you have?

Fine. My criticism is of the article then. :eyes:

Kerry's Newsweak cover story: "Bring It On!" (with handsome, wrinkle-free upper body shot with finger extended to the #1 position). A $25 million puff piece.

Dean's Newsweak cover story: "Doubts About Dean" (with unflattering, spooky close- cropped wide angle face shot). A $25 million hatchet job.

And the Scream speech...lets not even go there.

I was absent these boards during the week of I Have a Scream. It must have been a popular subject. Good thing Janet Jackson's right tit came along to get the media off that one.

a primary before he got any fair coverage.

How partisan must one be to not acknowledge that?

Clark doesn't have enough money to win any of the remaining primaries.

Kerry's low cost-per-vote is no doubt subsidized by the judgement that he's the front-runner and most able to beat Bush (the latter is mistaken, I believe).

Edwards, who didn't target Arizona, seems to have made the most dramatic improvement from like two weeks before the vote until the actual vote itself. This pattern held in Iowa, where his rise was even more dramatic than Kerry's; as well as Missouri, where he got 25% (he was at 14% only a week before the election). In Oklahoma, he got almost as many votes as Clark while probably spending only a fraction of the money. He also came close to Clark in NH, where Clark put in a much greater effort.

So, clearly Edwards must be getting good bang-for-buck, and I think he has more money than Clark.

Final conclusion: It will be a Kerry v. Edwards contest by Wisconsin.

(I haven't forgotten Dean in this analysis, but I think the voters will have done so by 2/17, and he'll be down to his loyal supporters only. Sorry.)

Dems, especially older, more conservative Dems.

Most new Kerry supporters I meet immediately mention his biography.

But there's also a downside. In their minds, this stuff has gone unchallenged. Kerry is still sort of a blank slate. They don't know about the big money, the anti-war protests, the divorce, the affairs or the gold digging.

It wasn't JUST media attention that brought back Kerry. Kerry adjusted his message, ran the best TV ads, ran the hardest of hardcore backroom campaigns and worked his Iowa caucus insider advantage for all it was worth.

However, the Kerry's biggest weapons against Dean, by far, were Dean's relentless media critics and Gephardt's kamikaze candidacy.

They are simple and direct and apparently very effective. They were integral to his victory in Iowa, too.

This bodes well for November.

...so did Sharpton and Kucinich

In fact, he got more than big-spending Lieberman.

3,285 votes in Pima County with no ads. Not bad.

But another campaign, that of Wesley Clark (news - web sites), has been quietly setting a precedent for frugality. In all other presidential campaigns, media consultants are primarily compensated by receiving a percentage (traditionally 15%, but often negotiated down) of the total spent to buy ad time. But Joe Slade White, Clark's ad maker, agreed to work for a flat monthly fee of $75,000, plus production costs.

By insisting on a flat fee, the Clark campaign saved more than $1 million that it could then invest in more TV time, according to attorney Leslie Kerman, who negotiated the contract last fall.

"We only established this flat-rate principle after we narrowed it down to two or three media consultants," Clark campaign chairman Eli Segal said. "Needless to say, they were not happy about it, but they saw the campaign as a unique opportunity."

Source: USA Today / Yahoo

They show him interacting with people, and he's not using a lecturing voice. I would not be surprised at all if testing showed they were very effective. I agree with those who think it's hard to separate the effects of (a) front-runner status (b) free publicity because of this status, from those of the ads.