There’s a lot to be said about the 2016 election and it will take a long time for everyone to say it. So let us get our U.S. 2 cents in now.
In our yearly predictions, Spot-On said this would be the year that “Pollsters really get kicked around.” We also suggested there would be data breaches as well as an increasing reliance on ineffective ad network buys.
Okay, so we’re showing off. Most of what we predicted has happened. The NYTimes even said so (see if you can spot the familiar faces in the mood-setting art shot….).
Predictions are nice; facts are better. So just before the election, Spot-On ran a formal survey to see what trends are out there – for us and for our customers. The survey ran in September and October and the results are pretty interesting.
One surprise: Digital familiarity, comfort and expertise isn’t party affiliated. It breaks down by age. Older consultants don’t “get it” so they either don’t buy or leave decisions about online to their TV buyers. Younger ones “get it” but are willing to hand off strategy to middle-men. Either way, Spot-On sees room for improvement.
Another key finding: Spending for digital really was up this year. More than 60% of the folks who took the survey said they’ve either kept budgets the same or increased them – some as much as 25%.
We promised a case of wine to folks to randomly selected survey participants. Winners are Andrew Meyers over at Amplified Strategies in Seattle. And Gordon Luckman, a consultant in Brooklyn. How’d we make the selections: Jersey numbers of baseball team pitchers, in this case Cal Ripkin (How ’bout them O’s, hon?) and Madison Bumgarner (Go Giants!).
Our final conclusions on all this will be released early next year as a “Best Practices” white paper. Want a copy? Send us an email and we’ll save you one.
In the meantime – look, you can take the girl out of the newsroom but you can’t take the newsroom out of the girl – Spot-On Founder Chris Nolan has been talking and writing.
Last week, she had a piece in AdWeek talking about the need for clearer standards for digital advertising. If your campaign’s run into this sort of static – arbitrary creative requests, bans on certain kinds of speech – give us a call to discuss what happened. We’re gearing up for some frank talks with publishers earlier next year.
The AdWeek piece was preceded by some comments Nolan made to Campaigns & Elections magazine about ad fraud and how easy it is for unscrupulous vendors to take advantage of political buyers.
Elections are over. But we’ve got work to do. Want to keep up with what we’re up to? Follow us on Twitter or hang with us on Facebook where we offer regular updates and comments.