{"id":4164,"date":"2016-11-07T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T09:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spot-on.com\/?p=4164"},"modified":"2016-11-07T09:00:48","modified_gmt":"2016-11-07T09:00:48","slug":"lets-make-this-the-last-year-that-digital-didnt-know-how-to-handle-election-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spot-on.com\/2016\/11\/07\/lets-make-this-the-last-year-that-digital-didnt-know-how-to-handle-election-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Year That Digital Didn\u2019t Know How to Handle Election Ads?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article\u00a0appeared in AdWeek<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Political professionals will use the word “watershed” when they talk about<\/p>\n

2016 for many reasons.\u00a0 For those of us in digital advertising, 2016 is the year spending went from a river to a flood.<\/p>\n

But many of the boats lifted in this rising tide were piloted by inexperienced captains. Their na\u00efvet\u00e9 has created potentially dangerous currents for those of us who respect free speech in political discourse\u2014no matter how critical or sometimes harsh it is.<\/p>\n

With a projected $1 billion on the table for online ad buys before elections started, it was clear that campaigns were going to buy a lot more advertising on mobile phones, tablets and computers. And spend they did. It’s estimated that Facebook alone took in $300 million in political ad dollars.<\/p>\n

There’s more on the way. My firm, Spot-On<\/a>, recently surveyed political campaign managers and ad buyers. Almost 60 percent characterized the digital market as “an emerging channel that I want to understand better”. The same number said they had increased their spending this year, some by as much as 25 percent.<\/p>\n

But this tsunami of cash has triggered behavior illustrating just how unprepared\u2014and silly\u2014online publishers get when faced with questions about political ads.<\/p>\n

Facebook CEO Marc Zuckerberg intervened to stop his employees from labeling Donald Trump’s comments as “hate speech,” but similar discussions are occurring outside that walled garden. Across the Internet, online publishers are making arbitrary and capricious demands on political advertisers.<\/p>\n

Here are just a few examples:<\/p>\n