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Episode 187
Zombie Metrics: Numbers That Won't Die
Between 60% and 75% of buy-side marketers say their core measurement approach falls short. And no one's measurement fully covers every paid channel.
This week, Elena, Angela and Chief Analytics Officer Matt Hultgren dig into zombie statistics: numbers that get debunked but keep getting repeated. They start with the Rule of Seven, then turn to the scarier ones hiding in dashboards. Hear why CTV is so hard to measure, how attribution windows can mislead and why last-click still lingers. Plus, learn how to talk to your CFO about uncertainty and how multiple models help you replace a metric you've outgrown.
Topics Covered
• [01:00] The Rule of Seven and its murky origins
• [03:00] What the data says about extra exposures
• [05:00] IAB's State of Data 2026 findings
• [08:00] When last-click still makes sense
• [11:00] Why CTV is so hard to measure
• [12:30] How attribution windows skew results
• [14:30] Killing zombie metrics with multiple models
• [15:30] How AI will change measurement
Resources:
IAB State of Data 2026 Report
Today's Hosts
Elena Jasper
Chief Marketing Officer
Angela Voss
Chief Executive Officer
Matt Hultgren
Chief Analytics Officer
Transcript
Elena: I'm Elena Jasper. I'm on the marketing team here at Marketing Architects, and I'm joined by my cohosts, Angela Voss, the CEO of Marketing Architects, and Rob DeMars, the Chief Misfit at Misfits & Machines.
Rob: Hi, Elena.
Angela: Hello. Hello.
Elena: We're back with our thoughts on some recent marketing news, always trying to root our opinions in data, research, and what drives business results. Today, we're talking politics. Well, kind of. We're discussing political advertising. No actual politics allowed on this show ever. So we're gonna talk about the history of political advertising in the US, how marketers can navigate the increase of media spend this election season, and what we can learn from the persuasive creative tactics that political advertisers use. But let's start by setting the stage with some data. According to eMarketer, political ad spend will hit 11.07 billion in the US this cycle. That's a 21.4% jump over the last midterm, and it nearly matches the 11.65 billion spent during the 2024 presidential election. So CTV remains the fastest growing political ad format. Political CTV spend is climbing to 2.7 billion, which is a 194% increase over 2022, and streaming's on track to cross 25% of total political spend for the first time. But despite all that growth, traditional TV still takes the biggest slice of the pie. Broadcast alone accounts for 5.6 billion, just over half of every political dollar. So digital is about threequarters of total ad spend in the US, so seeing broadcast by itself claim half of that political spend I think is pretty significant. If you add cable and CTV on top and television in all its forms, then it is really the primary format for political advertising. And this pressure is not spread evenly. So Senate races alone are expected to pull in 2.8 billion. Competitive House races add another 2.2 billion, and that's a 40% increase over 2022. State legislative, gubernatorial, I did not know how to say that before, and down - ballot contests add up to roughly 3.9 billion. Michigan by itself is projected to absorb over a billion dollars this cycle, more than the entire country spent during the 2006 midterms, and Atlanta is tracking as the most expensive media market at around 591 million. Political campaigns run on a hard deadline, and they're price inelastic, so they'll simply outbid commercial advertisers to lock inventory before election day. So if your customers are in a battleground state, that's who you're bidding against, this fall. So Ange, you started your career at Marketing Architects as a media buyer. What should marketers expect this influx of ad spend to do to the media buying market?
Angela: Yeah, it's, it's, it's going to be interesting, a crazy year for more than one reason, although we're not going to go into the other reasons per the rules of the podcast and not getting into politics, but I mean, first off. Obviously, we're talking about record breaking numbers here, so everyone's going to be fighting for ad space, especially on TV and digital platforms like CTV, and so that likely means that prices are going to go up, and it's going to be harder for nonpolitical advertisers to get their hands on Some of the inventory that maybe they're accustomed to getting. It might be tougher to get into prime placements. political campaigns are, are, given preference with regulation and stuff. So some regular ads might be bumped or rescheduled. Especially as we get closer to the election. And to your point, especially in the local space, you know, with, with political advertisers pouring more money into, digital channels, marketers may need to switch things up to make sure they're still reaching their target audiences effectively, but I think. The key is just to stay flexible, you know, keep a close eye on how the political ad spend is, is affecting your campaigns. Be ready to adjust your game plan as needed. it's certainly going to be interesting, but you know, oftentimes we'll have, have brands come to us and say, you know, I know we're going into a political year. You know, should we plan to not spend in TV? And the answer to that is always absolutely not. I mean, oh, I shouldn't say always. I don't like absolutes. but we. Definitely don't recommend like we have to completely, you know, bow out of the space. There's, there are ways there's a lot of TV inventory out there. And, you know, not all is created equal when you think about how political ad dollars, are, are sprinkled across the marketplace. So you just have to be smart about understanding where those opportunities might be and have backup plans to consider moving dollars from one channel to another, but it shouldn't be a space, unless you're very tightly focused on, you know, specific local markets where you need to just think, I have to stop completely.
Elena: I was going to say, do we ever recommend that, you know, brands, if they have a combination of a local and national buy that they lean more. International, because it sounds like a lot of the political ad spend is being concentrated towards. certain local markets.
Angela: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, those are just the things you need to consider. If you've, if you've got the flexibility of, you know, looking for new consumers or looking for impressions on a national basis, generally speaking, you're, you're going to face less, demand on that side. But there's a lot of people, Thinking that way, right? So it's like, if you've got a lot of marketers pushing from local to national, because they can, it can tighten the national market as well. Not to the degree that of what happens in local.
Rob: Hey, and so do networks ever, play into the decision of running a particular candidate? So for, for example, obviously, you know, fox news isn't a huge fan of Joe Biden. If he wanted to run, you know, a series of ads on there, is he allowed or can they, can they say, nah, we're just going to, you know, run the other guys.
Angela: No, they, they need to give, even though they, they lean one way or the other, they need to give equal opportunity to the candidates that show up and want to buy, you know, the, the question would be, is, is Biden trying to win those people over and is that a
Rob: absolutely. Right. Is that a good strategy? But the, but the networks themselves can't play a hand in which candidates get play.
Angela: No. I mean, can you imagine what we might deal with that would be, that would be the, the media potentially, swaying the, the election. So that could, that could get pretty crazy.
Elena: I do have an article that I want to share, but first I couldn't resist asking Rob to prepare a little Rob history lesson for this episode, because I'm personally super curious about the history of political ads, but I'm even more curious to see how Rob avoids actually being political in his answer.
Rob: Well, I hope I don't Trump your opinion. because I'm really just looking to lay out the the news here.
Angela: No saying Trump. That was a part was gonna say. No, I know I The bleep that. I
Rob: was trying to be funny and that didn't that didn't work. So let's just start from here. All right. yes, Elena. I'm excited to actually talk about the history of political advertisings. it was fascinating to dig into. It all started pamphlets and broadsides and newspapers back in the day, like during the 1840 campaign of William henry harrison campaigns were all about catchy slogans and lively jingles and eye catching posters. these were, these ads were pretty straightforward, but super effective. Drumming up voter enthusiasm. Then came a great area of radio and tV, which totally changed the game. remember from history class, hearing about FDR's fireside chats, they showed how radio could create this personal bond with listeners. but really the Big revolution came with TV, Dwight D Eisenhower in 1952, he was the one really known for running the first campaignable. I like ike cartoon series. That was really simple, catchy, straightforward, really built his brand using television, and TV ads quickly became, really the, the, the, main forum for candidates crafting their image, and their policies, fast forward to 1964 and we hit the era of negative. ads. So Lyndon Johnson's Daisy commercial is legendary. It showed a little girl picking daisies, which, suddenly cuts to a nuclear explosion. it was meant to strike fear about Barry Goldwater's policies and. Boy, did that work since then, pulling on voters emotions became a staple strategy in political ads by the 20th century, things got even more high tech. We've got direct mail, phone banking. And then of course the internet came to play. Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign was really seen as a pioneering strategy at targeting more specific groups of voters. And then Barack Obama. With, his team was really seen as the masters of using digital media to fundraise and mobilize supporters like never before. Now, political ads are everywhere online using analytics and algorithms to target voters with incredible precision, whether it's through social media, streaming videos, or other digital channels campaigns today can tailor their messages exactly what they think you want to hear. So from print to pixels, political advertising has come a long way. It's not just about reflecting the times anymore. It's about shaping how campaigns interact with us, the voters.
Elena: That's pretty crazy how effective political ads are. Like there's a reason why they like they they do them and they spend so much money on them. It's because they, they work. Which is
Rob: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I, I was actually a may, forgot about that famous Lyndon Johnson ad and just how truly dramatic of an ad that was. I mean, you're talking about nuclear, the, the, the apocalypse basically in your, your TV campaign. So, yeah, we've had quite a, quite a history already.
Elena: Yeah. And you said that was in the 60s, right? So there wasn't any negative advertising.
Rob: For was the kind of, that was the bomb. No pun intended.
Elena: Well, a lot's changed since then. I feel like half the political ads I see now are like more attack ads. great. Well, thank you, Rob. I, I had a quick article I wanted to share to tee up our next area of discussion. I, I did have an article I wanted to share to tee up our next area of discussion. This is from Campaigns & Elections, and it's called "The 2026 Midterms..." Sorry, and it's called 2026 Midterms Are Where AI Meets the TV Ad." So, this is really the first big political cycle where AIpowered TV ad production is available at scale, and it's much better than it was during the last big election. Creation that used to take weeks now takes hours, and a campaign that would've built two or three hero spots for an entire cycle can now generate dozens of variations without a big team. It also changes who can be on TV at all. So entry - level production now runs in the hundreds of dollars, so state legislature and county races that were priced out of TV entirely can suddenly sustain a presence on a place like streaming. Commercial brands have been running multiple creative variants against live audiences, measuring, measuring performance, adjusting midflight for years, of course. But now that same workflow is really showing up in political. In the Texas primaries this spring, candidates across the state used AIgenerated video in their advertising with everything from attack ads to parody. NPR just reported this month that candidates up and down the ballot are leaning on AI to boost their own image and portray opponents unfavorably. Though, whether any of that actually moves voters, we're gonna find out. Still unclear. Which connects to research we've covered before. Berkeley researchers creative tested 617 ads from 51 political campaigns across 2018 and 2020, and found that effectiveness swung wildly by year and by race. So issuefocused ads worked in 2018, not so much in 2020. Having a woman as your messenger moved voter attitudes in 2020, but not in downballot races. Pushy ads worked for the presidential vote, but nowhere else. The takeaway was that, you know, a focus g roup can't keep up with how fast context shifts in an election year. In 2026, these campaigns are gonna have the same issue. They can now make far more creative, though, than they can possibly evaluate. They can now make far more creative than they can possibly evaluate. So Rob, I thought this article was interesting because it almost reads like political campaigns are just now discovering what big commercial brands have been doing with creative testing for, for over a decade. What do you think about that?
Rob: I was actually quite surprised that this shift has taken so long. I mean, online creative pretesting is not a new methodology. you know, it's been, I mean, we've been using it for, for almost a decade. it definitely gets you a broader reach. In terms of the, you know, the audiences that you're testing and it's way faster and a lot lower cost. So, yeah, I'm, I'm surprised the story isn't moving more in the direction of how can we take advantage of synthetic audiences as you know, the, as AI AI continues to, to grow. And that is proving out to be even more predictive than, than and online panels.
Elena: Yeah, I thought it was. I agree. I thought it was surprising and made me think, wow, political ads are about to get a lot more effective. if they're just this year starting to use like real time pre testing. But Rob, have you ever worked on like political ads, political ad creative?
Rob: I have not ever worked on political ads. No,
Elena: no. I wonder if they, they work the same way as like a direct response TV ad. It's very similar, right? You're trying to get someone to take an action, to donate.
Rob: Absolutely. I mean, I think they all, I mean, we, we had a podcast not too long ago on Cialdini and his, his principles of influence. And I think all of those, are really evergreen and transcend into whether it's political or direct response or brand, you know, you're dealing with urgency, you're dealing with, reciprocity. I mean, just all of those classic, you see them used handily political advertising.
Elena: It Makes me think about, I don't know, I don't know who this comes from, but I've seen a lot on LinkedIn about brands like Coke or Pepsi that produce ads that are anti like their competitor. And it seems like in effectiveness, people are against that because you're basically just giving air time to your competitor. So I wonder if political ads. Would have that same effect. Like, would you be better off doing an attack ad to kind of scare people away from voting for your competitor? Or would it work better just to spend that media time focused on you and
Rob: It's such a, it's such an interesting point. When you see how some political ads are. you know, 27 seconds of ripping on another candidate. And then at the very end, it's like, this was sponsored by blah, blah, blah. It's like, imagine if brands did that. You did like 28 seconds of ripping on McDonald's. And then at the end, it was like, this brought to you by Burger King, you know, like, yeah,
Angela: no one would watch television ever. Thank goodness. that doesn't exist.
Elena: I'd like to point out that I think it's interesting. That so much of political ad spend goes towards TV. Like it still, you know, in 2024, the majority of political ad spend is going to go towards TV. And I'll bet it's because a lot of times like voting, when you're trying to sway, like those last groups of voters that are swayable, probably like emotion. Works pretty well.
Angela: Absolutely. I mean, certainly it doesn't feel like, you know, if you get into the debate of direct response messaging versus emotional messaging, you know, sales activation versus brand building, whatever you want to call it, it Definitely feels like, you know, whether you're talking about a candidate trying to win, or there's a specific bill that we're trying to pass, there's a lot of much more of a play, I would say on the emotion side versus the, all of the reasons, the more like sales activation side of things. And I think that's where TV does it better than any other channel. Like we love to play on emotion in television.
Rob: Well, and credibility, right? We've always said TV is, is the channel that really establishes credibility. And where else would you want to establish credibility than when you're running for president?
Angela: A hundred percent. I yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Elena: Number one in trust probably doesn't hurt to have your face on TV. okay. Well, I think if I could summarize today, the, it's a political year. And there's going to be a lot more money going into the ad market, especially with, within television funding, political campaigns. But, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we'd say, we're not necessarily saying you have to change your strategy. or You should be working with an agency that can help adapt to increasing media spend. Like, there might be a case if you're an advertiser that's very focused on one local market, you might need to make some adjustments as we get closer to the election. But, probably not a lot of. Changes to make from a media point of view, if you're working with an agency that can adapt,
Angela: especially if you're national. You, you might need to consider pulling back in certain months. but no one knows for sure exactly how much is going to flood the market and in what areas. So to just completely avoid, there's a lot of other brands out there that are going, that's going to be hard. You know, prices could go a lot higher than we want to pay. And so just being flexible. And having a pulse on, on what's happening with so much media being available and in television, just generally is the best approach. We feel,
Elena: I wonder too, if this might be a silly point, but as the election gets closer and everybody gets stressed out, I wonder if. Certain categories are going to do better. Mental health apps, maybe will be Fast food, alcohol, yeah, right. Tequila and bullets. Oh my gosh,
Angela: Rob. Easy. geez,
Elena: We might have to cut that. Okay. All right. Last, question. okay. Final question. If you had to run a campaign to get any non political person elected, who would it be? Who would you pick?
Rob: mean, come on. This is like, this question is just ripe for problems. Right? I
Elena: Rob, I was going to ask who you're voting for, but I thought.
Rob: Well, I mean, like who, who, does, I mean, every time I feel like I have a new hero, then you find out they've got something in their closet. So I, I'm going to go with a Woody from toy story. Cause I don't think Woody's
Elena: It's a coward.
Rob: a problem.
Angela: And cheated. You cheated. I really thought about this. Like, I was like, okay, if I really had to put, you know, someone out there, who would I do? And I was thinking like, I want them to be a charismatic leader. I want them to have good communication skills. I think they need cross cultural appeal. I want them to be a good business person. I want them to be a good influencer. I want them to be a visionary. So like you came up with Woody. Okay. I'm going with, I'm going with Dwayne, the rock Johnson. And not only do I think he's well positioned, but I also think we could say I mean, his slogan just seals the deal for me because we could say, make America rock again.
Elena: That's, you might've just lost your chance of ever running his campaign.
Rob: so, I mean, I do believe that Dwayne could beat any candidate, like physically, like he could literally beat them.
Angela: Oh, I kind like like I'm like I can get behind that I'm like, I literally want to get behind you in a fight. Let's go. nice.
Elena: Yeah. I almost picked The Rock. Ang. That's a great one. I know he's teased sometimes going into politics and he's so beloved. I think, yeah. And he's a, he's a businessman, a great actor. And Yeah. I could see that. I also had trouble with this. I had some ideas in my head and then I found out just how many people have really been canceled in the last couple of years. I don't think this person's been canceled, but I don't know if I'd be willing to bet on it. I don't think she's been canceled. I picked Angelina Jolie.
Angela: Okay.
Elena: so she's not only popular and beloved as an actress, she's also a humanitarian. She founded the National Center for Refugees and Immigrant Children. And there is one challenge. She announced late last year that she's ready to step away from Hollywood because of the toxicity. So moving from that to politics might not be what she's looking for, but who knows? I think she could be great at it. So I would run her campaign.
Rob: It's a good one. Absolutely.
Elena: Great. So Woody, The Rock and Angelina Jolie. Strong
Angela: I Yes, absolutely. An interesting trio.
Episode 187
Zombie Metrics: Numbers That Won't Die
Between 60% and 75% of buy-side marketers say their core measurement approach falls short. And no one's measurement fully covers every paid channel.
This week, Elena, Angela and Chief Analytics Officer Matt Hultgren dig into zombie statistics: numbers that get debunked but keep getting repeated. They start with the Rule of Seven, then turn to the scarier ones hiding in dashboards. Hear why CTV is so hard to measure, how attribution windows can mislead and why last-click still lingers. Plus, learn how to talk to your CFO about uncertainty and how multiple models help you replace a metric you've outgrown.
Topics Covered
• [01:00] The Rule of Seven and its murky origins
• [03:00] What the data says about extra exposures
• [05:00] IAB's State of Data 2026 findings
• [08:00] When last-click still makes sense
• [11:00] Why CTV is so hard to measure
• [12:30] How attribution windows skew results
• [14:30] Killing zombie metrics with multiple models
• [15:30] How AI will change measurement
Resources:
IAB State of Data 2026 Report
Today's Hosts
Elena Jasper
Chief Marketing Officer
Angela Voss
Chief Executive Officer
Matt Hultgren
Chief Analytics Officer
Subscribe on
Enjoy this episode? Leave us a review.
Transcript
Elena: I'm Elena Jasper. I'm on the marketing team here at Marketing Architects, and I'm joined by my cohosts, Angela Voss, the CEO of Marketing Architects, and Rob DeMars, the Chief Misfit at Misfits & Machines.
Rob: Hi, Elena.
Angela: Hello. Hello.
Elena: We're back with our thoughts on some recent marketing news, always trying to root our opinions in data, research, and what drives business results. Today, we're talking politics. Well, kind of. We're discussing political advertising. No actual politics allowed on this show ever. So we're gonna talk about the history of political advertising in the US, how marketers can navigate the increase of media spend this election season, and what we can learn from the persuasive creative tactics that political advertisers use. But let's start by setting the stage with some data. According to eMarketer, political ad spend will hit 11.07 billion in the US this cycle. That's a 21.4% jump over the last midterm, and it nearly matches the 11.65 billion spent during the 2024 presidential election. So CTV remains the fastest growing political ad format. Political CTV spend is climbing to 2.7 billion, which is a 194% increase over 2022, and streaming's on track to cross 25% of total political spend for the first time. But despite all that growth, traditional TV still takes the biggest slice of the pie. Broadcast alone accounts for 5.6 billion, just over half of every political dollar. So digital is about threequarters of total ad spend in the US, so seeing broadcast by itself claim half of that political spend I think is pretty significant. If you add cable and CTV on top and television in all its forms, then it is really the primary format for political advertising. And this pressure is not spread evenly. So Senate races alone are expected to pull in 2.8 billion. Competitive House races add another 2.2 billion, and that's a 40% increase over 2022. State legislative, gubernatorial, I did not know how to say that before, and down - ballot contests add up to roughly 3.9 billion. Michigan by itself is projected to absorb over a billion dollars this cycle, more than the entire country spent during the 2006 midterms, and Atlanta is tracking as the most expensive media market at around 591 million. Political campaigns run on a hard deadline, and they're price inelastic, so they'll simply outbid commercial advertisers to lock inventory before election day. So if your customers are in a battleground state, that's who you're bidding against, this fall. So Ange, you started your career at Marketing Architects as a media buyer. What should marketers expect this influx of ad spend to do to the media buying market?
Angela: Yeah, it's, it's, it's going to be interesting, a crazy year for more than one reason, although we're not going to go into the other reasons per the rules of the podcast and not getting into politics, but I mean, first off. Obviously, we're talking about record breaking numbers here, so everyone's going to be fighting for ad space, especially on TV and digital platforms like CTV, and so that likely means that prices are going to go up, and it's going to be harder for nonpolitical advertisers to get their hands on Some of the inventory that maybe they're accustomed to getting. It might be tougher to get into prime placements. political campaigns are, are, given preference with regulation and stuff. So some regular ads might be bumped or rescheduled. Especially as we get closer to the election. And to your point, especially in the local space, you know, with, with political advertisers pouring more money into, digital channels, marketers may need to switch things up to make sure they're still reaching their target audiences effectively, but I think. The key is just to stay flexible, you know, keep a close eye on how the political ad spend is, is affecting your campaigns. Be ready to adjust your game plan as needed. it's certainly going to be interesting, but you know, oftentimes we'll have, have brands come to us and say, you know, I know we're going into a political year. You know, should we plan to not spend in TV? And the answer to that is always absolutely not. I mean, oh, I shouldn't say always. I don't like absolutes. but we. Definitely don't recommend like we have to completely, you know, bow out of the space. There's, there are ways there's a lot of TV inventory out there. And, you know, not all is created equal when you think about how political ad dollars, are, are sprinkled across the marketplace. So you just have to be smart about understanding where those opportunities might be and have backup plans to consider moving dollars from one channel to another, but it shouldn't be a space, unless you're very tightly focused on, you know, specific local markets where you need to just think, I have to stop completely.
Elena: I was going to say, do we ever recommend that, you know, brands, if they have a combination of a local and national buy that they lean more. International, because it sounds like a lot of the political ad spend is being concentrated towards. certain local markets.
Angela: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, those are just the things you need to consider. If you've, if you've got the flexibility of, you know, looking for new consumers or looking for impressions on a national basis, generally speaking, you're, you're going to face less, demand on that side. But there's a lot of people, Thinking that way, right? So it's like, if you've got a lot of marketers pushing from local to national, because they can, it can tighten the national market as well. Not to the degree that of what happens in local.
Rob: Hey, and so do networks ever, play into the decision of running a particular candidate? So for, for example, obviously, you know, fox news isn't a huge fan of Joe Biden. If he wanted to run, you know, a series of ads on there, is he allowed or can they, can they say, nah, we're just going to, you know, run the other guys.
Angela: No, they, they need to give, even though they, they lean one way or the other, they need to give equal opportunity to the candidates that show up and want to buy, you know, the, the question would be, is, is Biden trying to win those people over and is that a
Rob: absolutely. Right. Is that a good strategy? But the, but the networks themselves can't play a hand in which candidates get play.
Angela: No. I mean, can you imagine what we might deal with that would be, that would be the, the media potentially, swaying the, the election. So that could, that could get pretty crazy.
Elena: I do have an article that I want to share, but first I couldn't resist asking Rob to prepare a little Rob history lesson for this episode, because I'm personally super curious about the history of political ads, but I'm even more curious to see how Rob avoids actually being political in his answer.
Rob: Well, I hope I don't Trump your opinion. because I'm really just looking to lay out the the news here.
Angela: No saying Trump. That was a part was gonna say. No, I know I The bleep that. I
Rob: was trying to be funny and that didn't that didn't work. So let's just start from here. All right. yes, Elena. I'm excited to actually talk about the history of political advertisings. it was fascinating to dig into. It all started pamphlets and broadsides and newspapers back in the day, like during the 1840 campaign of William henry harrison campaigns were all about catchy slogans and lively jingles and eye catching posters. these were, these ads were pretty straightforward, but super effective. Drumming up voter enthusiasm. Then came a great area of radio and tV, which totally changed the game. remember from history class, hearing about FDR's fireside chats, they showed how radio could create this personal bond with listeners. but really the Big revolution came with TV, Dwight D Eisenhower in 1952, he was the one really known for running the first campaignable. I like ike cartoon series. That was really simple, catchy, straightforward, really built his brand using television, and TV ads quickly became, really the, the, the, main forum for candidates crafting their image, and their policies, fast forward to 1964 and we hit the era of negative. ads. So Lyndon Johnson's Daisy commercial is legendary. It showed a little girl picking daisies, which, suddenly cuts to a nuclear explosion. it was meant to strike fear about Barry Goldwater's policies and. Boy, did that work since then, pulling on voters emotions became a staple strategy in political ads by the 20th century, things got even more high tech. We've got direct mail, phone banking. And then of course the internet came to play. Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign was really seen as a pioneering strategy at targeting more specific groups of voters. And then Barack Obama. With, his team was really seen as the masters of using digital media to fundraise and mobilize supporters like never before. Now, political ads are everywhere online using analytics and algorithms to target voters with incredible precision, whether it's through social media, streaming videos, or other digital channels campaigns today can tailor their messages exactly what they think you want to hear. So from print to pixels, political advertising has come a long way. It's not just about reflecting the times anymore. It's about shaping how campaigns interact with us, the voters.
Elena: That's pretty crazy how effective political ads are. Like there's a reason why they like they they do them and they spend so much money on them. It's because they, they work. Which is
Rob: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I, I was actually a may, forgot about that famous Lyndon Johnson ad and just how truly dramatic of an ad that was. I mean, you're talking about nuclear, the, the, the apocalypse basically in your, your TV campaign. So, yeah, we've had quite a, quite a history already.
Elena: Yeah. And you said that was in the 60s, right? So there wasn't any negative advertising.
Rob: For was the kind of, that was the bomb. No pun intended.
Elena: Well, a lot's changed since then. I feel like half the political ads I see now are like more attack ads. great. Well, thank you, Rob. I, I had a quick article I wanted to share to tee up our next area of discussion. I, I did have an article I wanted to share to tee up our next area of discussion. This is from Campaigns & Elections, and it's called "The 2026 Midterms..." Sorry, and it's called 2026 Midterms Are Where AI Meets the TV Ad." So, this is really the first big political cycle where AIpowered TV ad production is available at scale, and it's much better than it was during the last big election. Creation that used to take weeks now takes hours, and a campaign that would've built two or three hero spots for an entire cycle can now generate dozens of variations without a big team. It also changes who can be on TV at all. So entry - level production now runs in the hundreds of dollars, so state legislature and county races that were priced out of TV entirely can suddenly sustain a presence on a place like streaming. Commercial brands have been running multiple creative variants against live audiences, measuring, measuring performance, adjusting midflight for years, of course. But now that same workflow is really showing up in political. In the Texas primaries this spring, candidates across the state used AIgenerated video in their advertising with everything from attack ads to parody. NPR just reported this month that candidates up and down the ballot are leaning on AI to boost their own image and portray opponents unfavorably. Though, whether any of that actually moves voters, we're gonna find out. Still unclear. Which connects to research we've covered before. Berkeley researchers creative tested 617 ads from 51 political campaigns across 2018 and 2020, and found that effectiveness swung wildly by year and by race. So issuefocused ads worked in 2018, not so much in 2020. Having a woman as your messenger moved voter attitudes in 2020, but not in downballot races. Pushy ads worked for the presidential vote, but nowhere else. The takeaway was that, you know, a focus g roup can't keep up with how fast context shifts in an election year. In 2026, these campaigns are gonna have the same issue. They can now make far more creative, though, than they can possibly evaluate. They can now make far more creative than they can possibly evaluate. So Rob, I thought this article was interesting because it almost reads like political campaigns are just now discovering what big commercial brands have been doing with creative testing for, for over a decade. What do you think about that?
Rob: I was actually quite surprised that this shift has taken so long. I mean, online creative pretesting is not a new methodology. you know, it's been, I mean, we've been using it for, for almost a decade. it definitely gets you a broader reach. In terms of the, you know, the audiences that you're testing and it's way faster and a lot lower cost. So, yeah, I'm, I'm surprised the story isn't moving more in the direction of how can we take advantage of synthetic audiences as you know, the, as AI AI continues to, to grow. And that is proving out to be even more predictive than, than and online panels.
Elena: Yeah, I thought it was. I agree. I thought it was surprising and made me think, wow, political ads are about to get a lot more effective. if they're just this year starting to use like real time pre testing. But Rob, have you ever worked on like political ads, political ad creative?
Rob: I have not ever worked on political ads. No,
Elena: no. I wonder if they, they work the same way as like a direct response TV ad. It's very similar, right? You're trying to get someone to take an action, to donate.
Rob: Absolutely. I mean, I think they all, I mean, we, we had a podcast not too long ago on Cialdini and his, his principles of influence. And I think all of those, are really evergreen and transcend into whether it's political or direct response or brand, you know, you're dealing with urgency, you're dealing with, reciprocity. I mean, just all of those classic, you see them used handily political advertising.
Elena: It Makes me think about, I don't know, I don't know who this comes from, but I've seen a lot on LinkedIn about brands like Coke or Pepsi that produce ads that are anti like their competitor. And it seems like in effectiveness, people are against that because you're basically just giving air time to your competitor. So I wonder if political ads. Would have that same effect. Like, would you be better off doing an attack ad to kind of scare people away from voting for your competitor? Or would it work better just to spend that media time focused on you and
Rob: It's such a, it's such an interesting point. When you see how some political ads are. you know, 27 seconds of ripping on another candidate. And then at the very end, it's like, this was sponsored by blah, blah, blah. It's like, imagine if brands did that. You did like 28 seconds of ripping on McDonald's. And then at the end, it was like, this brought to you by Burger King, you know, like, yeah,
Angela: no one would watch television ever. Thank goodness. that doesn't exist.
Elena: I'd like to point out that I think it's interesting. That so much of political ad spend goes towards TV. Like it still, you know, in 2024, the majority of political ad spend is going to go towards TV. And I'll bet it's because a lot of times like voting, when you're trying to sway, like those last groups of voters that are swayable, probably like emotion. Works pretty well.
Angela: Absolutely. I mean, certainly it doesn't feel like, you know, if you get into the debate of direct response messaging versus emotional messaging, you know, sales activation versus brand building, whatever you want to call it, it Definitely feels like, you know, whether you're talking about a candidate trying to win, or there's a specific bill that we're trying to pass, there's a lot of much more of a play, I would say on the emotion side versus the, all of the reasons, the more like sales activation side of things. And I think that's where TV does it better than any other channel. Like we love to play on emotion in television.
Rob: Well, and credibility, right? We've always said TV is, is the channel that really establishes credibility. And where else would you want to establish credibility than when you're running for president?
Angela: A hundred percent. I yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Elena: Number one in trust probably doesn't hurt to have your face on TV. okay. Well, I think if I could summarize today, the, it's a political year. And there's going to be a lot more money going into the ad market, especially with, within television funding, political campaigns. But, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we'd say, we're not necessarily saying you have to change your strategy. or You should be working with an agency that can help adapt to increasing media spend. Like, there might be a case if you're an advertiser that's very focused on one local market, you might need to make some adjustments as we get closer to the election. But, probably not a lot of. Changes to make from a media point of view, if you're working with an agency that can adapt,
Angela: especially if you're national. You, you might need to consider pulling back in certain months. but no one knows for sure exactly how much is going to flood the market and in what areas. So to just completely avoid, there's a lot of other brands out there that are going, that's going to be hard. You know, prices could go a lot higher than we want to pay. And so just being flexible. And having a pulse on, on what's happening with so much media being available and in television, just generally is the best approach. We feel,
Elena: I wonder too, if this might be a silly point, but as the election gets closer and everybody gets stressed out, I wonder if. Certain categories are going to do better. Mental health apps, maybe will be Fast food, alcohol, yeah, right. Tequila and bullets. Oh my gosh,
Angela: Rob. Easy. geez,
Elena: We might have to cut that. Okay. All right. Last, question. okay. Final question. If you had to run a campaign to get any non political person elected, who would it be? Who would you pick?
Rob: mean, come on. This is like, this question is just ripe for problems. Right? I
Elena: Rob, I was going to ask who you're voting for, but I thought.
Rob: Well, I mean, like who, who, does, I mean, every time I feel like I have a new hero, then you find out they've got something in their closet. So I, I'm going to go with a Woody from toy story. Cause I don't think Woody's
Elena: It's a coward.
Rob: a problem.
Angela: And cheated. You cheated. I really thought about this. Like, I was like, okay, if I really had to put, you know, someone out there, who would I do? And I was thinking like, I want them to be a charismatic leader. I want them to have good communication skills. I think they need cross cultural appeal. I want them to be a good business person. I want them to be a good influencer. I want them to be a visionary. So like you came up with Woody. Okay. I'm going with, I'm going with Dwayne, the rock Johnson. And not only do I think he's well positioned, but I also think we could say I mean, his slogan just seals the deal for me because we could say, make America rock again.
Elena: That's, you might've just lost your chance of ever running his campaign.
Rob: so, I mean, I do believe that Dwayne could beat any candidate, like physically, like he could literally beat them.
Angela: Oh, I kind like like I'm like I can get behind that I'm like, I literally want to get behind you in a fight. Let's go. nice.
Elena: Yeah. I almost picked The Rock. Ang. That's a great one. I know he's teased sometimes going into politics and he's so beloved. I think, yeah. And he's a, he's a businessman, a great actor. And Yeah. I could see that. I also had trouble with this. I had some ideas in my head and then I found out just how many people have really been canceled in the last couple of years. I don't think this person's been canceled, but I don't know if I'd be willing to bet on it. I don't think she's been canceled. I picked Angelina Jolie.
Angela: Okay.
Elena: so she's not only popular and beloved as an actress, she's also a humanitarian. She founded the National Center for Refugees and Immigrant Children. And there is one challenge. She announced late last year that she's ready to step away from Hollywood because of the toxicity. So moving from that to politics might not be what she's looking for, but who knows? I think she could be great at it. So I would run her campaign.
Rob: It's a good one. Absolutely.
Elena: Great. So Woody, The Rock and Angelina Jolie. Strong
Angela: I Yes, absolutely. An interesting trio.