Too much money?
August 16, 2012 3 Comments
In Monday night’s daily wrap-up, Nate Cohn noted the ungodly sums that Romeny and allies were spending in various media markets:
For the last month, Romney and allies have outspent Obama by more than a 2-to-1 margin. At some point, one would expect this type of deluge to start moving the needle, right? But perhaps the static race is just a sign that the Romney campaign’s advertising has reached the point of diminishing returns with just under three months to go until the election. Roanoke-Lynchburg is receiving 2520 GRPs from Romney and his allies, and if 1,000 per campaign is the rule for saturation, then how much are GOP groups really getting out of the final 1520 points? Perhaps not much: Obama hasn’t trailed in a Virginia poll since June and Rasmussen has shown Obama making gains in Virginia in every poll since April (R+1, tie, O+1, O+2).
Now I have no expertise in this GRP business, but if 1000 is considered saturation, than it should be no surprise that Romney’s 2500+ GRP spending is not “moving the needle.” As I’m pretty sure I’ve argued before, the thing with money is to have enough to compete on some semblance of a level field– and even 2-1 Obama’s got that. If Obama’s only spending roughly 1200 GRP, that’s still more than saturation. Seems to me that rather than trying to buy up every single minute of air time (to surely enormously diminishing returns) in places like Roanoke, VA, Romney ought to be finding some uses for this money with more marginal benefit.
About Steve Greene
Reminds me of the Cold War when we were told the US and the USSR had enough bombs to blow up the world many times over.
I wonder if people in these areas are turning off their TV and radios. It doesn’t take very long to get sick and tired of hearing and seeing political ads, the meaner they are the more they tend to grate. Just imagine having the market saturated so every other ad is a political ad.
It’s enough to turn a mind to mush.
As far as I am concerned, both sides are throwing away money on attack ads that spin the facts and obfuscate the truth. I stopped listening to those ads years ago and started doing research on the internet; why be lead around by the nose? I actually stopped watching those ads (all ads) recently after a coworker from DISH suggested that I upgrade my DVR to a Hopper. Now I can use Auto Hop to skip the commercials recorded during Primetime. Now that nobody even sees those ads, I would like to see that money donated to charity rather then wasted on campaigning.