Time Buying
2012-04-03 - by
These days it seems I’m immersed in the world of TV ads and time buying but it’s that time of the year for campaigns, when a candidate with two shekels to rub together is trying to figure out whether to spend them on TV or radio or, heaven forbid, yard signs.
The words ‘time buying’ sound like poetry but in a campaign there’s nothing poetic about them at all: Time buying’s a combination of reams of statistics, pure old-fashioned horse trading and, right now a month before the May 8th Primary, a monster devouring campaign bank accounts.
In the political world there are two clans of ‘Time Buyers:’ ‘Old Schoolers.’ And ‘Modern Agers.’ And, of course, like most antiquities in the 21st Century, the ‘Old Schoolers’ are now all but extinct.
Robert Holding, who bought TV and radio ads for Senator Jesse Helms’ campaigns and the Congressional Club, was an ‘Old School’ time buyer. His method was excruciating: He started with mountains of research. Most everyone has heard of the Nielson Ratings. What they do is simple: They tell a time buyer – like Robert – how many people watch a certain TV program. And they tell the age and sex of the people watching the program. So if you’re selling Viagra, Nielson demographics will tell you which TV programs older men watch.
The problem with Nielson Ratings, for a candidate, is buying political ads based on people’s age and sex is like firing a shot gun at a bull’s-eye. It gets you in the neighborhood of the target but a lot of the birdshot misses the bull’s-eye completely and that’s wasted money.
The Scarborough TV Reports are a second type of demographics. If you’re looking for which programs Republicans are more likely to watch you can get it from a Scarborough Report – because their demographics include Republicans, Democrats and Independents.
For instance, if you look at the Nielson Reports for WRAL’s and WTVD’s 6 O’clock News their Nielson Ratings are roughly the same. But if you look at the Scarborough Reports on those same news programs you’ll find twice as many Republicans watch WRAL as WTVD. And if you’re George Holding or Paul Coble, running for Congress, that makes a big difference.
Of course, one important fact you’ll never find in a Scarborough Report is which programs ‘undecided’ voters watch and there’s only way to learn that: With a campaign poll. For instance, roughly one in 10 people vote in Republican primaries. So, say, George Holding can take a poll and ask those voters, Do you watch the WRAL or WTVD 6:00 news? And that data will tell him which programs undecided voters watch. It’s the most reliable demographic information there is.
Once Robert Holding finished plowing through Neilson Ratings and Scarborough Reports and Campaign Polls he’d move on to the next stage of time buying: Horse trading.
If a candidate calls a TV station and says, “I want to buy ads,” they’ll hand him a piece of paper and say, “This is our rate card,” and he’ll figure buying TV ads is like going to the grocery store and buying groceries – he knows the product he wants, the price is on the box, and he either buys it or not.
But he’d be dead wrong.
Time buying isn’t like buying cereal it’s like buying a used car – you dicker. And dickering was Robert Holding’s gift. He’d call a TV station sales representatives and say, “Senator Helms has $200,000 to spend this afternoon on news programs and whoever makes me the best deal gets the $200,000.” What happened next was like an auction. He’d spend hours on the telephone. He’d call WRAL and say, “WTVD offered me a spot in their news for $1,000 – you want to beat that?”
Then he’d call WTVD and say, “WRAL just offered $800 – you want to beat that?”
Next, after Robert had done all his research and dickering he’d sit down and write out what he called a ‘Cost per 1,000’ analysis. He’d take every TV program, cable TV channel and radio station he wanted to buy and analyze what each was charging him to reach 1,000 undecided voters. Then he’d compare the cost of electronic media to the cost of direct mail or telephone calls to voters.
His last step was simple: He’d rank every program or station or channel, from lowest to highest, based on what they wanted to charge Senator Helms to reach one thousand undecided voters. Then he’d buy the programs with the lowest cost per 1,000 – because they reached the most voters for the least money.
How the ‘Modern Agers’ put an end to the ‘Old Schoolers,’ like most things in modern America, had a lot to do with money. And marketing.
Time buyers are paid a commission – from 2% to 15% – of the time they buy. ‘Old School’ time buyers generally charged 12% to 15% because in the long run all that research and dickering and ranking of programs made their buys more effective.
What the ‘Modern Agers’ did was pretty simple: They dispensed with most of the research and all of the dickering and told candidates, We’ll charge you 4%, 5% or 6%. And, of course, most of the candidates didn’t know one thing about demographics or research or polling or rate cards – but they did understand one fact loud and clear: They had one time buyer telling them he’d charge 15% and another saying he’d charge 5% and after that all it took was the ‘Modern Ager’ throwing around a few technical terms like ‘GPR’s’ and ‘CPM’s’ and ‘Market Penetration’ that sounded clever and the candidate would say, It’s a deal.
Posted in General
Time Buying
2012-04-03/
These days it seems I’m immersed in the world of TV ads and time buying but it’s that time of the year for campaigns, when a candidate with two shekels to rub together is trying to figure out whether to spend them on TV or radio or, heaven forbid, yard signs.
The words ‘time buying’ sound like poetry but in a campaign there’s nothing poetic about them at all: Time buying’s a combination of reams of statistics, pure old-fashioned horse trading and, right now a month before the May 8th Primary, a monster devouring campaign bank accounts.
In the political world there are two clans of ‘Time Buyers:’ ‘Old Schoolers.’ And ‘Modern Agers.’ And, of course, like most antiquities in the 21st Century, the ‘Old Schoolers’ are now all but extinct.
Robert Holding, who bought TV and radio ads for Senator Jesse Helms’ campaigns and the Congressional Club, was an ‘Old School’ time buyer. His method was excruciating: He started with mountains of research. Most everyone has heard of the Nielson Ratings. What they do is simple: They tell a time buyer – like Robert – how many people watch a certain TV program. And they tell the age and sex of the people watching the program. So if you’re selling Viagra, Nielson demographics will tell you which TV programs older men watch.
The problem with Nielson Ratings, for a candidate, is buying political ads based on people’s age and sex is like firing a shot gun at a bull’s-eye. It gets you in the neighborhood of the target but a lot of the birdshot misses the bull’s-eye completely and that’s wasted money.
The Scarborough TV Reports are a second type of demographics. If you’re looking for which programs Republicans are more likely to watch you can get it from a Scarborough Report – because their demographics include Republicans, Democrats and Independents.
For instance, if you look at the Nielson Reports for WRAL’s and WTVD’s 6 O’clock News their Nielson Ratings are roughly the same. But if you look at the Scarborough Reports on those same news programs you’ll find twice as many Republicans watch WRAL as WTVD. And if you’re George Holding or Paul Coble, running for Congress, that makes a big difference.
Of course, one important fact you’ll never find in a Scarborough Report is which programs ‘undecided’ voters watch and there’s only way to learn that: With a campaign poll. For instance, roughly one in 10 people vote in Republican primaries. So, say, George Holding can take a poll and ask those voters, Do you watch the WRAL or WTVD 6:00 news? And that data will tell him which programs undecided voters watch. It’s the most reliable demographic information there is.
Once Robert Holding finished plowing through Neilson Ratings and Scarborough Reports and Campaign Polls he’d move on to the next stage of time buying: Horse trading.
If a candidate calls a TV station and says, “I want to buy ads,” they’ll hand him a piece of paper and say, “This is our rate card,” and he’ll figure buying TV ads is like going to the grocery store and buying groceries – he knows the product he wants, the price is on the box, and he either buys it or not.
But he’d be dead wrong.
Time buying isn’t like buying cereal it’s like buying a used car – you dicker. And dickering was Robert Holding’s gift. He’d call a TV station sales representatives and say, “Senator Helms has $200,000 to spend this afternoon on news programs and whoever makes me the best deal gets the $200,000.” What happened next was like an auction. He’d spend hours on the telephone. He’d call WRAL and say, “WTVD offered me a spot in their news for $1,000 – you want to beat that?”
Then he’d call WTVD and say, “WRAL just offered $800 – you want to beat that?”
Next, after Robert had done all his research and dickering he’d sit down and write out what he called a ‘Cost per 1,000’ analysis. He’d take every TV program, cable TV channel and radio station he wanted to buy and analyze what each was charging him to reach 1,000 undecided voters. Then he’d compare the cost of electronic media to the cost of direct mail or telephone calls to voters.
His last step was simple: He’d rank every program or station or channel, from lowest to highest, based on what they wanted to charge Senator Helms to reach one thousand undecided voters. Then he’d buy the programs with the lowest cost per 1,000 – because they reached the most voters for the least money.
How the ‘Modern Agers’ put an end to the ‘Old Schoolers,’ like most things in modern America, had a lot to do with money. And marketing.
Time buyers are paid a commission – from 2% to 15% – of the time they buy. ‘Old School’ time buyers generally charged 12% to 15% because in the long run all that research and dickering and ranking of programs made their buys more effective.
What the ‘Modern Agers’ did was pretty simple: They dispensed with most of the research and all of the dickering and told candidates, We’ll charge you 4%, 5% or 6%. And, of course, most of the candidates didn’t know one thing about demographics or research or polling or rate cards – but they did understand one fact loud and clear: They had one time buyer telling them he’d charge 15% and another saying he’d charge 5% and after that all it took was the ‘Modern Ager’ throwing around a few technical terms like ‘GPR’s’ and ‘CPM’s’ and ‘Market Penetration’ that sounded clever and the candidate would say, It’s a deal.
Posted in General