Smallbrain Solutions

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth taught us all a good lesson about how to make a very small ad buy go a long, long way.

Simply do a small run in the middle of nowhere on the cheap, then you will get thousands of plays and priceless earned media in the form of blog traffic, print articles, etc. etc. etc.

Well, the RNC managed the same thing this week. According to the Hotline on Call:

The RNC’s new TV ad in Las Vegas is little more than a deliberate poke in the eye to Min. Leader Harry Reid. According to a knowledgable Nevada source, the buy there is less than $5K for airing during the three network Sunday shows. And no buy in Reno, the more conservative market in the state. [MARC AMBINDER]

Be that a lesson to you. Again.

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I must say that this post may be the most obvious description of why political campaigns suck so damn much.

The interesting thing about applying “local max” to politics is that the costs are even higher for political campaigns. You have anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to win. There is no “bad quarter” or “bad year” to weather… if you lose, you are done.

That being said, his followup post suggests that the winning strategy is to empower a very small team to try EVERYTHING. Sort of like a “skunk works” sort of concept. The phrase, “smaller, faster, cheaper” comes to mind.

In terms of breaking out of a rut, particularly in the political online sphere, it is this kind of thinking is required. Don’t just throw $50,000 at a flash developer to make you the next JibJab… it isn’t going to be as good. It just isn’t. Even if it is - it probably won’t drive that kind of traffic.

However, if you adopt the “smaller, faster, cheaper” approach - like NASA has done - you can get REALLY big surprises, like the two Mars Rovers that are still going strong, long after they were supposed to stop working. Without throwing a lot of crap against the wall you will never know what truly sticks.

I suspect I will have a lot more to say about this soon…

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Well, maybe not cheap…

Gary Stein from Jupiter Research suggests that the online ad inventory shortage is for real, but that the startling price rises have more to do with poor targeting on the part of buyers - as well as the ego-factor of having your brand in a prime slot.

Definitely true. Once again, it is important to think about your online ad placement just like anything else. Don’t buy a spot on a kids program if you are looking for voters. The best thing to do is make sure that you are working with your vendor to demographically or behaviorally target your ads. Barring that, try to make sure that you aren’t paying for impressions (with the possible exception of BlogAds) but rather cost-per-acquisition.

As for BlogAds, it is REALLY important to be careful with your placement. With organizations I work with, our cost-per-name has DOUBLED in the last few years due to the spike in prices. We can now get a cheaper per-name rate by purchasing network ads. We still do both, but you need to be careful about where you place - and make sure to adjust your buy based on real results - don’t just buy it and forget it. If you do, you are wasting a lot of money (I promise to not tell your development/finance director).

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Sorry for the short post. I am not sure which side of the line I come down on about the FEC regulation of online expenditures (love the medium - hate loopholes in campaign finance regulation) but it is worth noting that firedupamerica.com got an exception (unanimous, no less) from the FEC, despite their intent to expressly advocate for candidates…

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Via ADrants, Rogers Cadenhead reports that the Drudge Retort, Smirking Chimp and Raw Story were kicked out of “Advertise Liberally” an ad network of BlogAds. According to Roger (in the comments) it is because they aren’t a “blog”.

Now, I would hope that there is some kind of reason for this and I don’t want to speculate - but this seems really weird, as these are all popular sites (disclosure - I have purchased ads for clients on Smirking Chimp and RawStory as well as on Kos and MyDD - who set up the network).

I mean, if it is their network, I suppose they can do what they want, but I am a little worried when Mr. Cadenhead says this:

Instead, I’ve just given six months of effort and free ad space worth $2,200 to a liberal ad network that’s now my competition.

That is soo0oooooooo not cool. They were DONATING the space???

Update: (note to self - google first, THEN post) Just a Bump in the Beltway has the email from Chris Bowers. I can see why they have their restrictions, but it is awfully snotty… Also, Watching the Watchers has some REALLY nasty email from Chris Bowers…

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