|
|
Winning Campaigns This Month
Penny Wise, Production Foolish
By Michael R. Shannon
I have yet to work with a candidate who did not believe in the value of a good first impression while on the campaign trail. I would venture to say that eight out of ten times the candidate dresses better than the audience. (Note to Obama: Lose the tie the next time you go bowling.)
However, many of these same individuals, who would not make a speech with a soup spot on their tie, think nothing of using cut–rate production for the TV spots. A TV spot will introduce them to far more people than will ever encounter them in person. This is the equivalent of making a speech with the soup bowl on your head.
The amazing thing is many candidates, particularly beginners or first–time–on–TV candidates, continue to repeat this mistake. I remember a statewide candidate in Arkansas who told me he didn’t need to hire a media consultant because his campaign manager owned a video store and
was an expert on TV commercials.
Mr. Video Store produced a commercial that made this distinguished man (before the commercial was aired) a laughingstock shortly after airing the piece.
Voters expect a candidate to project a certain image on television. It’s the media consultant’s job to make sure his client lives up to that mental voter image. Slap-dash, my–brother–in–law–can–get–it–for–you–wholesale production will not project the proper image and will in all likelihood cost you the election.
That’s because a candidate’s broadcast campaign does not operate in a vacuum. Your commercial is not part of a sheltered political workshop where people use simple video techniques and speak with soothing voices. Your spot is compared with that of every other advertiser on television, including Coke, General Motors, and the rest of the national advertisers. Those companies do not do special, low–budget ads just for your market.
Viewers in your market are exposed to the very best, as are the rest of the country. Commercial advertisers set the standard for quality and if your ads do not measure up, viewers will not give you a bye simply because it is for a political race.
Simply put, if your commercials look cheap compared to others, it will hurt you in the eyes of the media, decision–makers, and voters. Cheap–looking television will cheapen your message and in effect cheapen you. As well, there is a very real possibility that starting your broadcast efforts with discount production will harm fund raising efforts, in addition to the damage that it does to your image among voters, the media, and other election observers.
Amateurish television commercials can also hurt you in the pocketbook, which is ironic, since saving money is why many campaigns go cheap in the first place.
Those who may be on board before your sub–standard production is aired will be very reluctant to continue their support of your efforts and may actively distance themselves from you and your cheapened direction. In addition, by cutting corners on your public face, people who are undecided about you and the campaign will have all their doubts reinforced and their positive impressions undermined. The final result will be a loss of your support base and a movement of the undecided to your opponents.
I speak from an unfortunate experience. The president of an insurance company in Houston hired me to handle his media in a race for the state senate. He wanted to be on TV, but he wanted to cut corners on production. I had only been in business two years at that time and didn’t want to risk the account by arguing with this captain of industry. As a result we did a very cheap ¾ inch videotape production, spent nothing on lighting and made a very large commitment to TV time to broadcast the spot.
It was the revenge of the budget cutters. We wound up making a pathetic spot that everyone in Houston saw.
Of course it got results. His phone rang off the hook. Friends, peers, and contributors called to ask why he was running that awful TV spot. He fired me — so much for not insisting on higher quality production — and put another spot on the air, presumably a lot more expensive. But the tycoon’s campaign never recovered.
In media production, as in everything else, there are differing standards of quality, but do not buy advertising by the pound. In my time in this business, I have heard every objection to production costs at least twice and maybe three times for some of them. My answer to all remains the same: there is a certain level of production quality that television demands. To reach that level requires a certain amount of money.
There is an ironclad rule of thumb for production cost and that is the longer it takes to produce the spot, the more it’s going to cost.
The least expensive television spots are those that simply feature the candidate glued to a chair and talking to the camera. If you are charisma–challenged these spots won’t help much, if any.
Spots with a variety of locations, interior shots, and other examples of production value add visual interest but also add to the final cost. You can spend wisely by ganging your production and shooting a number of spots during the same time period. And you can stretch your dollar by re–editing existing footage to make new spots later in the campaign.
You can also front load production by introducing the candidate with high–quality location spots in the beginning and then going to less expensive studio spots after your image stabilizes.
However, the first impression of you in your race will be the perception that voters will carry throughout the entire election. Most candidates don’t have enough money to undo the damage to your campaign that substandard production will cause.
Presumably you hired your media consultant after looking at the dazzling spots on his demo reel. Don’t hamstring your consultant by insisting on a production budget that strangles the campaign from the beginning.
Michael R. Shannon is president of MANDATE: Message, Media & Public Relations. He has worked with candidates and tycoons across the United States and the Caribbean. He can be reached at 703-583-6277 or Click here to contact this Author.
-###-
|
| |
Winning Campaigns This Month
|
| |
2008 In Review |
| |
|
Get The Message Right |
| |
|
By Ron Faucheux
As this year’s presidential campaign roars on, we’re treated every day to a laboratory of political campaign message making. |
| |
|
Image Can Make the Difference |
| |
|
By Allan Bonner
About a year ago I was in the middle of the continent with about a dozen prospective candidates.
|
| |
|
Engage Voters, Or Lose the Media Battle |
| |
|
By John Brabender
In the 1960s, media selection was really quite simple. Most TV viewers back in the day had only three channels...
|
| |
|
Mass Mailing Now Sophisticated, Targeted, Persuasive |
| |
|
By Doug Hasson
It wasn’t too long ago when a discussion about targeting political direct mail went something like, “we can drop Democrats... |
| |
|
Reaching Out Through Mobile Technology |
| |
|
By Matt Pekarek
The list of candidates for the President of the United States is rapidly narrowing while communication to their prospective... |
| |
|
Seven Key Elements of a Successful Fundraising Plan |
| |
|
By Holly Robichaud
It cannot be stated enough that nowadays money is the mother’s milk of politics. |
| |
|
The Need For Political Technology |
| |
|
By Peter B. Kelly
In today’s election environment many candidates find themselves faced with a dizzying array of new and updated technologies..
|
| |
|
Does Email Marketing Stack-up to Other Media? |
| |
|
By Tommi Pryor
The previous article in this series looked at the ethics and rules of the road for email marketing as compared... |
| |
|
Telephone Calls Are Essential |
| |
|
By Holly Robichaud and Dan Tripp
When Don Ameche, as historians and movie buffs recall, invented the telephone in 1939 in his movie role as Alexander Graham Bell |
| |
|
Direct Mail - Cost-Cutting Techniques |
| |
|
By J. Scott Faircloth
It appears to be the perfect storm for direct mail fundraisers in 2008. The economy is down, response rates are seemingly stagnant... |
| |
|
Rolling Out Your Campaign Message |
| |
|
By Ron Faucheux
A campaign message positions your candidacy relative to the political environment and your opposition. |
| |
|
Purchase High Quality Lists For Effective Micro-Targeting Use |
| |
|
By Andrew Tavani
In 2008 political organizations will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars purchasing voter data for polls,... |
| |
|
Targeted Communication With Each Voter, One on One |
| |
|
By Jerry Dorchuck
Isn’t it amazing that with all the affordable technology that exists for the modern political campaign,... |
| |
|
Crisis Management: The Public Relations Nightmare |
| |
|
By Holly Robichaud
In this day and age of “gotcha” politics, the 24-hours news cycle, blogs, u-tube, and camera phones, why do some... |
| |
|
Cable Advertising Getting Closer to Your Voters |
| |
|
By Ondine Fortune
In today’s political environment, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to reach voters. Just a decade ago,... |
| |
|
Penny Wise, Production Foolish |
| |
|
By Michael R. Shannon
I have yet to work with a candidate who did not believe in the value of a good first impression while on the campaign trail. |
| |
|
Online Interactive Publication |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
