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The television war for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat has barely begun. But the digital war? It’s well underway.
Beyond the emails supporters get urging them to donate dollars to Sen. Rob Portman, former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, the candidates are increasingly reaching out online to raise name identification, trash their opponents or display the same sort of ads viewers might see on TV.
Portman, for example, has his "Retread Ted" campaign aimed at picking on Strickland's record as governor. Strickland – buoyed by the Ohio Democrats – has a "No Jobs Rob" site criticizing Portman and the economy. And Sittenfeld, who has less name ID than the more veteran candidates, is using the web to emphasize his anti-NRA, pro-gun control stance as well as other issues aimed at painting him the populist in the race.
The Internet is cheap, and done right, it can inject name recognition to even the most obscure candidates. And as fewer people watch TV, digital ads may yet become a go-to for campaigns searching for audiences.
As Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime draw viewers away from traditional TV, audiences are dropping: According to a 2014 Nielsen report 2.6 million households are “broadband only” and don’t subscribe to cable or pick up a broadcast signal. That’s 2.8 percent of total U.S. households – up from 1.1 percent in 2013.
But for political advertising, TV is still king, said Kip Cassino, an executive vice president at the market research firm Borrell Associates. He said while other industries are comfortable advertising online, political candidates aren’t there yet.
According to Borrell Associates, a market research company, political advertising is expected to hit a record $11.4 billion in 2016 – 20 percent more than 2012. Add what’s been spent in 2015, and that figure rises to $16.5 billion.
Of that, digital media will break the $1 billion level for the first time, they predict. It’s still just a small portion of the overall media budgets – 9. 5 percent of total spending.
Portman has yet to go on television – it’s considered far too early in the campaign cycle. Despite having been in the U.S. Senate since 2011, Portman still needs to build name recognition in the state. He is using digital ads to get his message out.
Portman easily won election in 2010, defeating then Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, but that year was a Republican sweep year. With 2016 being a presidential election year, the turnout will be much differenent than in 2010.
Also in 2010, Strickland lost the governor’s seat to Republican John Kasich by two points, 49-47 percent.
A recent Quinnipiac poll shows a potential Portman-Strickland race as a statistical tie. The race is shaping up to be one of the most important in next year’s election. Republicans right now control the Senate 55-45, but Democrats see a path to take the chamber back.
Using ads to collect data
Corry Bliss, Portman’s campaign manager, said the ads don’t just deliver messages. Instead, the campaign is also trying to collect data.
By constantly running dozens of ads to audiences targeted by age, region and interest, “we know that there are 45,000 Democrats that agree with Rob on the Iran deal because they have clicked on one of our ads,” Bliss said. Portman opposes the proposed nuclear deal with Iran. His campaign ran two ads highlighting Strickland’s support of the deal – videos which got more than 1 million views on Facebook, according to Bliss.
Conservatives, meanwhile get ads highlighting Portman’s work repealing President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care law and balancing the budget.
The more specific, the better: Internet users in Toledo get viral ads about Portman’s work fighting toxic algae that has plagued Lake Erie. Cities that lost jobs during Strickland’s time as governor are reminded of that, too.
He said ads are segmented in a way “that only the people we want to see them will see them – and we are able to deliver Rob’s message of getting results for Ohioans while also gathering information about people’s interest in issues.”
By contrast Strickland has focused his efforts on the in-person ground game, according to supporters such as David Leland, a state lawmaker and former state Democratic Party chair. Strickland knows his strength is as a retail politician, meeting individual workers, Leland said.
Their advertising strategy, so far, seems to be this: Criticize Portman’s record. Period.
“No amount of digital ads can change the fact voters don’t trust Senator Portman to look out for them because he’s pushing the agenda of other millionaires and Washington insiders at the expense of Ohio’s working people in the Senate,” said David Bergstein, spokesman for the Strickland campaign.
That also puts Strickland at odds with Sittenfeld, a 31-year-old who has used his YouTube account regularly.
Dale Butland, a Sittenfeld spokesman, said in the early months, Sittenfeld’s online videos have largely targeted the media and political junkies. That’ll change after Jan. 1. Right now, the focus is on spreading the word about who Sittenfeld is.
“We’ll be doing more paid advertisements in the new year,” he said. “But in the meantime we are doing a lot of social media.
Presidential campaigns getting in on the action
The Senate race is hardly the only race where digital ads are making an impression.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich – as well as a political action committee that supports him – are also using web ads to get his message out. Earlier this month, they released a series of web ads bashing GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump. And Cassino said Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republicans Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush have been among the leaders in online messaging.
Benjamin Bates, an associate professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University, said many campaigns are relying on cheap viral videos to advance their cause.
When Trump gave out former rival South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham's cell phone number for example, Graham posted a cheap video of him breaking that phone in a variety of imaginative ways. Such an ad, said Bates, costs little, but gets a lot of attention. So too did a similar ad featuring Cruz imitating characters from the TV cartoon "The Simpsons."
“You want something catchy,” he said.
Those efforts aren’t just centered on YouTube. He notes that a Clinton request for students to describe their student loans in “three emojis or less” was also popular, and “cost her intern maybe 30 seconds of typing.”
But the effectiveness of the ads is to be seen.
Justin Holmes, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa, studied the dynamic, testing college students. He found that “people who aren’t interested in politics will do almost anything not to have to look at politics.”
“I had college students reading about family vacations to the Wisconsin Dells,” rather than read about politics, he said.
The ads are “cheap,” he said, and “relatively easy,” but it’s unclear yet if they work – particularly on a nation that is increasingly fragmented in their viewing habits.
“That’s kind of the Catch-22 of this I guess,” he said. “Because the audience is so fragmented, because they are just bombarded with advertising, because it’s cheap, there’s certainly incentive to do this. But because it’s ubiquitous, I don’t think it’s particularly effective.”
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