Papers May Enjoy Political Ad Windfall

By: Lucia Moses (Mediaweek) Pennsylvania, which George W. Bush barely lost in 2000, is among 17 battleground states that are expected to be flooded with political advertising -- and Christine Hutkin plans to be ready when that happens.

Hutkin, national ad manager for Calkins Media's three suburban Philadelphia dailies, has been learning who's who in state political campaign consulting and who's running for which offices, and making sure political advertisers are aware of her papers' entire portfolio of products, not just ROP (run of press). The category traditionally has contributed little to nothing to newspapers, but Hutkin believes political represents an opportunity. "We didn't get anything in the last national campaign, so we have nowhere to go but up," she says.

Most political ad dollars will be spent on television; $807 million went to TV ads in the last presidential election year, versus an estimated $30 million spent in newspapers. But some political media consultants, ad buyers and newspaper executives contend that newspapers could double that take or better this year.

Here's why: The front-runner candidates are raising money at a brisk clip, and if the pace continues, they'll be looking for places to spend it. Candidates are expected to spend as much as $1.3 billion on TV ads in the top 100 markets this year, the Campaign Media Analysis Group projected, a figure that would shatter spending records.

"They're going to have limited places to put the money, and newspapers don't have the same restrictions as radio and TV have," says national Democratic political consultant Joseph Mercurio. "There's a very good possibility that newspaper advertising could explode this year."

With donations to political parties now limited, money is being re-channeled to new independent groups such as MoveOn.org that are exempt from the donor-disclosure or contribution-limit requirements affecting the parties and political action committees. In general, these "527 groups" -- so named for a section of the tax code -- can't air TV or radio ads 60 days before the general election.

Will newspapers be players this year?

"Newspapers definitely have a play, because they're exempt from campaign financing," says Patti Heck, president of Crossroads Media in Alexandria, Va., a media-buying firm that handled $7 million in pro-business advertising in 2002. In short, money will be plentiful this fall, and a significant amount may be shut out of broadcast media.

It also can't hurt that, for the first time, the newspaper industry is aggressively promoting itself as an effective way to communicate political messages.

In a bipartisan survey of 1,200 registered voters last summer on behalf of the trade group the Newspaper Association of America, voters ranked newspapers second, behind TV, as most helpful in helping them make up their minds on how to vote in state and local elections. But they also trusted political ads in newspapers more than those in radio and TV. Undecided voters also were found to be highly likely to be newspaper readers.

The association packaged the research with 50 of the best print political ads it could find, then sent them to 100 political consultants. The NAA also has been presenting the message at conferences and symposiums attended by media consultants, and letting them know that newspaper ads are more than just ROP and preprints.

"We all have Web sites, we do Post-It notes on the front, we do polybags," says Jack Brady, director of marketing and advertising for the NAA. "It's a matter of telling them what we can do."

Predictions hard to come by

With all these new factors potentially affecting campaign spending, the few willing to predict their impact on newspapers do so with qualifiers. Financial analysts aren't factoring political print advertising into their newspaper models for 2004 at all, given that political print ads accounted for less than 1% of all newspaper-industry ad revenue in 2000.

"I think it would be a great success if they gained $50 million," says longtime newspaper analyst Kevin Gruneich with Bear Stearns. "The upside is nearly infinite, because we're coming off such a small base."

With the NAA's marketing push, along with campaign finance reform and the candidates' desire to get back to grassroots, newspapers could "double the amount of linage" garnered in 2000, ventures veteran GOP media consultant Tom Edmonds. "If newspapers are excited and make a more concerted effort, and if candidates see other candidates in newspapers, I think they have nowhere to go but up," says Edmonds, president of Edmonds Hackney and Associates in Washington, D.C., which has been helping the NAA get the ear of other political consultants.

The NAA's Brady wouldn't make a prediction. But, he says, "If we don't move [our share] 1 [percent], I would be a little bit disappointed."

Individually, some papers in battleground states have been mobilizing to boost their share of political ad dollars, often by direct mailing and meeting with campaign consultants. The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune started contacting top political media agencies two years ago and this spring plans to pitch them, using the NAA's voter research.

"I am probably more optimistic than I've ever been," says Bruce Faulmann, the Tribune's vice president of advertising. After getting zilch in national ad dollars in the last presidential election, he says, "I would be ecstatic if we did a quarter of a million in national advertising."

In Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is dedicating salespeople to political advertising and arming them with research that suggests newspaper ads talking about issues can influence voters. The Pennsylvania Newspaper Association has been promoting print to political strategists of both parties, says Randy Graf, vice president of advertising, noting that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has already placed a number of newspaper ads at discounted rates. "We're frankly quite optimistic that this is going to be the year for newspapers," he says.

The print image problem

Yet it will take more than one election season to improve newspapers' image problem. Say "newspapers," and many campaign consultants think declining circulation, difficulty in placing ads in multiple papers simultaneously, and gouging rates. Since political ads don't fit neatly in an ongoing ad category, papers often charge the highest rate possible for them -- the one-time, national rate. And just as campaigns aren't structured to think about print advertising, newspaper sales staffs aren't set up to sell to the campaigns.

"They're usually not as cost-effective," Mercurio says. "There are lead-time problems. You can't control what part of the paper you're in. You often don't have very large audiences."

"Local campaigns will still buy newspaper ads, but for large campaigns, the newspaper is not as competitive on a cost-per-thousand basis when you compare it to broadcast," says Robin Roberts, founder of National Media Inc. in Alexandria, Va., and a 25-year GOP media buyer.

If campaigns do buy print, it's increasingly in the form of direct mail, which can be more targeted than the newspaper, Roberts says. Meanwhile, the growing audience of cable TV, others note, is attracting more political ads to that medium.

Newspapers' newsgathering and agenda-setting role also hurts them with candidates. "The worst enemy of the newspapers is their editorial page," Gruneich says.

But probably hardest to overcome is the belief that sound and motion can sway emotions in a way print cannot. "It's a matter of television being sexier. You're reaching very large numbers of people very rapidly," Mercurio says.

Legendary political campaign creator Tony Schwartz, whose 1964 "daisy ad" for Lyndon Johnson's campaign is considered one of the most effective TV ads ever made, says the spot's lesson is still relevant today.

"There are ways of using any medium creatively," says Schwartz, who created the media campaigns for more than 200 candidates and now consults and lectures. "But in general, radio and television [ads have more impact] because they're working with the ear, their sound goes out to people, and they don't have to look in the newspaper to see the ad. They can be in the car with the radio on, and something can come on and just affect them."

The love affair with broadcast frustrates publishers such as The Seattle Times' Frank Blethen. "These people will do anything to get their names in the paper, and they're wasting [money] on people who don't vote," he complains of candidates. "The consultants all want to use television, and the media buyers, to them, television is glitzy, television is exciting."

Yet Brady sees a shift that could benefit newspapers. He hears that consultants are growing weary of TV. "Broadcast wars are not working. You've got to look at alternatives. I think we, as an industry, offer lots of ways to do it. Our medium is not intrusive."

Issue advertising and local campaigns

For the time being, though, newspapers see their biggest potential in issue groups and local and state campaigns, which have accounted for most print political advertising in the past.

Issue advertising -- which accounted for about half of all political spending in 2000, according to the Alliance for Better Campaigns -- is showing up more in print. Crossroads has doubled its issue spending in print in state races this year over 2002, albeit from a tiny base.

Edmonds also is increasingly placing print ads for clients like the National Federation of Independent Business, Americans for Job Security and the National Rifle Association. When Wisconsin's governor vetoed a concealed weapons bill earlier this year, Edmonds placed ads supporting the bill in the newspaper and on radio the next day -- messages that, he believes, helped convince state senators to override the veto. The state Assembly later sustained the veto, but Edmonds says the story illustrates that newspapers can be easy to work with -- and that newspaper ads work.

When it comes to national political, though, expectations drop even lower.

In Ohio, another battleground state, Michael Curtin, associate publisher of Dispatch Printing Co.'s Columbus Dispatch, doesn't expect to benefit from the heightened attention. "We're seeing a ton of advertising on the airways in Ohio, but we've never seen much newspaper advertising, and I wouldn't expect to see much this year," Curtin says. "I think we have a case to make, but almost every political handler I know says TV ads move the numbers."

Todd Brownrout, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., parent of The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News, was similarly guarded. "Newspapers always go in with a great degree of optimism and have never been able to break through," he says. Still, he offered a bit of hope. "It looks like a very tight TV market," he says, "so some folks are going to be more willing to listen."