With less than one week away from what will surely go down as one of the country’s most historic Presidential elections, your TVs are likely being bombarded with political ads. And it’s not just Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Many local candidates are investing tens of thousands of dollars in TV advertising to make their voices heard. While TV is one of the best platforms for political candidates to get their messages across, many local candidates have made the mistake of getting it out to too many people who won’t be able to vote for them.
I know that a candidate has made this mistake when I see an ad that I shouldn’t. Lately, while working out at Planet Fitness in Hoboken, I’ve been seeing ads for a woman running for Congress in Long Island, NY. Because this candidate is not on my ballot in Hudson County, NJ, my eyeballs on this ad cannot help her get elected.
As a media professional, I was able to pinpoint the issue immediately. I looked to see which channel this candidate was advertising on and it was ABC. When you purchase local broadcast, you are covering an entire Designated Market Area. The New York City DMA covers everywhere from North Central New Jersey to Southern Connecticut but this candidate only needed to reach people within parts of Long Island. A more effective solution would have been local cable. Unlike local broadcast, a local cable TV buy allows advertisers to target specific zones that cover only a handful of zip codes.
Every time this ad reaches me, it generates one of millions of wasted impressions. Wasted impressions are wasted ad dollars and at JS Media, we ensure your ad dollars are put to the best use.
