The rise in political adspend

Patrick Fenton, VP of Media Strategy at Just Global, says: “Projected spend on advertising across the board for 2024's election campaign is expected to be the largest in history. It always is, but this year's is predicted to be a whopping 30% increase on the 2020 election.”

When it comes to political advertising, legacy channels tend to be popular as parties look to reach the broadest audiences, which bucks the trend seen generally and the move towards more digital channels. 

Fenton adds: “Interestingly, unlike the general trend in advertising in the US, the majority is looking like it will go on traditional TV advertising. With malaise kicking in with this election and voters seeming disinterested in it altogether, this could be to generate some broad awareness. It could also be linked to more awareness around misinformation, and general mistrust of other advertising platforms going into this election.”

Kate Scott-Dawkins, global president, business intelligence at GroupM, says that the advertising channels used “still depends to a certain extent on the market”. 

“[For example], there are markets in Africa where we will hear of traditional out-of-home or radio campaigns,” she explains. “In India, traditional advertising tends to be quite TV heavy. Whereas regions like Latin America are increasingly shifting to digital, and we’re likely to see that in India too soon.”

Scott-Dawkins believes that “as the general market shifts to digital, we will see a similar trend within political advertising”, which is already being seen in the US and many European markets. In the US, it is estimated that by 2028, $9.3bn political ad revenue will flow to digital platforms as well as a further $2bn to CTV. 

In GroupM’s report, Scott-Dawkins states: “The immediacy and scale of digital platforms and the integration of AI-powered ad creation tools mean that more experimentation and attention are likely to follow the shift in political ad revenue to digital channels, with spend on influencers potentially difficult to track and regulate in some markets.”

Under scrutiny: why social media is still an attractive channel

One of the most notable shifts in political advertising has been the use of social media as a channel to target voters. However, in recent years it has also come under scrutiny over content moderation and data privacy.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal – one of the biggest examples of performance marketing gone wrong – is a driving factor behind some of the tighter regulations coming into effect in the EU and the US. In a nutshell, the company acquired the personal data of up to 87 million Facebook users – users who had not explicitly given consent to Cambridge Analytica to access this information. 

The company used data such as user likes to apply psychographic analytics (the study of consumers based on psychological characteristics), which it claimed could determine an individuals’ personality type. It could then micro-target messages to influence their behaviour, such as who they vote for in an election.

According to an undercover investigation by Channel 4 News, the company’s then CEO Alexander Nix was captured on video boasting about using prostitutes, bribery and honey traps to discredit politicians. Cambridge Analytica was also accused of having interfered with a number of elections including the Brexit referendum in the UK and the 2016 US presidential election.

In a now privacy-first era, consumers are more conscious of not only who they share their data with; but what they are viewing on social media platforms including Facebook, TikTok, Snap. 

Therefore, in a ‘super election year’, given the potential reputation risk of using social media, why is it still a growing medium for political advertising?

“The temptation to produce vast quantities of adverts at scale may be too much for more cynical actors to resist,” Dan Moseley, managing director, North America at Automated Creative. “We've had astro-turfing, Cambridge Analytica, bot-farms, deep fakes and more in elections since the social media era began. 

“The risk of voter manipulation is real and ever present; the glimmer of hope is that tech is being also used to flag fakery, manipulation, mistruths and more. It's a delicate balance.”

The broad reach of social media, coupled with its lower cost, makes it an attractive channel for marketers and one of the reasons why it has been used considerably in political campaigns by major parties.