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PR Secrets: Get $10 Million in TV Time—FREE!

How John McCain squandered $6 million

August 21, 2008 By Denny Hatch
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IN THE NEWS

McCain's Olympic Attack Ad and Other TV ADD War Oddities
John McCain's latest attack ad stands out in the upbeat Olympics media environment.
John McCain is running attack ads against Barack Obama during the Olympics telecasts! The first time either party has run major advertising during the Games and one is going all-negative in the midst of all that positive uplift ... What both sides have been doing in the 10 days since then is play TV ADD wars. In other words, cater to the attention deficit disorder of the cable news culture by "launching" multiple TV ads in rapid succession. This is done, as a key McCain advisor acknowledged, to drive "cable news chatter." In other words, the ads are being used largely as video press releases.
-William Bradley, HuffingtonPost.com, Aug. 11, 2008
My wife, Peggy, and I are cable news junkies. We watch network evening news because we've always watched network evening news and it's on when we're making dinner. But it's a dumb habit.

I go back to John Cameron Swayze and the Camel News Caravan-15 minutes of black-and-white news with primitive graphics on NBC at 6 p.m. On Swayze's desk was a Camel cigarette ashtray, so nobody missed who the sponsor was. This was followed by a 15-minute show starring Perry Como and/or Jonathan Winters.

Since then, network news has attained what TV critics call "gravitas," and what I call pomposity.

Fox News with Brit Hume and Shep Smith is a lot faster, a lot more fun and covers many more stories.

But for us, the real action is on cable-a screaming bunch of what Vice President Spiro Agnew called the "nattering nabobs of negativity" endlessly analyzing flyspecks.

The cable news crowd is fun. But in terms of influence on the national scene, cable isn't worth a bucket of warm spit.

About Cable Television News-It's Tiny!
When the Obama campaign announced it was spending $5 million on TV time during the Olympics, the McCain camp decided to spend $6 million.

The Aug. 11 Huffington Post story by William Bradley, "McCain's Olympic Attack Ad and Other TV ADD War Oddities," triggered this piece. Bradley wrote:

What both sides have been doing in the 10 days since then is play TV ADD wars. In other words, cater to the attention deficit disorder of the cable news culture by "launching" multiple TV ads in rapid succession. This is done, as a key McCain advisor acknowledged, to drive "cable news chatter." In other words, the ads are being used largely as video press releases.

Spending millions of dollars on network Olympic coverage in order to get your commercials discussed on cable political talk shows is a total waste of money for two reasons:

1. Cable is tiny. Only one cable political talk show-"The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox, which runs twice a night-reaches more than 2% of 111.4 million TV households in America. Most reach a fraction of 1%. In the world of polls, a 2% difference in results is "within the margin of error." A program that reaches fewer than 2% of households is not a player in the influencing business.

2. Not only does 98% of the electorate not watch these cable news shows, but cable watchers are segmented. Fox preaches to the Conservative choir, pounding home the epic nastiness of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. The Liberal choir sings along with the epic nastiness of Keith Olbermann and stomach-turning smugness of Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. Those in the middle watch the bland leading the bland on "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer, whom you could find at central casting as both the gatekeeper for Dracula's castle and the most boring man on television.

Take Away Points to Consider

* "There are two speeds in modern PR-fast, and dead."
-Michael Levine, author of "Guerrilla P.R. 2.0"

* "Never buy retail."
-Iris Shokoff, ISA Advertising, "Strategic multimedia planning with aggressive, cost-effective buying"

* Great PR is leveraging very little money into publicity and/or sales that would cost millions to buy.

* Don't let the zeal, fun and intensity of creating the initial campaign obscure the zeal, fun and intensity of having in place great follow-up for the suspects, prospects and customers who'll contact you.

* Good follow-up is every bit as important as the initial contact. It closes the loop.

Web Sites Related to Today's Edition

John McCain TV spot accusing Obama of being a celeb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOrmOvHysdU

Paris Hilton's reply to John McCain
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d

Inside story of Paris Hilton's TV riposte to John McCain
http://tinyurl.com/5w9d83

How to upload a Video onto YouTube.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFyIT7rVZ0Q
http://tinyurl.com/56xxbw

How to write a press release
http://www.publicityinsider.com/release.asp
http://www.prwebdirect.com/pressreleasetips.php
http://www.xpresspress.com/PRnotes.html

Cable TV viewership
http://tvbythenumbers.com/
 
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COMMENTS

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Most Recent Comments:
Bob Chenoweth - Posted on August 21, 2008
I agree with S Hood. There really isn't much funny or interesting about retail in election '08. McSame is taking the predictable low road because that is the Republican roadmap, and has been at least since the days of dirty trickster Lee Atwater & George H.W. Bush's election. Obama's high-road responses thus far have been, save for a few good zingers, about as exciting as watching John Kerry's tepid responses to the swift boat ads in '04. Jeez, it's enough to make you wish they would just concentrate on the really boring stuff like the economy, alternative energy sources, endless war in Irag & Afghanistan, Iran, healthcare, and so on. Denny, Bill O?Reilly and Sean Hannity are so clueless, neither could find their you-know-what with both hands and a searchlight. At least Keith Olbermann is entertaining and cerebral. I know you're heartened that MSNBC is giving Rachael Maddow her own cable news show soon, too. Honest! Happy viewing.
Dev.Kinney - Posted on August 21, 2008
Mass media the orgy is consuming us. Paris gets to act like someone with brains and responsibility, and McCain's below the belt ad gets relegated to the David Letterman monologue routine. But maybe it'll do some good. That is unless Putin and Bush get to maintain oil's stranglehold as "ignorant armies clash by night."
S Hood - Posted on August 21, 2008
I've just gotta make one of those U-Tube videos... but there just isn't much funny about retail these days. If these guys are squandering their own campaign money, how will they do with our Tax dollars? I think I might just vote for Paris. (I'm kidding!) --S. Hood.
Jon P - Posted on August 21, 2008
Before the advent of You Tube, Adam McCay would have been one of those guys creating funny TV spots in an ad agency. He might have gone to his boss and said "I have an outrageous idea for a TV spot" before pitching his Paris Hilton idea, and then being shot down by the account guys because there was no way to measure the results of what might happen. Or else they would have said "let?s focus-group the story boards and see what they say.? If all went well, six months later, you'd have had the Paris Hilton video, 5 months, three weeks and 4 days too late to make an impact.
Click here to view archived comments...
Archived Comments:
Bob Chenoweth - Posted on August 21, 2008
I agree with S Hood. There really isn't much funny or interesting about retail in election '08. McSame is taking the predictable low road because that is the Republican roadmap, and has been at least since the days of dirty trickster Lee Atwater & George H.W. Bush's election. Obama's high-road responses thus far have been, save for a few good zingers, about as exciting as watching John Kerry's tepid responses to the swift boat ads in '04. Jeez, it's enough to make you wish they would just concentrate on the really boring stuff like the economy, alternative energy sources, endless war in Irag & Afghanistan, Iran, healthcare, and so on. Denny, Bill O?Reilly and Sean Hannity are so clueless, neither could find their you-know-what with both hands and a searchlight. At least Keith Olbermann is entertaining and cerebral. I know you're heartened that MSNBC is giving Rachael Maddow her own cable news show soon, too. Honest! Happy viewing.
Dev.Kinney - Posted on August 21, 2008
Mass media the orgy is consuming us. Paris gets to act like someone with brains and responsibility, and McCain's below the belt ad gets relegated to the David Letterman monologue routine. But maybe it'll do some good. That is unless Putin and Bush get to maintain oil's stranglehold as "ignorant armies clash by night."
S Hood - Posted on August 21, 2008
I've just gotta make one of those U-Tube videos... but there just isn't much funny about retail these days. If these guys are squandering their own campaign money, how will they do with our Tax dollars? I think I might just vote for Paris. (I'm kidding!) --S. Hood.
Jon P - Posted on August 21, 2008
Before the advent of You Tube, Adam McCay would have been one of those guys creating funny TV spots in an ad agency. He might have gone to his boss and said "I have an outrageous idea for a TV spot" before pitching his Paris Hilton idea, and then being shot down by the account guys because there was no way to measure the results of what might happen. Or else they would have said "let?s focus-group the story boards and see what they say.? If all went well, six months later, you'd have had the Paris Hilton video, 5 months, three weeks and 4 days too late to make an impact.