Marijuana and abortion are helping add fuel to the 2024 media fire. Ad spending this cycle, which was already outpacing 2020, has been revised upward by half a billion dollars.
AdImpact on Tuesday revised its total projection for media spending to $10.7 billion, up from a previous $10.2 billion. Both figures were records for a presidential cycle.
It’s not just the amount of ad spending that’s increasing cycle over cycle. So too are the number of ads being run. Through June 30, AdImpact tallied more than 7.4K unique political TV ads, which is 700 more than 2022 and 2.6K more than 2020 over the same period. As a result, spending through the end of June is also up over 2020, coming in at $3.05 billion compared to $2.54 billion for the previous presidential.
Another noteworthy detail from measurement shop AdImpact’s latest report: digital spending was actually revised downward due to “a slow Presidential primary,” according to the report. No, not CTV/OTT spending, but digital ad spending on Alphabet and Meta’s platforms got dropped from $1.18 billion to $1.12 billion. Meanwhile, radio, cable, CTV and broadcast were all revised upwards.
In fact, broadcast remains the king of all political ad media with $5.35 billion estimated to get spent that way — up from $5.1 billion. CTV is also seeing its share of total spending rise a percent to 14 percent of the total outlay for the cycle.
So where’s the new money going? “In our revised projection, Maryland, Montana, Ohio, and Florida experienced the most significant growth in total spending,” the authors write. That’s due partly to Senate races — and, in some cases, being presidential battlegrounds — and “the potential for abortion-related initiatives to be on the ballot in Maryland and Montana also significantly increased their projected spending totals.” Meanwhile, Florida has abortion and marijuana initiatives on the ballot this November.
Of the total spend, $2.68 billion will go toward deciding the White House, $2.15 billion control of the Senate, $1.79 billion for control of the House, $469 million for governors’ mansions, and $3.59 billion for down-ballot races.
And for those voters weary of already seeing so many political ads — we’re looking at you Pennsylvania ($360M in presidential ad spending), Arizona ($299M in presidential ad spending) and Georgia ($244M in presidential ad spending) — brace yourselves. This is only the beginning. “Historically, nearly 70% of political spending occurs between July 1st and Election Day.”
