The action wasn't just at Nats Park last night for DC area campaign professionals. While the Nationals and Dodgers slugged it out in Game 5 of the NLDS, cable ads from the Yes on Prop 61 campaign (a California drug pricing measure) caught the attention of media consultants who debated the merits of the spots on Facebook.
For Matthew Dybwad of TubeMogul, it was a classic case of wasted spend:
That drew a reaction from Democratic media consultant Bud Jackson of the Jackson Group Media, and others.
The lengthy exchange offers a nice window into the still simmering tensions between digital and traditional media spend. We've highlighted some key bits below:
The debate over digital versus traditional spend in the campaign industry has been raging for more than two presidential cycles now even as the adoption of digital tactics has steadily increased.
An estimate last summer from Borrell and Associates predicted digital political ad spend would top $1 billion for the 2016 cycle—still only a fraction of the total estimated political spend.