If buyers thought Montana’s media market was saturated in recent cycles, wait until they get to Pennsylvania in October.
Between a targeted Senate race, competitive House races and the state being a must-win for both major party presidential campaigns, it’s going to be a media deluge, strategists told C&E.
“You could have 10 groups all buying at the exact same time, millions of dollars,” Ryan Meerstein, a managing partner at GOP digital shop Targeted Victory, told C&E. “And you’re a targeted congressional race and you have to figure out how to deliver a message in that market, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to break through at all.”
Rather than innovation from the presidential buying teams, Meerstein said it could actually be down-ballot strategists working with tighter budgets in Pennsylvania and other targeted states who become the tip of the strategic spear this cycle.
“That’s where I think we’re going to see some of the most interesting things happen,” he said. “People will be forced to try different things as opposed to feeling the pressure to just go back and do the same thing that they always do.”
Of course it’s not just Pennsylvania that will see excessive ad spending in 2024. Nevada, Arizona, Ohio and Michigan could face a varying degree of the same conditions. As a result, there’s “no margin for error” when it comes to your creative or its execution, according to Shripal Shah, a Democratic consultant who’s now IE director for House Majority PAC.
Shah noted that broadcast was going to be a vertical where campaigns and PACs are going to get “priced out pretty quickly,” so digital investment will be larger than in previous cycles. As a result, he added, “we need to be ready and willing to be flexible and experiment.”
“Maybe there’s some younger folks on your team and they are willing to give us some ideas. If they’re our target audience, we probably need to be listening to them and be comfortable giving them a larger voice at the table.”
