Since Michael Bloomberg’s entrance in the presidential primary, traditional logic on political spending has gone out the window. As an insights agency, we found that Bloomberg’s political strategy has been typified by spending money and spending more money. He quickly gained top tier status because of a strategy focused on Super Tuesday states and the ability to spend more than the rest of the field combined.
Digital Advertising Intelligence
Bloomberg’s monopoly on spending and near-blanket coverage is quite apparent on digital platforms like Facebook and Google. These arenas allow campaigns to target specific segments of the population and encourage the user to directly interact with a campaign’s ad, providing the campaign with list building means, electorate feedback, and fundraising ability. While Bloomberg isn’t utilizing these tools to fundraise, digital advertising allows him to directly interact with the groups most likely to support his ideas and groups who may be on the fence.
Advertising Data: Frequency Matters
One aspect of Bloomberg’s media dominance has been his ability to reach large swaths of users on Facebook and Google platforms. With a big budget like his, data advertising intelligence is not harnessed as precisely and he doesn’t have to be as hyper-selective about who he targets as compared to some of his budget-conscious opponents. Since the middle of December, Bloomberg has at least tripled the rest of the Democratic field in terms of reach, as we are defining by estimated impressions on Google/FB. In media, impressions can be defined as any interaction that a user has with a given piece of advertisement. Advertising data has shown that the number of times a Bloomberg ad is seen by an individual can be up to 24 times higher than ads from the rest of the field. This impression advantage is likely a major contributing factor to Bloomberg’s skyrocket the polls and name recognition charts. Bloomberg is blanketing the airwaves, and is also making a concerted effort to populate voters’ social media feeds. Take a look at his reach vs. the rest of the field:
