January 25, 2022
Reputation Analysis in NY CD-22
The Problem: Brand PR teams need to know when their name is in the news, particularly if they are being used as a cudgel in political attack ads. This is what happened in 2020 when a major New York cable company became the subject of a political back-and-forth between Claudie Tenney and Anthony Brindisi during the NY-22 election.
Our Solution: AdImpact used transcription data to monitor political advertisements from the NY-22 race for specific mentions of the cable company. Once related ads were identified, we tracked each occurrence and corresponding spend to give the brand an idea of how often they appeared on air and provide them with the tools to run a reputation analysis on their continued company image after it has become a major point of contention for messaging in this congressional race.
Background: In 2020, Claudia Tenney and Anthony Brindisi faced off for the second time in two years. They both targeted each other with accusations related to a cable company merger from 2016. On August 5, 2020, challenger Claudia Tenney launched an ad accusing sitting representative Anthony Brindisi of taking money from the cable company’s PACs and allowing them to raise rates on multiple occasions. Brindisi responded on August 10, 2020 with an ad accusing Tenney’s campaign of being bankrolled by the cable company and cutting their taxes by $9B when she was in Congress. Ultimately 11 ads mentioning the company aired 12,000 times in this race, worth more than $2M in airtime.
By the Numbers
Analysis: The volume of ads referencing the New York cable company peaked the week of August 30, 2020, totaling $451k worth of advertisements. 50% of these advertisements ran during the three-week period starting on August 30, 2020 and ending on September 19, 2020. From August 5 to November 3, approximately 20% of all television ads in the NY-22 race mentioned the cable company by name. Ad airings were evenly divided between Birmingham (37% of total ads mentioned the cable company), Syracuse (32%) and Utica (30%). The number of times the company was mentioned in the NY-22 race was measurable and significant. The company became a key messaging point between Tenney and Brindisi. Our ad monitoring paired with spending data provided a full picture for the companies PR team, so they could track messages they are mentioned in and regarding their reputation and respond as necessary.
