Thursday, September 5, 2013

The Power Of Political Advertising Agencies

By Helene Norris


Advertising agencies are organisations who handle the creation, planning and delivery of marketing for their clients. They often do any other promotional work which may be required. Political advertising agencies specialise in doing this work for parties or candidates. They take charge of messaging and the presentation of those standing for election. They try to influence the way people vote.

Sometimes they try to condense the political message into a powerful slogan. If done well, this can considerably increase a candidate's chance of winning. Famous examples of this include; "Yes We Can", used during Barack Obama's election in 2008. During Ronald Reagan's race to The White House in 1980, his campaign used the powerful slogan; "Let's Make America Great Again". In 1992, Bill Clinton used "It's Time To Change America".

Purchasing media is an important function of any agency. This includes deciding which media would be most effective for the target voters and ensuring the messaging is appropriate. A skilled agency will be experienced in doing this in the business world as well as in politics. If the right media is bought, then the candidate's brand will grow stronger.

A lot of agencies offer a market research service. This is crucial because it enables the candidate to figure out the most appropriate strategy for reaching their target audience. This research will include analysing the targets to see if the proposed strategy will be effective or not . The purpose of the research is to decide which niche groups to focus on and to get a clear idea of their characteristics.

Many agencies offer a video production service to their clients. This tends to include scriptwriters and a full technical crew. They aim for high quality production values. Youtube has become a very popular platform in the last few years, so campaign videos have become a useful way of getting the message across to the public.

Social media marketing is crucial for politicians. This has become especially true in recent times because of the growth of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Generally, an agency will create a complete social media strategy for their clients. If this is done properly then the candidate's message can spread very quickly. This can potentially lead to more votes.

Search engine marketing has also become a useful tool. This can include advertising on Google. The purpose is to drive more traffic to the candidate's website and so increase the number of people exposed to the campaign. The website could be brilliant but if there is no way of getting people to visit it then it will have little impact.

Many companies believe that political advertising agencies have a tough time compared to others in the industry. This is because political campaigns are only alive for a limited period of time, that is up until election day. Consequently, it is difficult to really build a brand. Also, they say that election campaigns are ego driven, they are about the candidates, and so designing clever advertising is a waste of time. On the other hand, agencies can make a lot of money while working on elections.




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