Campaigns Spend $15 Million on Post-Convention Ads, Mainly in Battlegrounds

New numbers out today from the Wisconsin Advertising Project and CMAG reveal that the candidates spent $15 million dollars on television ad buys in the week after the Republican National Convention, with the two candidates spending roughly equal amounts during that period. The report also says the Obama campaign paid for nearly all (97%) of its advertising itself, while a majority of McCain's ads (57%) were paid for in conjunction with the Republican National Committee.

Not surprisingly, the top 10 battleground states from 2004 pulled the most ad spending during the period -- though McCain focused more of his resources on those battlegrounds than Obama did (58% of total ad spending to Obama's 46%). The Obama campaign has expanded their efforts to expand the Democrats' electoral possibilities to include Virginia, North Carolina, Montana, and a few other states won by George Bush in the last two elections.

The study also provides this interesting nugget:

In line with the expectations of most observers, the campaign has turned more negative since the conclusion of the Republican Convention. In the first week of advertising after the conventions, Obama aired a higher percentage of negative ads than did McCain. 56 percent of the McCain campaign ads were negative, while 77 percent of Obama's ads were negative.

If that seems like a surprising statistic, it's partially because McCain's negative ads have gotten a great deal more attention in the media than Obama's. That owes primarily to the McCain camp's repeated use of debunked claims. The number also has something to do with the project's definition of a negative ad: "any ad where the candidate's opponent was mentioned." In other words, a spot that spends 27 seconds on how great Candidate A is and 3 seconds on what a jerk Candidate B is would be categorized the same way as an ad that spends its entirety bashing Candidate B. So while these stats tell us what percentage of each candidate's ads mentioned the opposition, there's no gradation available as to how negative each campaign's ads were.

But there's another issue at hand as well: as we (and others) have noted, the Obama campaign has a sneaky tendency to release negative advertisements without telling the press. So there are lots of ads that air in local markets that we here in DC never find out about, and therefore don't cover. (That's where you come in, swing-state readers! Tips are always welcome here.)

At the same time, as Politico's Jonathan Martin writes today, both campaigns also create ads that air on TV very little, if at all -- and in fact are more like glorified press releases that rely on the media for circulation.

-- Evie Stone

12:04 PM ET | 09-17-2008 | permalink

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