October 29, 2008

Pols Not Spending On Web

Once again, the hype about online advertising has been proven wrong.

At the beginning of this presidential cycle, pundits were gushing about how the web was where the action would be, and how online advertising would challenge traditional tv ads.

Not even close.

Back in January, a Lehman Brothers forecast predicted that this year candidates would spend as much as $110 million in online advertising.

The actual number? According to media research firm Borrell Associates, the real number is less than $18 million.

Hey, but let's be fair. Lehman was only off by 610%
"We found that most of it was search," said Kip Cassino, Borrell's VP of research... According to Federal Election Commission reports analyzed by ClickZ News, nearly 60 percent of Obama's online ad dollars went towards Google as of August...By the end of her race for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton's camp spent 57 percent of its online ad money on Google. "
So not only is there way less ad money being spent online, the money isn't really going to advertising. It's going to Google...um, I mean, search.

Time to wake up, people. For the most part online display advertising ain't worth shit. Social media, ditto.

Afterthought:
How could the geniuses at Lehman Brothers have been so wrong? Hard to figure.

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