The end of political TV ads

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TORONTO (NEWS 1130) – Donald Trump’s presidential campaign mostly avoided traditional advertising like TV commercials, instead choosing to focus on social media.

With the next election in BC just shy of six months away, there is considerable speculation over future prime-time TV ads and whether the provincial NDP and BC Liberals may try and run campaigns similar to Trump in that aspect.

“He (Trump) got a younger, maybe slightly younger than middle-aged audience that is connected to the Internet through their cell phones and other devices,” says Dr. Jeffrey Dvorkin, a journalism professor with the University of Toronto Scarborough.

And he says politicians will have taken notice, but likely won’t be able to completely mirror what Trump was able to do.
Dvorkin says the days of reaching voters through prime-time TV ads is becoming a thing of the past, but it won’t happen overnight.

“They (politicians) will probably still have to do it (traditional campaign advertising). But my guess is, that TV stations that rely on political ads as as a source of revenue, may have to look at that in a different way,” says Dvorkin.

“Television stations made as much money in one election cycle as they would make in a two-year period with regular advertising,” says Dvorkin, calling the add a gold mine.

“But I think that’s coming to an end and social media is going to move in.”

Trump was able to key-in on a younger audience, using tools like Facebook and Twitter.

And while BC politicians may be able to match that aspect of his campaign style, no current name has the ability to forego TV ads as Trump did.

“He (Trump) capitalized on his celebrity status with an older, white, television-watching audience. And he used that status to basically get on cable TV for free. Someone estimated that was worth about $150-million of paid advertising.”
Something no current BC politician can claim right now.

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