Paid Media Trends: Political Season

Jenny: Hi! Welcome to today’s episode of We Are, Marketing Happy, A Healthcare Marketing Podcast. I’m your host, Jenny Bristow, and I’m also the CEO and Founder at Hedy & Hopp, a full service, fully healthcare marketing agency. I am so excited today to have our very own Miranda Ochsner with us. She is Hedy & Hopp’s Director of Paid Media, and we are here today to do our part two of our two-part series of talking about the shifting media landscape.

So Miranda, politics, politics is not something we want to talk about on a podcast. No, but as you’re planning media for 2026, unfortunately we always have to be thinking about outside forces that may impact our plans and this year is midterms. So give us an update kind of what’s happening and what should we be expecting? 

Miranda: Sure. So it’s going to be a wild one, Jenny. So, in 2024, from what we can, what we’ve selected from a total political ad spend, that was presidential was over $10 billion, I believe the figure came in at like 10.53 plus billion. That is a lot of money. Like that is a ton of money for a presidential. As we’re looking at midterms this year, the projection already is $10 billion.

And that is just for midterm elections. So that’s why I’m like, this is wild because of what we were spent for a presidential, a very big presidential election, if I might add. We’re in midterms now and it’s going to be as much, if not more, when it’s all said and done. So it’s something we have to keep in mind because it’s going to affect placement on TV.

Are we doing local radio? Are we going to have to like prebuy spots so we don’t get preempted? What’s it going to do to our CPM cost for points? All of those different pieces we have to keep in mind, because it’s really, really going to affect the video component of kind of the media landscape as well as more of those local channels specific to, you know, broadcast TV, radio. I think a big thing that we just have to really like, keep in mind, as we’re looking at this is, it’s going to start picking up here, right?

Like we had just had an election yesterday in Illinois. And it’s like, cool, here comes the next round of this. And it’s only going to continue to pick up. And you know each state’s a little bit different. So truly understanding kind of what those flight weeks and whatnot look like. You know in the different in the different states across the board.

But there are certain periods of time where we’re going to be like, we should not even look at this week because it’s going to be so noisy in the market around politics. We do not want the message to get lost. Or, hey, maybe let’s scale back a little bit. You know, we definitely we definitely want to make sure we’re out there and whatnot.

But at the end of the day, if we’re running TV during the three, you know, three busiest weeks leading up to a midterm, there’s a good chance your spots might not run, or you might get preempted and run over midnight and ratings won’t be good. So it’s all of those different pieces we have to keep in mind, as we’re kind of looking at a media strategy and outlining that.

Jenny: So for our listeners, here at Hedy & Hopp, we work with, large multi-state, health systems, and we do both traditional and digital buying. So for those listeners that are only really familiar with digital, I think this is kind of a good educational for how traditional works. So something that is very interesting for folks that are new to traditional is kind of the concept of being bumped.

So talk about that, right? You can have the most beautiful plan in the world put together, and you can have everything out there. And then the sky basically comes falling down, right? Like talk to us about what happens. 

Miranda: You can have the most beautifully built TV and radio play, and sliding among audiences is perfect. Reaches. Everything’s perfect. Right?

And then political comes in and they get first, right? So they can come in and buy up all the inventory and we’ll boot it. No matter if we plan two weeks in advance, two months in advance, a year in advance, it they come in, and we either have to pay what they’re going to pay or pay over, but they always get that firstright.

So, for example, we were working on a campaign in Wisconsin for the presidential election for TV, and they’re like the market believe it was Milwaukee. They’re like, someone just came in and dropped $45 million in TV and radio, and we’re having a bump X, Y, and Z, and we’re like, what? What what? That’s a lot of money these last two weeks.

But it’s also like, they have the money. They get the first right to do that. Especially when it comes to political season, all of that is prepaid because, politicians have to come—we don’t have to prepay, thank goodness—but, you know, from a political stance, they have to come in and prepay. So they are buying up any and all inventory that they can on those local channels, which will either take our beautiful, perfect schedule that we put together and move us to different, different day parts potentially.

So if we’re buying morning news, right, 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and they come in and buy all that inventory up, they could bump us to midday, they could bump us to evening news, or they could bump us to, overnights, which I don’t want to be on overnights. We want to be on the highly rated programs. Right?

So there’s a few different ways to, that we kind of combat that. Obviously scaling back the TV or kind of looking at our day part mix specifically on TV or radio. You know, we know that drive times are going to be a little bit more competitive. So can we look at maybe midday or like a 7 to 8 slot.

So really truly understanding how to pull those levers. But also planning early if we know that those weeks, for example, the “peak weeks” are what we call them, if they’re going to be insanely higher, let’s scale back those weeks and maybe front load a week or two prior so we don’t get lost in the noise before it’s a busy few weeks before that, before the election itself.

Jenny: And then, for those that don’t know, explain to our listeners what happens if you’re bumped.

Miranda: You’re either bumped to a different slot or you’re just don’t run at all, which is not fun. 

Jenny: Exactly. And then you get a credit or have to replace, and then you have to scramble to try to figure out where you’re going to put the funds.

So one of the things that I really love about the way that you and your team handle media planning during times like this is really having contingency planning in place where we really think about what other channels, maybe more high intent media we can purchase other digital channels, we have more control over the placement and making sure that we’re perhaps pulling back on those more local spans, for digital during that period and then going back in after the fact.

So it really can kind of reduce that chaos. You’re still likely going to see some chaos nowadays with how big it has become.

Miranda: Yeah for sure. I mean, the big players are local, right? Because you’re wanting to stay local. But we’ve, we’ve seen a shift in the last few elections of being a little bit more digital, happening specifically on that video front, you know, like online video, CTV.

I believe they’re projecting anywhere from a 20-50% increase in CPMs for some of our larger, more competitive markets for these midterms. When it comes to CPMs and cost, specifically for those video channels. So we always want to have this approach of, we don’t just want to put all of our eggs in one basket or just in certain channels.

We really want to diversify our channels depending on what that goal looks like. So if we know video is important and we know video is a crucial part, can we be looking at different social channels like how we’re deploying it? Is it a different is it a younger audience like is if it’s a split audience, right, of like a 25 to 40 and then a 45 plus?

Do we put the 45 plus more in Facebook side of Meta and then pull back on them on Instagram and vice versa? Between the audience split? So we’re really kind of dissecting the different channels, the mixes, how we’re, how we’re utilizing the assets that we might potentially already have, but also really honing in on how do we prioritize those high and turn those high intent, excuse me, channels like paid search. Those are stable.

Those are effective. Of course, the bids are going to be a little bit higher, but the inventory is there because it’s all that the demand of what people are searching in when they’re searching. 

Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. So from a budgeting perspective, you’re likely going to get less than you would normally, but you will feel more confident that it’s still going to run compared to TV or radio.

Miranda: Quality. It’s about the quality of the placement when we’re really looking at it. I mean, we love to see spots out there and definitely maximizing our reach and frequency when it comes to those traditional channels. But if we have the opportunity to spend a dollar or two more on a CPM or $0.50 more on a CPM, and we know that we’re going to run and we’re, you know, we’re following our brand safety and we’re not around those negative topics or conversation.

There’s all the outside noise. Like that’s where we want to be. And we’re, you know, we’re paying for that premium. But also it’s a quality spot to hit the exact audience we want to hit. 

Jenny: I love it, Miranda, thank you so much for coming in both last week and this week. It’s really helpful to help our listeners keep their fingers on the pulse of what’s happening when it comes to paid media.

Miranda: Yes. Thank you for having me. 

Jenny: So for listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. Please share this episode with any of your colleagues that may find it valuable, especially if you have not yet accounted for political season in your media planning. Way better than mandating after the fact. So, start planning. Especially, like Miranda said, with those small local races that may be happening sooner rather than later if they aren’t already.

So share it. Like and subscribe. We drop new episodes usually every Friday. If you have any topic ideas of things you want us to cover, give us a holler on social media. We’d love to hear your ideas. We’re always taking requests. So thank you so much for tuning in today to this episode of We Are, Marketing Happy.

We will see you again on a future episode! Cheers!