(Host) There are estimates that Vermont’s top political campaigns could see spending as high as twenty or twenty-five million dollars this year.
But can all that money be spent effectively, and without alienating the people the advertising is trying to reach?
Paul Kaza Associates has done ad work for Vermont candidates in the past, but is not working for any of the contenders this year.
Kaza says media campaigns on TV are just one tool to reach potential voters, and not necessarily the most effective tool.
(Kaza) “Public opinion is going to be won in the non-paying media, what we refer to in the media business as earned media. It’s going to be won or lost in the dialogues that take place in town halls and in restaurant encounters and in meeting places, and in the news coverage — that’s always the most powerful factor in the scheme of things. That’s what people are really going to be paying attention to, not necessarily the rhetoric of all the advertising that’s out there.”
(Host) Paul Kaza says that political ads on TV can become so concentrated that they actually drive regular advertisers off the air in the last weeks of a campaign.