$8.8 Billion in Midterm Political Ad Spending: a Bipartisan Bust
INDIANAPOLIS, Dec. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Convince & Convert, a boutique digital marketing and customer experience consultancy, says that despite a record $8.8 billion in political advertising during the midterms, ads were only the seventh most influential driver of voter behavior.
That's a lot of dough: enough to support a heck of a lot of school improvements, fill a plethora of potholes or provide much-needed services for returning veterans.
It's not a huge stretch to say that political advertising is largely wasted on Americans under 40.
Word of mouth—online and offline—impacts every business, organization, candidate, and cause. As the oldest form of recommendation, it may be more important than ever, according to the statistics and findings in the Chatter Matters: the 2018 Word of Mouth Report, based on extensive, proprietary survey data.
What has a bigger impact on voter behavior? It depends on how old the voter is. Among Baby Boomers, news coverage and personal experience with the candidate are most critical. Millennial voters are influenced 115% more by word of mouth (recommendations by friends and family) than they are by advertising.
And not only is word of mouth a powerful motivating force, among all Americans, word of mouth represents two of their three most popular sources of information when researching purchases (online search engines are the third).
What makes us talk, recommend, buy, and vote? Find out by downloading a free copy of Chatter Matters now. This report was produced by Convince & Convert Consulting, with research firm Audience Audit. It examines word of mouth attitudes of 1,001 randomly selected Americans. The margin of error is approximately +/- 3.1%.
The report is a companion piece to the new book, Talk Triggers: The Complete Guide to Creating Customers with Word of Mouth co-authored by Jay Baer, and Daniel Lemin.
About Convince & Convert
Convince & Convert was founded by Jay Baer in 2008. The company was named to the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in America. Its Social Pros podcast, co-hosted by Baer, has been published every year for eight years, and was named Best Marketing Podcast. The firm has worked with some of the world's most iconic brands, like The United Nations, Cisco, Oracle, Hilton Hotels, The Grand Ole Opry, Bentley and more.
Contact: [email protected]
SOURCE Convince & Convert
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