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Fitz launches his first TV ad

Ed Fitzgerald shows off his claw hand

Ed Fitzgerald shows off his claw hand. What is he looking at?

Today, the Fitzgerald campaign launched their first television ad.

It’s OK but pretty bland. He comes off looking like “Opie Taylor for Governor”. Childish and weak. But at least he didn’t come out of the gate going totally negative.

The problem for Ed is that he is buying just 500 points each in two markets: Cleveland and Columbus. Ad buys are measured in points, and the prevailing wisdom these days is that you need a minimum 1000 points just to move the needle in your direction.

From Bloomberg:

Here’s the formula: 1000 points means the average viewer will see the ad 10 times (or half of voters have seen it twenty times). There’s a general consensus that an ad reaches saturation after 1000 points; after that, it encounters a steep slope of diminishing returns.

In the last week of a Senate race, a well-financed campaign could be up with 3000 GRPs, in each of the state’s media markets, with three different ads in rotation.

And The Hill:

Twenty years ago, we said it took 500 points (a measure of an advertisement’s exposure) to get a message across. Generating the same impact today requires 1,200 points or more. Two technological and one social development have combined to eat away at the effectiveness of TV spots.

This $250,000 buy represents 13% of Fitzy’s cash as last reported. That’s a big chunk of your war chest just to underwhelm two markets for a single week.

And why did they choose Cleveland and Columbus? These are the two markets that know him the most. He needs to introduce himself to most of the state. It seems to me that the choice of his hometown Cleveland market is not money well spent.

It’s probably because they KNOW they need to raise a LOT more money, and fast. But it’s hard to get people to donate if you don’t look like you’re even in the race. The fact that the Ohio Democratic Party pushed out another paid, skewed PPP poll this week is also no coincidence. They need to give the false impression that this race is neck and neck, or their supporters simply aren’t going to open their wallets.

Once Governor Kasich starts bombarding Ed with his massive warchest, it’s going to get even worse for the Democrat.

The end of this month will be the next campaign finance reporting deadline. It will be interesting to see if their strategy pays off, or if Ed just falls further and further behind.




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Third Base Politics is an Ohio-centric conservative blog that has been featured at Hot Air, National Review, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and others.

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