The traditional election advertising ban has begun, meaning no more ads for political parties can be played on radio or tv between now and election day. Aircheck’s advertising analysis shows that the Australian Labor Party spent the most on radio advertising, accounting for 36% of all political advertising on radio between July 19 and yesterday when the ad ban came into force.
The Liberal party accounted for 29%, while politically alligned lobby groups also spent significant amounts to air radio ads. To see the full size pie chart, click the illustration right.
The anomoly in the advertising blackout regulation is that newspapers are free to continue publishing political ads right up to and on election day.
The ban only applies to radio and tv advertisements, not reporting. The rule goes back to a time when regulators thought electronic media were too influential, a convenient viewpoint that suited newspaper proprietor interests at the time. There is no mention of online media because it did not exist when the rules were made. In these days of media savvy consumers and more media platforms, the rules seem out dated.
News and Current Affairs reporting is not affected by these rules and reporting will ramp up to a crescendo on election day when most networks will mount special coverage of the tally room on Saturday evening. Expect to hear the key players from each party being interviewed on any and every radio program they can get on to.
Now that the electronic media ban is in place, parties will use newspapers and other means to get their message across. Push polling phone calls and sms text messages have been used extensively in the past during these last days of the campaign to reinforce party messages to undecided voters. This election, expect also to see ads and increased presence on social networking sites and other online platforms where people gather to chat. Nielsen research reported this week shows Julia Gillard has been more active on social networking sites than Tony Abbott and that she has more facebook friends.
On election day, depending on the weather, look up and check out whether party messages are being delivered via skywriting, as happened last election for Kevin Rudd.
The main parties will spend a significant amount of money in the last few days of the campaign on advertising messages. None of it will be spent on radio.
The full detailed political ad spend by state is illustrated below, courtesy of radioinfo advertiser Aircheck.
