How Brands Should Navigate Their Ad Strategy In The 2024 Election

The political landscape is more polarized than ever and with another political cycle now in full swing, advertising messaging and strategies are more critical than ever before for marketers to ensure brand safety. It was in April 2023, less than one year ago, that one Instagram post from transgender influencer Dylan Mulraney, announcing a partnership with Bud Light, triggered a product boycott placing the best-selling beer front and center in the culture wars. Within months of the Instagram post, sales of Bud Light dropped by 28%. Other mainstream brands also caught in the maelstrom in today’s political discourse included Disney, TargetTGT +1.3%, M&M’s and Chick-fil-A.

With the contentious 2024 political season now in full stride, Forrester, a research and advisory company, recently issued a report How To Advertise In An Election Year, highlighting the four challenges marketers will be confronting in the 2024 election. They are costs, evolving regulations, the consumer and emerging technologies. Forrester points out 82% B2C marketing executives in the U.S., have concerns about marketing their brands during this year’s presidential election cycle.

The co-author of Forrester’s report, Principal Analyst Audrey Chee-Read, said: “2024 is already showing itself to be the most expensive advertising year election-wise. But it's not just prices that brands should account for. Emerging technology carries unseen destructive potential for brands, including a noticeable uptick in the amount of instances involving deepfakes, robocalling, and bad actors who misuse genAI tools. The idea that “this won’t happen to me” is wishful thinking in today’s political landscape. Despite their best intentions, brands can become collateral damage if they don’t take proactive measures this election cycle.”

eMarketer projects U.S. political ad spending in 2024 to total a record $12.32 billion, surpassing the $10 billion threshold for the first time. Political ad spending for the 2020 elections totaled $9.57 billion. The 2022 mid-term elections were a record $9.97 billion. Political advertising will account for 4.3% of total U.S. marketing dollars of $392 billion spent this year. In their findings, Forrester, sourcing Pew Research, found during the 2020 election that 55% of U.S. social media users had been fatigued by political posts, up from 16% in 2016. Forrester believes it won’t take much for consumers to be even more worn out by political ads this year.

As witnessed by Bud Light and other brands, political allegiances can play a factor with consumers and brand loyalty. While there are a number of polarizing political issues this year, in their report, Forrester says most consumers would prefer a separation from products and politics. Last September, a survey found just 21% of U.S. online adults want brands to take a political position or issue. Younger and consumers more liberal in their political viewpoints are more likely to want or expect a brand to take a stance on an issue. With such strong political opinions, marketers would be better off using creative messaging that provides viewers with a break from politics.

The political messaging from candidates, interest groups and PAC’s this year will be using up commercial inventory, typically available to brands. As a result, the tighter inventory is expected to drive up the cost of advertising to an all-time high. Compared to the 2020 election cycle, Forrester projects ad costs will grow by 13%. (The Paris Summer Olympics will also impact ad pricing.) Hence, marketers will have to increase their ad budget to maintain the same media weight they had in previous years.

Going on hiatus or cutting back your ad messaging during the election year is a short-sided media strategy. Also, marketers should not alter their strategy by loading up on ads earlier in the year to avoid the onslaught of political messages just prior to the election.

Looking at digital media channels, most have put restrictions on political advertising. For example, with the exception of TikTok, all major social media networks (Meta, Reddit, Snap and X) allow for political ads, but all of them require identity verification. (Mandating political ads be labeled for any use of genAI or any synthetic content in their videos, images and audio.) Also, Meta will not allow any political ads in the week leading up to Election Day.

Among the four larger ad networks, only Google Ads (Display, Google Play, Shopping and Search) require identity verification. Amazon Ads, AppleAAPL +1.5% and MicrosoftMSFT 0.0% all prohibit political advertising. With restrictions or outright political advertising bans on a number of digital outlets, they can offer opportunities for marketers to allocate a portion of their marketing dollars on the networks free from political messaging.

Also, for the 2024 election, every prominent subscription-based streamer will have an ad supported tier. Forrester reports that most (Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, Pluto and Spotify) have implemented a restricted policy on accepting political ads this year. Only Max and YouTube will allow political ads. The political advertising policy of Disney+ was unavailable. Marketers may look into allocating a greater portion of their ad budget on these digital platforms that prohibit or have restrictions on political ads.

There is still no government laws regulating social media misinformation or the continued impact of genAI on advertising. Forrester notes the need for marketers to stay vigilant as the policy of genAI on media properties can change by media property, on a state-by-state basis, etc.

For marketers, newer media opportunities from emerging technology have the potential to wreak havoc by fraudsters, fakers and other “bad actors”. Forrester notes in previous elections, the introduction of robocalling and ad targeting, while widely used in political ads, can also been used for nefarious purposes. For example, shortly after the launch of Apple's iPhone 15, the product was impacted by a deepfake ad promoting a “giveaway” of $1. Forrester reported 73% of B2C marketing executives have concerns their brand will be appropriated or misused.

Kate Meissner of Velocity Partners told Forrester, while there will be pitfalls this election year marketers should be diligent, staying within their guidelines, avoiding risks such as untested new media or unknown opportunities while avoiding any political discourse.

Forrester recommends brands should employ a task force to monitor media and to be assiduous. Also, have knowledge of your brand’s vulnerabilities and risks. Setting up brand safety guidelines when evaluating media allocation can work toward offering a safe environment.

Source: Forbes