Katz Television Group released the first of four comprehensive reports designed to help advertisers build campaigns and reach their target audiences more effectively. The Local Vote 2016 is a 12-week research initiative that combines voters’ political views and voting preferences by state just weeks prior to key primary elections. “You can call it an in-time insight,” […]
Katz Television Group released the first of four comprehensive reports designed to help advertisers build campaigns and reach their target audiences more effectively.
The Local Vote 2016 is a 12-week research initiative that combines voters’ political views and voting preferences by state just weeks prior to key primary elections.
“You can call it an in-time insight,” said Stacey Schulman, Katz’s EVP of strategy, analytics and research.
“That’s what this study is attempting to do, get at the most current opinions, how the races are looking, issues that people care about, what media they care about.”
The states included in the study (Colorado, Texas, Virginia, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) were selected because they are expected to have competitive presidential, gubernatorial, senate and congressional races.
The good news for local broadcasters is that ‘the majority of voters agree that local TV news is more appropriate for political advertising than all other potential sources of video, including the internet, social and mobile.’
Schulman said this finding comes up over and over again.
“That’s the moment of the day when I stop doing all the other things that I have to do and I’m actually focused on what issues are out there, what’s relevant in my community. When people want to make a decision on who should represent them, they ultimately want somebody who understands what they’re dealing with day in and day out. Local news is the place where all that comes to the surface.”
The Local Vote 2016 research initiative is designed to help political advertisers effectively use media to engage the local electorates during a crucial decision-making time for voters.
And according to the research, “local broadcast and TV news outpace other TV alternatives (cable news and entertainment) in reaching opportunity voters.”
“In an election,” said Schulman, “you want to be able to speak to very specific audiences that you’re trying to influence, but you also have that undecided opportunity. The great thing about television is it allows you to do both of those things: It is extremely broad, but it can also be used to target very specific audiences.”
In this first data release, Katz took a close look at voters’ media preferences and behaviors across three important states in the March 1st Super Tuesday lineup — Colorado, Texas and Virginia.
The data revealed one out of three voters is still undecided about either their candidate choice or whether to even go to the polls on Super Tuesday.
Seven key issues are driving the most influence on candidate selection, but are prioritized differently for voters according to state and party lines. These issues are: Healthcare, the economy, gun control/gun rights, jobs, national security, government spending and immigration.
And multiple television dayparts (not just news) offer a high density, political target audience for campaigns.
“Next week,” said Schulman, “we’re releasing another set of data on all five states that are part of the March 15 primary.”
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