Campaign Cash Brings a Tide of Money

If you are in advertising or the media in any way, there seems to be a feeling like you haven't felt since 2009. It's a feeling that everything is alright and the market is back to where it belongs. Let's just pray that the feeling lasts. This year's mid term elections threw $4 Billion of media dollars into the market. That is some kind of stimulus. With the corporate dollars now entering the markets, the system was at full capacity. In some markets, the television and radio media had to limit the amount of political ads or else they would gobble up all the inventory. The sheer size of the budgets for political campaigns has become a real issue for the country and our industry. It has been predicted that the upcoming presidential campaigns could throw over a billion dollars into the system.

Now that the campaign dollars have gone through the media markets like a goat through a boa constrictor, we are coming back to what will be normal. Today, all the advertisers who sat on the sidelines during the campaign are coming in strong and the Holiday season is about to crank up. It should be pretty tight out there through the end of 2010 but advertisers and agencies should take a wait and negotiate policy towards spot market advertising in 2011.