Media Buying Briefing: With so much at stake, midterm election spending is insane

Specifically, AdImpact’s report (provided by an agency) in June predicted $5.6 billion on broadcast, $2.6 billion on CTV, $1.6 billion on digital, $1.4 billion on cable, $273 million on radio, and $88 million on satellite. Broken down by race, it predicts $3.4 billion to be spent on Senate races, $2 billion on the House, $2.4 billion in gubernatorial races, $698 million in state legislature races, and a whopping $3 billion on down ballot issues and races. The midterms in 2022 totaled $8.9 billion.

Speaking with agencies that specialize in political advertising, that amount of money has roiled an already less-steady-than-we-wish ad marketplace, as streaming and CTV soak up the lion’s share of political dollars. So much more has been spent already in this midterm season.

“This is going to be a record setting midterm,” said Jesse Contario, regional vp, southeast and political at MiQ, who cited AdImpact’s prediction that this spending season will outpace the 2024 presidential election season, but added that other market predictors don’t see the total moving past 2024, which reached a whopping $11.2 billion according to AdImpact data. “No midterm has ever eclipsed the previous presidential in terms of spend.”

According to an MiQ analysis of the election cycle through the lens of the 2024 election spending, October is the heaviest month of all, representing 46% of all political spend in CTV (half of which was spent on AVOD services). The tightness of various races that could determine the balance of power in the Senate and House of Representatives is responsible for much of that heavy spending.

Where there’s a winner, often times there’s also a loser. And in this case it’s traditional linear TV, argued Todd Novick, vp of political at AI Digital, who pointed to a number of reasons. “There’s the diminishing returns that buyers will feel because they’re paying much higher rates for a lot of the same programs,” said Novick. “You have rising rates, complications due to displacement, makegoods which nobody’s a fan of, lack of inventory, and then an already complex rate structure on linear television that is governed by the FCC. Which makes all the navigating of it that much more of a task for the agencies and for the sellers on that side as well.”

So where does some of that money go? This late in the election cycle could buoy other influential but less obvious media choices. Contario noted that more recent developments like early voting can influence last-minute spending decisions.

“This is the time of the season — not just this year, but often — where campaigns and super PACs and practitioners are looking at all of the data they have, how much cash do they have on hand, what does the latest polling say, what are they hearing in focus groups?” He said. “And they’re making some hard decisions right now … Half of the electorate has voted early in some way, shape, or form, so that also informs some of these decisions and who they’re targeting.”

Brian Conlan, president of digital audio exchange DAX U.S., explained a different approach to targeting. 

“We’re seeing political dollars move into CTV faster right now, while audio and podcasting are taking a little longer to ramp,” wrote Conlan in an email. “But that’s happening against a backdrop where political podcast ad spend is already up 42% year over year, so the appetite is clearly there. As campaigns get closer to Election Day and start looking for additional reach and frequency beyond TV and CTV, we expect digital audio and podcasts to pick up meaningfully over the next four to five weeks. Audio reaches 81% of voting-age Americans every day, so it gives campaigns a way to extend their message into parts of the day and environments where video can’t always reach them.”

Jonathan Frohlinger, CEO of Big Happy, a creative shop that works mostly in mobile and digital OOH, believes local has been the real source of opportunity for political candidates looking to break through — only he has largely avoided local TV because rates can get very high. “The inventory is ultimately the black box,” said Frohlinger. “Third-party targeting is not going to win you an election anymore. It’s really going to be down to the creative and the locations that you’re in, and those very granular sort of levers that you can pull.”

To his view — and he’s been working in political advertising for years — Streaming is a place that political advertisers are, of course, looking toward more and more, but he cited the lack of verification and the repetition of the same ad as turnoffs for voters. “The ability to hit specific zip codes — specific content that people are looking at that live in these zip codes — is such a more effective” use of advertising, from creative, reach and pricing POVs, he added.

The wild card in this election is the use of AI. A CNN story last Friday cited several uses of AI in attack ads of events that reportedly didn’t happen. But perhaps the weaponization of AI in the political theater may come as much from what’s not seen: GEO, said Frohlinger.

“Search power is very convincing to folks, and so the GEO play is a similar parallel of how Obama used social back in ’08,” he said. “It’s really being quite smart and innovative and using it to get your message across.”

Could it be used to misinform the public on a rival candidate? If so, that will likely only be revealed after the election is over.

Color by numbers

Did you ever think consumers might actually be influenced by ChatGPT ads for their CPG purchases? According to Criteo, which has partnered with ChatGPT parent OpenAI, some consumers have had their toilet paper or toothpaste purchases be influenced by the LLM. Some stats: 

• From January through July 2026, ChatGPT generated 1.6x the share of CPG product-page visits that search engines generated, on average. 
• In July, 86% of Criteo’s CPG clients recorded at least one transaction referred by ChatGPT. 
• 40% of consumers are comfortable allowing AI to reorder personal care products, while 32% are comfortable letting AI reorder groceries and staple foods. 

Takeoff & landing

• WPP Creative veteran and longtime global VML head Jon Cook is leaving the holding company effective next March, and will be replaced by Eric Campbell, currently CEO of VML and WPP Creative in North America. Meanwhile, WPP Media hired Laura Ryan as chief media officer, with Ryan joining the company from Interpublic Group (IPG), where she serves as Global CEO of Orion Worldwide.
• 3C Ventures founder and CEO Michael Kassan became an investor in and strategic advisor to agentic platform OptimizeGEO as the company signed its 100th brand. 
• Investment firm Manna Tree bought a majority stake in creative agency Zambezi. And while CEO Jean Freeman will remain onboard, chief media officer Grace Teng, who oversaw the launch of media arm Scale by Zambezi, is leaving.
• Personnel moves: Havas Media Network tapped Kunal Chakravarty as head of new business & marketing for the Australia New Zealand region, and Agata Adamczak to be head of organic & AI performance within the French holdco’s consumer science & analytics team … Independent RP3 tapped Chuck LeGros to be its head of growth, coming over from BarkleyOKRP where he was growth strategy lead.

Direct quote

“One of the things I feel is important, is to establish what our measurement is going to look like before the test, and then go back to it to define your KPIs, instead of just using the platform-first metrics and data at face value.” 

—Monica Shukla, Mile Marker’s vp of biddable centre of excellence, in reference to challenges with measuring ads on OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Speed reading

• In his latest Future of TV Briefing, Tim Peterson caught up on the latest round of frustrations the TV industry is having with creating a new measurement currency that is more inclusive. 
• Seb Joseph and Krystal Scanlon looked into the growing instances of agency fees clouding transparency in creator deals. 
• I wrote about Pixability’s new solution to combat AI slop on YouTube.