NPI New Tools Spotlight: Buy Cable Smart, A Checklist

The big push of the New Politics Institute’s 2006 New Tools Campaign was to shift ad spending from broadcast TV to cable. This controversial political advice followed a trend firmly established in the private sector – to follow the audience’s migration to the more targeted medium. Many politicos did adapt last cycle by following our argument about why to buy cable.

This year we focus on how to buy cable, and how to buy it smart. Cable is more difficult to buy than broadcast, and so we developed a practical checklist that walks you through a step-by-step process that literally tells you what questions to ask. This memo is useful for anyone in the business of advocating for progressive values.

Read this new “Buy Cable Smart, A Checklist” memo, written by Ali Weise, NDN Executive Director. Ali was the Campaign Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Deputy Director of the DCCC’s Independent Expenditure Campaign in 2006, which spent over $55 million in television advertising last cycle to help Democrats win the House of Representatives.

Watch Weise (below) give a short talk that summarizes the recommendations at the kick-off event for this year’s tools campaign in Washington DC late this summer.

Finally, the memo ends with some thoughts on how the whole progressive movement might adapt to the shift to more cable advertising, including gearing up to produce more ads (that hit narrower targets), and reevaluating the financial incentives for media consultants who get paid the same for cable as they do for the easier broadcast. Something has to give.

As always, please send this memo around to whoever might benefit, and stay connected to our evolving body of work at the New Politics Institute.

Thanks.

Peter Leyden