Voters Are Harder to Reach As Media Outlets Multiply

[AmyStrange]

Voters Are Harder to Reach As Media Outlets Multiply

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page A01

FROM: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44697-2004Jun15.html
As a political ad specialist in the 1990s, Jim Margolis followed a simple rule of thumb: To ensure that would-be voters saw and remembered his candidate's television commercials, Margolis ran each ad at least five times.

Nowadays, Margolis, an adviser to Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign, employs a different formula. To ensure the same level of awareness and memorability, Margolis does not retire a commercial until his target audience has seen it at least 12 times.

The change in Margolis's media strategy says much about the difficulties that candidates face in talking to voters these days. With TV viewers dispersed among more than 100 channels, with more ads of every kind cluttering the air and more ways to zap them at home, it has become tougher each year for politicians to reach the masses with their messages.

The problem may be most acute on television -- the medium of choice for political advertising over the past 50 years -- but the alternatives are not much better. No matter where political consultants turn these days -- to the mail, the phones, the Internet and polls -- the story is much the same. Each message channel is more crowded, and hence less effective, in reaching people than in preceding elections. As veteran Democratic direct-mail specialist Hal Malchow puts it, "all media for communicating with voters are in trouble."

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