The FINANCIAL — Pre-election political party ads will cost Georgia over GEL 64,000,000. Largest share will be spent on TV ads. The rest on online, print and outdoor campaigns. A “crisis of creativity” is what specialists deem the advertising campaigns of political parties.
According to Georgian law, the upper limit of political parties’ ad budgets should not exceed 0.2% of the country’s GDP. The GDP of Georgia has amounted to GEL 32 billion. That means that the pre-election PR campaign should not exceed GEL 64,000,000.
TV, outdoor and online are currently the most popular advertising sources for political campaigns. Due to its higher cost, the main share of ad spending will go on the TV industry. Almost a month before the elections, public relations experts have given their estimations of politicians’ efforts to reach the electorate.
Goga Khachidze, member of new political centre Girchi, which recently united in the block New Choice, was in the minority of politicians who consider the spending of millions on TV ads to be pointless.
“I participate in an advertising campaign of Girchi’s, which is mostly run via social networking. The budget for this has never been and never will be big. We are mostly focused on ideas, creativity and a different approach. All we do is ongoing work for us,” Khachidze told The FINANCIAL.
Khachidze’s personal attitude is that TV commercials require lots of money. Accordingly, he does not rate the spending of great resources on TV commercials.
“There are over 1,700,000 active users of FB in Georgia, so ignoring this opportunity (which is almost free of charge) is wrong. I personally welcome not having TV ads at all as I think there is no logic in spending so much of one’s budget on TV ads. Meanwhile, according to our experience, political parties will spend many millions on TV ads. This is a task which each political party has to consider,” he said.
The pre-election budget for commercials of the United National Movement (UNM) is over GEL 900,000. The figure is not yet final though and might change. Out of GEL 900,000 the budget for TV ads is GEL 300,000; leaflets and print products – GEL 80,000; newspaper printing – GEL 40,000; radio commercials – GEL 12,000; billboards – GEL 500,000; internet, including Facebook commercials – over GEL 40,000. The figures are not final and the budgets for some of them might increase or decrease.
The main share of the ad budget of UNM will be spent in September.
“We think that ads on billboards are important for raising awareness of new faces and the majority candidates of our party. It is also important for delivering the main messages of the party to the population. Similarly, it is important to deliver messages through the internet. TV commercials provide the delivery of information and key messages of the economic programme of the party to a wider audience,” said Sergi Kapanadze, member of the United National Movement.
Kapanadze highlights the importance of online advertising. However, using social networks, in particular Facebook, is of particular importance to UNM. “Typically, a large portion of internet users are using Facebook. Therefore we consider it appropriate to target voters on Facebook. Through Facebook we present our main messages, action plan and programme. We use this platform to respond to the questions of the population; what they are most concerned about. Today, according to a variety of reports, about 1.5 million Georgian citizens are Facebook users. This is quite a large number of the electorate. They specifically need to receive the messages that are important to us. At the same time, each of us spends a few hours a day on the internet. Accordingly, it is an important source of information for them. One should offer a specific type of product to voters via the internet, in particular Facebook. All of these make the process more flexible, creative and interesting, also for the political party.”
“UNM uses a variety of online commercials – infographics, videos, graphics, animations, articles and posters. Quite often we try to provide online users with creative ads and posters/infographics.”
“In the big cities of the regions we have almost the same approach as in Tbilisi. As for rural parts of the country, print media, posters, local TV and printed materials are used more by us,” said Kapanadze.
“The Free Democrats pays equal attention to TV and internet platforms for disseminating its messages. Printed editions are also important. However, the TV platform is prioritized for us due to its scale. Recently, the number of internet users in our country has been growing daily. Currently, at least a third of our population are actively using various internet channels, like social media. Accordingly, our concentration in this direction is significant,” said Levan Jorbenadze, Head of Public Affairs at the Free Democrats.
The importance of online advertising is without parallel for the Free Democrats. “It is one of the most important platforms for the dissemination of information. Ignoring this platform would be a wrong approach,” said Jorbenadze.
“All recent research shows that the majority of the population receives information through television. However, the demand for printed editions is higher in the regions than in the cities,” he added.
“Currently TV is considered the most efficient form of advertising. This channel has no alternative. However, social networks are following close behind. As the internet is less accessible in the regions, TV is the most efficient source there,” Jorbenadze said.
“As the number of internet users is growing on a daily basis, I believe that the strategy of political parties will change step by step. They will start switching from TV, billboard and other big budget advertising to internet, where financial expenditure is minimal,” Khachidze from Girchi, told The FINANCIAL.
The FINANCIAL also sent its questions to the ruling party Georgian Dream. However, its PR Manager Ana Gochashvili declined to answer, stating they will “reveal their advertising strategy only after the elections are over.”
Eldar Pirmisashvili, Founder and PR Expert at Peritus Group, strategic communications firm, believes that in order to achieve successful results in advertising it is crucial to use a mix of all advertising sources.
“The loyalty of political parties towards TV is related to their segmentation. Politicians are thinking simply. By this I mean that they just consider pensioners and socially disabled people the main segment that their messages concern most. However, this is not the case. It was not official research, however we did receive insightful information from a study of a family whom were watching TV and reading newspapers, yet received their innovative ideas and information from their student child, who in turn received their information from internet sources,” Pirmisashvili explained.
“In general we have a problem with research and analysis. So, proper analysis is required of who delivers information to a household, and then focus must be put on them,” he said.
According to Pirmisashvili, the current advertising campaigns of Georgian political parties are all too formulaic. “They are imitating each other. Politicians care less that the key issue in politics is to be different. This difference should be expressed in every single detail.”
“Traditionally, there are three most effective advertising sources: TV, online and outdoor. In our case we are witnessing a crisis of creativity in political TV ads. The content of the commercials is incomplete. It is only aimed at raising the awareness of specific political figures. Such an approach is wrong. Some political parties are trying to air their ads on TV multiple times during any one specific advertising slot. All of them are really uninteresting,” said Archil Gamzardia, Public Communications Management Specialist.
In Gamzardia’s words, outdoor ads are simpler to do. “Taking a good picture is sufficient for it. As for online ads, the resources are not being sufficiently used. We mostly just find banners online. So ultimately, any political advertising is not delivering its message to an optimal degree. We are witnessing a crisis in political ads in terms of creativity and also content.”
“Social media is a good measure of people’s feedback. Contrary to TV or other advertising sources you can rapidly find out how an audience have received a particular message. Unfortunately, many politicians still do not use this resource adequately,” said Pirmisashvili.
As Pirmisashvili said, although TV representatives have not confirmed it, the new technological advancements mean that viewers have the possibility to skip commercials. “Especially when political commercials are being broadcasted one after another.”
“Any political party who does not use online advertising will lose part of its electorate, as each of them has a portion of its electorate which uses social media and the internet,” he added.
“On the information websites that I am visiting I only see the commercial banners of the Georgian Dream party. However, it is a bit strange as such commercial banners can only put across a limited amount of information. Meanwhile, everyone already knows GD as a political party and what their election number is. The only messages that can be delivered are the three words of their promise. Social media and the internet are sources which require interaction. Static banners are meaningless here,” said Pirmisashvili.
“The segment of online users is radically different from TV audiences. Their standards of expression are higher,” he added.
According to Pirmisashvili, the main reason why political parties try to avoid such interactive activity is that they are trying to evade responsibility for feedback. “Another issue is that Georgia is lacking qualified professionals to provide consultations in online media.”
All source of advertising has its own particular importance as each of them has their own segment of consumers, Merab Gotsiridze, Chief Digital Officer at AdvertWise believes. TV, radio and billboard are no exception. However, Gotsiridze considers online advertising to be the most efficient in terms of expenditure. “It allows one to focus on a target audience.”
“Lots of platforms of internet marketing remember the data of individual users: for example which websites they visit; what their interests are; demography; location, etc. All of this allows the possibility for ads to be shown to exact target audiences. In terms of TV and billboards, you can never exactly determine the age segment of the audience. In this case ads might be being seen by a segment which is absolutely not your electorate. If political parties were actively using online advertising then they would never waste even a single penny in reaching the under-18 audience, which is not allowed to vote,” said Gotsiridze.
Gotsiridze couldn’t name the exact amount that political parties would lose out on if they neglect to use online advertising. However, he believes that politicians will lose a part of the electorate. Conversely, if they have an active online campaign they will gain many more votes.
“Google and Facebook are the most visited websites in Georgia. Accordingly, these are the most efficient sources of advertising. In addition, having ads on local websites frequently visited by Georgians would also be reasonable,” Gotsiridze suggested.
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