Though Donald Trump is getting all the ink this campaign season, political advertising firms say a Hillary Clinton race against Jeb Bush would be best for business, according to a new survey.
In the survey, conducted by STRATA, 44% of the agencies thought Bush would generate the most ad spending among the Republican candidates. Marco Rubio was No. 2, with Trump at third place.
The choice for top Democrat ad dollar generator was unanimous for the former First Lady.
“It’s not that surprising that, from a pure business perspective, political advertising agencies would like to see a Clinton-Bush matchup,” said Judd Rubin, VP of STRATA. “But the story is Trump and his command of the earned media game. We’ve never seen anything like it and we may never see it again. After this campaign, there will be college courses examining Trump’s uncanny ability to demand media attention and his use of Twitter.”
Local TV is the overwhelming choice of political advertisers and provides the best return on investment, according to the survey, with 83% of the agencies saying they utilize spot TV the most. National TV was second with 11% of agencies. Spot TV is viewed as providing the best ROI according to 78% of agencies, while other agencies feel social media (11%), national TV (6%), and digital video (6%) are better vehicles to communicate candidates’ message.
The most used social network was Facebook, followed by YouTube and Twitter (which tied for second), Instagram Google+, Snapchat, LinkedIn and Periscope.
The agencies involved in the survey represent about 75% of all political ad spending, according to STRATA.
