eMarketer reported last week that online advertising from political campaigns will reach $50 million this year, which is a drop in the bucket compared with the $3 billion that will be spent on TV.
“Our estimates are lower than others,” said Lisa Phillips, an eMarketer senior analyst. She attributes the low figure to the fact that “Hillary Clinton and John McCain just don’t get the Internet.” Meanwhile, she applauds the efforts of Barack Obama, who has spent $2.3 million online thus far, including a major video ad buy in Texas and Ohio before their March primaries. “The spots make perfect sense,” Phillips said. “He’s breaking out his spending with the online videos and he has more web savvy people in his campaign.”
Most of the candidates’ online activity is conducted at their own websites, where they play videos and seek donations. This is “preaching to the converted,” Phillips says, and doesn’t do much to attract new support. It also doesn’t demand an ad spend. Phillips says only two percent of political ad budgets will be spent online.
But she believes more will be spent this fall as the election nears. “If Obama is the Democratic nominee, there will be more or better targeted online advertising in September and October,” she said. “But we’ll see how it plays out. It’s never been tried before.”
Supreme Court Allows Multibillion-Dollar Class Action Lawsuit To Proceed Against Meta
The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors' lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
The justices heard arguments in November in Meta's bid to shut down the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company's appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users' personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump 's first successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops in the price of the company's shares in 2018, after the public learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors say.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company was disappointed by the court's action. "The plaintiff's claims are baseless and we will continue to defend ourselves as this case is considered by the District Court," Stone said in an emailed statement.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against Nvidia.... Read More