With in the region of $90 million expected to be spent on advertising in the lead up to the Federal Election, media buyers are planning to avoid the heaviest advertising period in the two weeks prior to polling day.
MEC’s chief executive Peter Vogel (pictured) told B&T that although his agency already has the majority of airtime locked in over the next five weeks ahead of 7 September, he confirmed there may be discussions with certain clients about moving campaigns to run either a week earlier than previously planned or in the week after the election.
"A lot of our clients have buys laid out already,” he said. "While our clients will certainly be active on TV during that period, the majority of airtime has already been locked in. We have the airtime that we need. Unfortunately, it does get a bit cluttered but I don’t think we’re going change a whole lot [now the date has been set]. Certainly with some clients we might chat to them to consider starting a week later or a week earlier," he said.
"Obviously we've been aware the election was coming, so we’ve had to be even more planned to ensure our TV campaigns going out over this period were ready to go,” added Vogel.
Maree Cullum, trading director for PHD Melbourne, said the agency’s strategy around the election was to try avoid the couple of weeks prior to the election date.
"I guess from our point of view we’ll try to avoid the couple of weeks up to the election blackout,” said Cullum.
“It’s not always possible, but we’ll try to avoid this period as these will be the heaviest weeks for advertising. There will be a lot of clutter as the political parties put out their advertising, so we’ll be recommending trying to scale back during this time."
