Radio vs Newspaper

In a rural area like Hamilton County, Florida, I'll use radio over newspaper any day of the week. Rather than running newspaper ads, which is a favorite in small areas, we instead bought 8 to 10 ads per day the last two weeks of the election.

A few key reasons:

Newspaper is passive. That is, some people might see and some might not. In the last weeks of a campaign you need something repetitive, active. And for those that do see, their recall may be a tad poor.

Radio is repetitive. And you can tightly target deliver to a desired audience. You can listen to the radio and hear it withough having to listen out for it.

I threatened the local Republican Party with bodily harm if they purchased newpaper ads, which would have cost approximately $800 for two weeks of full page ads, (which translates into only two runs because the local paper is published once a week) when for a slightly higher price we could purchase 8 to 10 60-second radio ads per day on the local country station.

I wrote the script, one positive and one negative. This goes against the conventional wisdom of not going negative in a small, rural area where everyone knows one another and negative ads are akin to airing the family's dirty laundry.

However, I felt it necessary in this county where the local school superintendent was making the equivalent of $96,000 per year and there were two schools rated "D"s by the state. There were other questionable activities as well.

Naturally, this didn't go over too well with the voters who want to believe they have good schools. The message delivered by the radio station dovetailed niceley with the direct mail that assailed the school superintendent.

These two tactics and strategies combined with rounds of attack automated calls and positive calls helped Harry Pennington carry the day with 57% of the vote in a county with 85% Democrat registration.

Harry is the first partisan Republican to be elected in Hamilton County since Reconstruction.