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Since 1952—when New York ad man Rosser Reeves convinced GOP presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower to run television ads with a snappy jingle, “You like Ike, I like Ike, Everybody likes Ike”—campaigns have spent most of their budgets on TV and radio.
But in the year ahead, smart campaigns will devote a good deal less money to running 30- second TV ads and a good deal more to using the Internet to organize, persuade, motivate and raise funds.
The trend toward Internet-centric campaigns is being driven by changes in where people get election information. According to the Pew Research Center, in the last presidential race 26% said they received most of their election news from the Internet, while 28% cited newspapers. In 2012, the Web will likely eclipse newspapers and close in on TV as the principal source of election news.
Karl Rove is a former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush. He is a Fox News contributor and author of “Courage and Consequence” (Threshold Editions, 2010). To continue reading his column about the 2012 election, click here.