NEW YORK, NY — September 15, 2008 — Chief Marketing Officers at many of the biggest brands in the nation have some advice for the Presidential candidates: Don’t go negative in political advertising.
In the Epsilon survey of CMOs conducted in August 2008, 85% of CMOs and senior marketers are negative on ‘ads that are critical of candidates’. In contrast, 91% are positive about, “Ads that show the political candidate sharing his/her position on issues.”
When asked to judge the most important actions the presidential candidate’s campaign should take to win in November 2008, 45% selected: ‘Come up with 2 or 3 MAJOR changes they would enact as President’. The second most popular action for the campaign was: “Blanket with ads that don’t attack, but reinforce positive attributes of the candidate.
“ Epsilon’s first survey of the nation’s Chief Marketing Officers presents a unique look into the near term and longer term state of the economy, important media trends, and a perspective on social and political issues never before revealed,” said Steve Cone, Chief Marketing Officer of Epsilon, a leading marketing services firm.
The survey was conducted in August 2008. Participants included 175 Chief Marketing Officers and marketing executives of some of the largest brands in the U.S. 27% of respondents work at companies with $10 billion or more in annual revenues last year.
Of those surveyed, 87% plan to vote in the 2008 Presidential election – with 45% selecting McCain and 42% choosing Obama if they were voting today. A surprising number fell into the swing-vote category, with 55% said that they would consider voting for a candidate that is affiliated with a political party other than their own.
In the survey of leadership and strategy, CMOs also were asked about whom they were most eager to work for. Presented with a list of well-known American CEOs, both present and past, 33% of senior marketers selected Warren Buffett as the CEO that they would most like to work for. Maybe not surprisingly, second choice was marketing impresario Steve Jobs at 27%.
About Epsilon
Epsilon is the industry’s leading marketing services firm. Ad Age ranks
Epsilon #1 U.S. Marketing Services Firm and #1 U.S. Direct Marketing
Agency. Services include strategic consulting, database and loyalty
technology, proprietary data, predictive modeling and a full range of
creative and interactive services including brand and promotional
development, web design, email deployment, search engine optimization
and direct mail production. In addition, Epsilon is the world's largest
permission-based email marketer. Epsilon is an Alliance Data company.
For more information, visit www.epsilon.com or call 1.800.309.0505.
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