How Targeted Online Ads Helped Sink Lou Dobbs at CNN
Be sure to catch this article from the February issue of Politics Magazine, particularly if you’re looking for examples of how even a relatively small online ad buy can reverberate across the media landscape. Late last year, longtime CNN host Lou Dobbs resigned due to pressure from a coalition of organizations, including media watchdogs and groups representing Latinos and immigrants. Lacking a huge budget, the organizers used a strategy planned to leverage their limited money into as much news coverage as possible. According to Josh Koster and Tyler Davis, online advertising gurus working with the coalition and the authors of the Politics Mag piece:
We would make an amazing ad to drive donations, yet too controversial for CNN to accept. If the campaign raising enough money to air the ad during “Latino in America” wasn’t enough to generate press, then the placing, the inevitable rejection and subsequent runs on other networks would. All the while, MediaMatters and Presente.org would run their own petition to drop Lou Dobbs, thus building a narrative that appreciated the commitment of the coalition.
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