More than 20 Million US dollars in campaign advertisement.
During the last week of campaign, before the election, some candidates have spent the last portion of their campaign budget in the hope of getting voters attention. More radio placement have been purchased, and more rallies have been engendered. So how much does it really cost to get into the voters’ head in order for a Haitian candidate to be elected? Let us take a look in the marketing of Politics in Haiti.
Elections are generally expensive.
Usually, people ask the question: « Why do candidates purchase so much airtime? » The reason is quite simple. Research has shown that to be effective, a campaign must be seeing not one, not twice, nor three but seven to ten times before a campaign message reach his goals. That’s the main reason why elections are expensive to win. The key to win an election, wherever you are in the world, is to increase the odds that your targeted electors will visualize or listen to your campaign.
It’s obvious that many of the 19 Haitian candidates did not take into account all aspects of campaigning since many of them have been completely absent from the campaign trail.
The cost & Expenditure.
After doing some research, let’s analyze the average cost for all “Legal campaign” aspect.
On Average:
• a TV ads Placement/month for one TV Station will cost: 750,600 HTG, (18,550 USD)
• a Radio Placement/month for one radio will cost 512,450 HTG (12,190 USD)
• a Large Billboard : 430,930 HTG (10,619 USD)
• one Rally : 303,780 HTG (7,500 USD)
• 10000 flyers 243,000 HTG (6,000 USD)
• Website : 182,000 HTG (4,495 USD)
• 1200 T-shirt : 124740 HTG (3080 USD)
• Social Media Ads : 4,050 HTG (100 USD)
•Telemarketing : 6-10 HTG per user/ (0.15-0.25 USD per user)
During the month of October there was ten times more presidential campaign publicity on the radio than there were advertisements for the main two cell phones companies. Some candidates have introduced new campaign marketing tools such as telemarketing and social media, making the election more dynamic and expensive. By analyzing the number of Advertisement placement and their cost we can roughly say that more than 20 million US was spent during the first round of the election. The political Platform INITE accounts for 59% of advertisement placements.
However we didn’t analyze the money that is distributed to people during rallies or other political event since there is no possibility to verify them. Nevertheless according to an Al Jazeera network report, some political parties distribute 500-1000 HTG (12-25.USD) per political members present at rallies.
Good for Business
No matter who wins the election, some companies will reap enormous gains for this fiscal year; you should expect a 135% income increase for the first quarter for Radio-TV networks and printings companies. The Dominican Republic will also benefit largely of our elections period, since a larger number of Haitian Printing companies outsource their print order to the Dominican Republic. Bus and Airlines companies should notice a slight income boost during the October Period because there’s an increasing number of incoming foreign journalist and also that the week before the election some Haitians, who fear violence, found it safer to travel abroad.
Spending that is badly seen
Whether it’s from a so called candidates of the government or not, most voters feel disconnected to this campaign spending spree, Rove a Business student told us: “It’s all a waste of money; I’m asking myself what is their plan for the people under tarps and tenting?”
Based on the latest polls it’s unlikely that a candidate will reach the 50% of votes threshold required for a first round victory, the election is likely to go to a second round in January 2011, prolonging this costly campaign.
CCA & RD
