Mitt Romney Is Still “The Leader of The Pack” in Campaign Advertising, Nielsen Reports

Iowa Remains Focus for Local Ads;

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in Tight Race for Most Visitors to Campaign Web Sites

New York, NY- October 15, 2007 – So far this year, Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney has placed more political ads than any other two presidential candidates combined, The Nielsen Company reported today. Altogether, Romney placed 11,595 political ads from January 1 to October 10, 2007, compared to 5,975 for Bill Richardson and 4,600 for Barack Obama, the two runners-up. (For all charts concerning this release, please refer to Full PDF Download of the release.)

Nielsen also reported:

• Almost 95% of the total 29,877 presidential campaign ads placed this year were on local television, and over 71% of those were placed in Iowa.
  
  

• During the month of August, HillaryClinton.com (759,000) and BarackObama.com (749,000) continued to be in a tight race for the most unique visitors to their campaign Web sites. 
  
  
• Hillary Clinton generated the most “Buzz” in online blog discussions. On the Republican side, both Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney experienced increases, but the rate was outpaced by the growth in buzz about Fred Thompson, who officially entered the race during the quarter.

Nielsen measures television and radio advertisements through Nielsen Monitor-Plus, Internet advertising through Nielsen//NetRatings and blog and other consumer-generated media activity through Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

Democrats Outpace GOP in Traditional Media

• Overall, the Democrats have taken the lead in running Presidential campaign advertising.  The Democratic candidates have run a total of 16,941 television advertising spots compared to 11,691 spots by the Republican candidates. 
  
  

• With more than 11,000 ads, Romney has far outpaced his Republican rivals.  John McCain, for example, has run 161 local ads, all in New Hampshire, and Fred Thompson has run 13 ads, all on national cable.  Both McCain and Thompson have only recently started running spots, with their ads airing since September.
  
  

• Rudy Giuliani continues his strategy of running ads exclusively on radio with a total of 642 spots airing during this time period.  
  
  (Refer to tables "2008 Presidential Campaign Television and Radio Spots for Democrats" and "2008 Presidential Campaign Television and Radio Spots for Republicans" in Full PDF Download of release.)

Online Race to the White House

Over the past several months, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been vying for the most popular presidential campaign Web site. This summer, Clinton led in June, Obama led in July and Clinton pulled ahead again in August, with 759,000 unique visitors. Obama followed close behind, with 749,000 unique visitors. John Edwards rounded out the top three campaign sites with 448,000 unique visitors.

Relative newcomer Fred Thompson took the No. 4 spot among all candidates in August and was the online leader among Republicans with 410,000 unique visitors to Fred08.com. Fellow Republicans Mitt Romney and Ron Paul followed with 291,000 and 210,000 unique visitors, respectively. (Refer to table "Presidential Campaign Web Sites* for August 2007 (U.S., Home and Work)" in Full PDF Download of release.)

Despite low Web traffic, John McCain continues to lead the presidential contenders in online advertising, with 4.3 million sponsored link impressions in August. Dennis Kucinich ranked No. 2 with 1.8 million sponsored links, followed by Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton with 1.7 million and 522,000 sponsored link impressions in August, respectively. (Refer to table "Online Political Campaign Advertising, Sponsored Links in August (U.S.)" in Full PDF Download of release.)

Buzz Worthy Candidates

Hillary Clinton continues to lead in online buzz, generating the most online mentions in blogs for the third quarter. Fred Thompson, who announced his candidacy on The Tonight Show and on his website, experienced the greatest growth in mentions, increasing 526 percent compared to the first quarter. Mentions of Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani also grew during the quarter, while mentions of John McCain slipped. (Refer to table "Presidential Candidates’ Average Monthly Share of Blog Citations" in Full PDF Download of release.)

About The Nielsen Company

The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions and recognized brands in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), online intelligence (NetRatings and BuzzMetrics), trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA. For more information, please visit www.nielsen.com

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