KMT proves smart strategy can overcome a small budget

Taiwan's presidential elections saw rival parties jostling for recognition -- and the winner in terms of TV advertising was the coalition Kuomintang (KMT) party, which came in at second place in terms of recall by TV viewers, while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ranked sixth in the Media's Adwatch survey. Ironically, DDP's adspend was three times greater than that of KMT, which spent around NT$350 million (US$10.7 million) during the presidential election period. Political advertising was banned in Taiwan until 1989. Since then, the activity has grown to such an extent that for candidates to have any chance of winning the ballot box, they need to invest considerable sums in self-promotion. MediaCore Communications group media director Vince Cheng said political parties usually allocated most of their ad budgets to TV, believing it to be the most important and effective platform for their messages. "TV is able to help political parties reach the mass public and is also the most cost-effective medium. As everything keeps changing during the election period, political parties need an effective medium to support their promotional efforts, replace their existing campaigns or to roll out new campaigns," said Cheng. He attributed KMT's success to the party's astute media planning strategy, which he said focused primarily on the central and south areas of Taiwan. KMT invited international media agencies, including MindShare, Carat, MediaCore and Media Palette, to pitch for its account, finally appointing Media Core. In contrast, DPP's media planning and buying assignments were mainly handled by the party.