Davis Tailors His Barrage of TV Spots
Garry South grinned as he scrolled down page after page of television shows on his computer screen: "Frasier," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "60 Minutes II." South, chief architect of the Gray Davis reelection campaign, was scanning a log showing where television ads had been run by the governor and his Republican challenger, Bill Simon Jr.
On one day in August, it showed, a Davis spot depicting Simon as a shady businessman had run at least 178 times.
That same day, Simon broadcast not a single ad.
Since June, the Democratic governor has swamped his rival with more than $30 million in television ads, roughly triple what Simon has spent on TV. But that is just one of the distinctions in how the campaigns have waged their most public battle.
Television ads are the weapon of choice in California elections, the sole strategic imperative big and broad enough to capture the attention of the state's 15 million registered voters.
For Davis, that has meant targeting each of California's diverse voting blocs with a precisely choreographed sequence of TV spots, market-tested by a tightknit ad team with cash at its disposal.
For Simon, it has meant scrambling, at times, for the money to buy even a minimal presence on the air, even as two teams of ad-makers clash over who has the candidate's permission to buy time on TV stations.
The sophistication of the Davis ad strategy is partly a luxury of the governor's huge financial edge over Simon.
From June to mid-October, Davis spots aired more than 26,000 times in the state's five biggest media markets; Simon's ran fewer than 5,000, according to the governor's ad tracking service.
The Davis ad budget has grown steadily to more than $3 million a week -- roughly twice the usual weekly cost needed to gain voters' attention. It will hit $4 million for the final week, South said. Davis has been able to buy 30-second spots on the World Series and top-rated prime-time shows. In Los Angeles last week, those included NBC's "ER" ($52,250) and "Friends" ($47,500).
Simon, who has loaned his campaign $5.25 million in recent weeks to keep it from going broke, has put the bulk of his ads on less expensive news shows, which are also saturated with Davis spots. Among Simon's sparse prime-time buys in Los Angeles this month have been 30-second spots on NBC's "Law & Order" ($28,500) and CBS' "60 Minutes" ($18,000). Simon spokesmen said he, too, has run spots during the World Series, but only outside Los Angeles.
