A recent press release from the Mary for Wyoming gubernatorial campaign has us worried about the Democratic candidate’s trust in Wyoming-based solutions.
The press release touts the campaign’s “unprecedented” investment into digital advertising, with purchases involving Facebook, Hulu, Netflix and video across the internet. According to the release, the campaign has spent six figures in this endeavor, touting Mary for Wyoming as the most digitally savvy campaign. While this is good for Silicon Valley, this decision hurts all of Wyoming’s media; its newspapers, radio stations and homegrown internet news sites.
This is a decision that disappoints us.
Yes, we have a dog in this fight. This is a business decision that impacts us. Beyond that scope however, what Mary for Wyoming’s digital advertising buy says about the candidate is she trusts people like Mark Zuckerburg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin with her message, not the voices within Wyoming. A person could interpret this to believe the candidate’s position to solve many of Wyoming’s problems lie outside of the state.
While Mary for Wyoming’s announcement supports jobs in California, it doesn’t do anything for the people working in the Wyoming.
Does anyone reading this editorial believe Zuckerburg cares about Green River, Douglas, Wheatland, Thermopolis or Wyoming as a whole? What about Page, Brin and the executives at Hulu or Netflix? Short answer: not bloody likely.
For Wyoming standards, six figures is a lot to spend anywhere and could have been used to effectively spread Throne’s message across the state, using media properties available in Wyoming. Wyoming media best targets the residents of the state, including the trona miners, the ranchers, the small business owners and everyone else living in the Cowboy State.
What kind of value is the campaign getting from Silicon Valley? Many of Youtube’s video ads are skippable after the first five seconds. Many of the other advertising options touted by the Mary for Wyoming can be circumvented through the use of adblocking apps, which not only create a cleaner and faster web browsing experience, but also are becoming a security necessity for internet browsing. The state’s most savvy internet users can easily block and ignore her messaging. In short, this “groundbreaking” investment does not have the return on investment the campaign is likely anticipating.
We like many of Throne’s ideas, however, we find it difficult to support anyone not willing to invest in Wyoming first.
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