The disconnect between consultants and voters

I've said it many times before: Political campaigns are stunningly conservative when it comes to tactics. Until they've got nothing to lose, most managers and consultants won't deviate off their campaign strategy & budget template.

From MediaPost:

Almost two-thirds of American voters expect political candidates to use online ads (including rich media and search) as part of their campaign strategy, but only about 10% of campaign consultants believe such ads serve as a highly effective channel for reaching voters. Meanwhile, just 5% think online ads are one of the most effective channels for reaching their candidate's loyal voter base. ...

And while roughly 60% of voters surveyed said that they expected political candidates to try to reach them using Webcasts, online video and even blogs and podcasts, only 3-11% of campaign consultants said they believed those methods would be effective at reaching swing, independent and undecided voters. And even fewer (4-7%) of the consultants believed those channels would be effective for their candidates' loyal targets. ...

What makes the disconnect even more hard to fathom, according to E-Voter Institute President Karen Jagoda, is that these consultants are actually using many of these mediums on a daily basis. For example, nearly 70% of the consultants surveyed were members of a social network, and about 40% of them said they maintained their own blogs, and had uploaded video to the Web.

But the hurdles that online media companies face in trying to snag political dollars are akin to the challenges they faced a few years ago in their attempts to snag traditional media spend.