Companies are once again pouring money into political campaign advertising this election cycle, with hot-button food industry issues like GMO labeling, the soda tax, and beverage distributor fees at stake.
Monsanto and the J.M. Smucker Co. got involved with the No on 92 Coalition, helping fund the GMO labeling opposition. With both sides totaled together, this is the fifth-most-expensive ballot measure - $5 million on TV ads both for and against GMO labeling in Oregon, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
Through Oct. 20, total TV ad spending across all ballot initiatives hit approximately $119 million.
GMO labeling opposition
In addition to the aforementioned companies, the Coca Cola Co. and Pepsi Co. joined them to help fund GMO labeling opposition, with ad spending in Oregon and Colorado totaling $3 million in each state. Labeling support initiatives have brought in around $2 million.
This is far from the food industry’s first foray into political ad spending on the GMO labeling debate. Last year, USA Today reported Washington state’s rejection of GMO labeling with Monsanto as a large contributor against.
Additionally in 2013, Monsanto was the top spender among agricultural services and products, spending $6.9 million lobbying for updates to the patent system, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Soda tax
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, the American Beverage Association - with Coca Cola and Pepsi as backers - spent $2.5 million on ads opposing a fee hike for drink distributors. The same group in California shelled out $1.8 million to successfully oppose a local San Francisco sugary beverage tax, the second-highest local expenditure for TV ads.
This echoes what Chris Grindlesperger of ABA told Food Dive in July. “We’re opposed to soda taxes. Our opposition to soft drink taxes is pretty well-documented,” he said.
The future of digital advertising
All this focus on TV comes despite an ever-growing emphasis on digital and online advertising.
In an interview with the International Business Times, Corey Elliott, Borrell’s director of research, cited campaign managers falling back on old standards and not embracing industry changes, with TV “still getting the major share” of political advertising.
In a bit of reversal, the food delivery service GrubHub, created on the basis of a digitally driven world, is now spending money on TV ads, citing it as “the keystone of” its marketing campaign in its upcoming quarters, insisting it can tap into a whole new slew of customers.
Here’s a quick look at TV ad spending across multiple ballot measures in 2014 reported by the Center for Public Integrity:
