CLEVELAND, Ohio — The election is over, the ballots are counted, and one Cleveland advertising agency is celebrating the part of the season almost every Ohio viewer can agree on: the attack ads are finally gone. Brokaw, an independent agency headquartered in downtown Cleveland’s Warehouse District, on Wednesday, November 4, officially declared the day “No More Political Ads Day,” according to a release from Brokaw Inc. distributed via PR Newswire.
The declaration marks the end of a midterm cycle that flooded Ohio televisions, radios, phones and mailboxes for months. Ohio’s U.S. Senate race alone drew more than $500 million in political advertising this cycle, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact, in figures cited in Brokaw’s release via PR Newswire. That total, the release said, makes the Ohio race one of only three non-presidential races in U.S. history to cross that mark.
The scale helps explain the exhaustion the agency is playing on. A $500 million Senate race in a single state means the commercials dominated breaks for months, repeating the same charges through newscasts, football games and prime-time programming across Northeast Ohio, right up to Election Day on Tuesday, November 3.
“No matter who you voted for, we can all agree on one thing: if we never hear the words ‘too extreme for Ohio’ again, it’ll be too soon,” Gregg Brokaw, co-owner of Brokaw, told PR Newswire in the agency’s release. The line, aimed at a phrase Ohio viewers heard in heavy rotation this fall, is the centerpiece of an argument the agency is making with a wink: partisan fights divide voters, but relief from the advertising is close to universal.
To mark the day, Brokaw said in its release via PR Newswire that it is launching a digital billboard and social media campaign across its hometown of Cleveland featuring what it called messages of sweet advertising relief. The agency described the effort as doing what it does best — creating, in its own phrasing in the release, the 2 percent of ads that people actually like.
“It’s a new, non-political-ad day, America,” Gregg Brokaw added in the release via PR Newswire. “We never thought we’d say this, but bring back pharmaceutical ads listing 45 seconds of side effects. Bring back the personal injury lawyers vowing revenge. Heck, Liberty Biberty, too. We’ve missed you, buddy!” The joke lands because it is relative: the ordinary commercials viewers usually tune out suddenly look welcome next to another round of ominous-voiceover spots.
The timing is deliberate. Northeast Ohio voters woke up Wednesday to a changed political landscape after a long night of results, including an upset in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District, where ironworker Brian Poindexter defeated incumbent Rep. Max Miller, and decisions in Akron, where voters approved housing and police oversight charter amendments. Brokaw’s declaration is aimed at the morning after all of that — the first full day when the winners are known and the commercials promoting and attacking them have stopped.
Brokaw is not a newcomer. Founded in 1992, the firm is an independent marketing, advertising and social content production company, according to its release via PR Newswire, specializing in helping brands, in its words, rise above the blah blah. It is owned and operated by brothers Tim and Gregg Brokaw and headquartered at West 6th Street and Lakeside Avenue in the Warehouse District.
Its client list, as listed in the release via PR Newswire, mixes some of the region’s best-known names with national accounts: GE Lighting, Sherwin-Williams, Summa Health, American Greetings, the University of Akron and the Law School Admission Council. The agency is a former Ad Age Small Agency of the Year recipient and, according to the release, was recently honored with a Gold National ADDY — which the release said made it the only Ohio agency to receive one this year.
There is a Cleveland thread in that work, too. Sherwin-Williams is a hometown giant, Summa Health and the University of Akron anchor parts of the Akron economy, and American Greetings has deep Northeast Ohio roots — the audience the agency is addressing as neighbors as much as consumers, on a day when the region could also pause for lighter news, including Cleveland State’s women’s basketball upset of Penn State.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on: What we know is confirmed in Brokaw’s own release via PR Newswire: the agency declared November 4 “No More Political Ads Day,” cited AdImpact’s figure of more than $500 million in Ohio Senate race advertising, and said a digital billboard and social media campaign is launching across Cleveland. What we are still waiting on is the full public rollout — the release did not list the billboard locations, the exact messages each board will carry, or how long the campaign will run, and it did not say whether the declaration will become an annual tradition in future election years.
What happens next is a return to normal. Commercial breaks across Ohio go back to car dealers, retailers and the pharmaceutical and personal-injury spots Gregg Brokaw joked about missing — until the next cycle’s first ads arrive. For Brokaw, the next step is the Cleveland billboard and social rollout announced Wednesday; for viewers, the test will be turning on the television tonight and not hearing that a candidate is too extreme for Ohio.
Photo: Erik Drost, CC BY