FOCUS: NRA Increased Online Ad Spending Aggressively After Parkland Shooting

(TNS) —

Immediately after the horror of the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., the National Rifle Association halted all of its digital advertising.

Within four days, though, the NRA had returned in force, increasing its online advertising aggressively. According to a previously unpublished review by Pathmatics, a company that scrapes data from online ads, the NRA spent more than six times as much on digital ads after the Parkland shooting than it did in the weeks before it. Its average daily spend in the 24 days before Parkland was $11,300, according to Pathmatics. In the 24 days after its silent period, that average jumped to $47,300.

Nearly all of the increase was on social media, and Florida was heavily targeted in the post-tragedy ad burst.

The NRA didn’t change its message – the ads were the same as before the shooting. The message was just pushed much harder.

In its sudden rush to counteract widespread criticism, the NRA perhaps aimed its marketing messages rather carelessly: Pathmatics found NRA membership-drive ads running on an online channel for grade-schoolers called Kids’ Toys.

The NRA did not respond to a request for comment.

Not every player in the gun industry pursued the same strategy as the NRA. Savage Arms, a firearms manufacturer based in Westfield, Mass. whose ad spending Pathmatics also tracked, stopped nearly all of its online ad spending in the wake of the Parkland murders, and has kept a lid on it ever since. Says Gabriel Gottlieb, Pathmatics’ CEO, “From an advertising perspective, it’s interesting, because this event energized the NRA’s base. But from the tone-deafness of the response, I’m very surprised.”

Going dark after a gun-related tragedy is a common tactic for the NRA, and a practice that seems to have started around the time of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on December 2012. After the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that left 59 people dead, the NRA delayed a $32,000 political ad purchase for 10 days.

But the NRA’s radio silence would almost always end once the public’s clamoring for stricter gun control laws inevitably died down, says Michael Franz, a professor of government and legal affairs at Bowdoin College in Maine. Franz co-directs the Wesleyan Media Project, which has tracked the NRA’s television and radio advertising. “This one is a little different because you have more sustained discussion.”

Franz says he finds it bizarre that the NRA would advertise to kids on toy video channels – but it could be as simple as the organization aiming its spending at the most popular video channels to spread its message about membership. “It suggests that they’re buying ad time based off of presumed reach as opposed to audience,” he says. “We shouldn’t infer too much sophistication on the part of their outreach strategy.”

The Federal Communications Commission has long enforced strict rules about how network and cable channels can advertise to kids. But few, if any, of those rules are in force with online video ads. In 2015, 10 consumer watchdog groups filed a joint complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over a children’s video app, alleging that the app allows deceptive marketing to parents. That complaint centered on advertising within the videos themselves – not the pre-roll ads or ads on the side, which have even less oversight. Research into children’s media consumption has shown that small children have difficulty differentiating between advertising and regular content.

As the primary gun market of white males continues to age, the NRA has been reaching out to kids and teens. In 2016, the Violence Policy Center released a study documenting ongoing efforts by the gun industry and gun lobby to market guns to children, including advertisements, catalog copy, and a youth-oriented gun publication called Junior Shooters.

Digital ads are generally more flexible and responsive to events in the news than traditional media ads, says Franz. The Wesleyan Media Project recently released a study showing that references to guns in political ads has been increasing since 2012. “The NRA seems to be doing something a little differently with its digital outreach,” says Franz. “Digital content is easier – and faster — to produce.”

There hasn’t been much research comparing the ways that kids and adults respond to online advertisements, but efforts to reach children are ramping up. The kids’ digital advertising market is expected to hit $1.2 billion and represent 28 percent of all advertising directed at kids, according to a report by accounting firm PwC.

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