The New York Times’ The Upshot compared the total amount of “bought” and “earned” media since the start of the campaign season for all of the major Democratic and Republican candidates.
Bought media encompassed political advertising while earned media encompassed “news and commentary about his campaign on television, in newspapers and magazines, and on social media,” The Upshot wrote. The site used a media-tracking firm to estimate the value of Trump’s “earned” coverage.
And the difference for Trump was staggering:
How much is all that free media Donald Trump gets worth? We think we know. pic.twitter.com/QOLuMWYXkL
— The Upshot (@UpshotNYT) March 15, 2016
Earned media typically dwarfs bought media for presidential candidates — but nowhere near the level of Trump. With almost $2 billion of value estimated in earned media, Trump’s total is more than double that of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner who had the second highest on The Upshot’s list. Trump has received more than six times the estimated earned media value of the No. 2 Republican candidate on the list, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
And Trump has spent a fraction of the money his fellow combatants have paid for advertisements. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush spent more than eight times as much money on advertising as Trump — and he’s been out of the race for nearly a month. Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich have all spent more money than Trump on ads. Even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who dropped out of the race in early February and has since endorsed Trump, has spent nearly twice what the GOP frontrunner has to date on bought media.
While much of the attention Trump has received has been far from positive, but, as Trump wrote in “The Art of the Deal,” he’s a strong believer that “good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.”
This article was originally published on Business Insider. Copyright 2016.
