Behind Stagwell and RealClearPolitics’ partnership for the 2024 election

Stagwell is partnering with RealClearPolitics to help the independent media company enhance its political polling site and advertising platform ahead of the 2024 presidential election. RealClearPolitics specializes in aggregated polling averages. Stagwell, which owns The Harris Poll, is tasked with reimagining RCP’s polling platform to be more interactive while developing an advertising offering that draws brands interested in connecting with RCP readers. The new site will include both custom and programmatic advertising units in addition to email content opportunities. More: Stagwell’s Assembly predicts political ad spend for 2024 While both Stagwell Chairman-CEO Mark Penn and RCP CEO John McIntyre were adamant that RCP will maintain complete control of editorial content, the partnership has the potential to raise some eyebrows, considering Penn’s past in political spaces. Penn began his career as a pollster and worked on Bill Clinton’s successful 1996 presidential run and Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 run. In recent years, Penn has been linked to President Donald Trump, making TV appearances denouncing impeachment efforts and facing accusations that he offered counsel to the former president on the impeachment process in 2019. A spokesperson for Penn strongly denied the accusations. Penn is firm in maintaining this partnership is not about politics or ideology. “I’m not advertising myself on this,” he said. “Today I just do commentary and just call balls and strikes on what’s going on, whether people like it or not. This is about upgrading the polling experience for people.” Also read: Mark Penn on building Stagwell and his political background RCP’s dedication to being a “trusted source for non-partisan news, analysis and commentary,” as it specifies on its website, was called into question by the New York Times after the 2020 election when it was the last outlet to call the election for President Biden. The delay was a foothold for many Trump allies who spread election falsehoods. Some of the site’s funding was also connected to several nonprofits linked with wealthy conservatives. See all of Ad Age’s 40 Under 40 honorees here McIntyre insists RCP is nonpartisan and pulls voices from across the political spectrum, citing its placement on the AllSides Media Bias Chart as proof of the outlet’s moderate stance. “We’re extremely rigorous about compiling data and producing RCP poll averages in a way to inform that is completely neutral,” McIntyre said. “It’s just the data and the information. There is no editorial content or political bias with it.” Revenue sharing Three Stagwell agencies are collaborating on the project. Digital transformation agency Code and Theory, which redesigned CNN’s Magic Wall ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, will work with business agency Gale, and B2B digital media agency Multiview. The partnership is not a typical agency-client relationship. The two companies are entering into a revenue-share agreement in which Stagwell will receive a percentage of the income RCP makes from advertising on its poll site, according to McIntrye. “We felt [revenue sharing] was the best way to package this as a business proposition,” McIntyre said. “Because we’re both incentivized to have this be as successful as possible, there’s opportunities to renew this partnership and do it in subsequent political cycles.” Ad Age A-List & Creativity Awards Final deadline approaching for annual program Enter here McIntyre and Penn have known each other for some time. Penn, who will be personally advising the project, called the upcoming presidential election the “Super Bowl” of the polling and news worlds, and said RCP’s new offering will be a “new tentpole experience for advertisers.” “There are political junkies, sports junkies and entertainment junkies, right?” Penn said. “I found that people over-advertise to sports junkies and they under-advertise to political junkies, so I want to create more places where people are comfortable advertising around news and poll results.” Recent news: How groups respond to companies’ social stances Penn was clear he had no plans to integrate RCP under the Stagwell umbrella in the future.

Behind Stagwell and RealClearPolitics’ partnership for the 2024 election

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