Romney Plans Pricey Twitter Ad Buy for Thursday

Tampa, FL – On Thursday when Mitt Romney is planned to give his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination here at the Party’s convention, the Romney digital team will be aiming for big Twitter buzz. To facilitate that, the Romney camp will enter Twitter ad domain that is usually reserved for big Hollywood flicks or CPG brands: the Promoted Trend.

Promoted Trends appear above Twitter’s left-hand side list of organic trends, keywords that are getting lots of juice on Twitter at any given moment. Promoted Trends link to a list of tweets using the trend keyword – usually in hashtag form – topped by a Promoted Tweet by the same advertiser.

Photo: Romney campaign’s digital headquarters in the Tampa Convention Center this week

“It’s an opportunity for us to be the first Presidential campaign to use a Promoted Trend,” said Zac Moffatt, digital director for the Romney campaign, speaking with ClickZ at the convention. Twitter confirmed this will be the first time a Presidential campaign will run a Promoted Trend. This is the first presidential election during which the unit has been offered.

“To trend for a day is a far more significant investment in resources,” than other Twitter ad buys like Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts, said Moffatt. The Promoted Trend has been known to cost as much as $120,000 a day. Moffatt said the campaign is not paying more than $120,000 for the ad but would not say exactly how much it would cost.

The Romney camp has used Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts extensively this election season.

The Promoted Trend unit amounts to a national ad buy for the campaign, a rare occurrence in Romney’s typically hyper-targeted digital ad strategy. Moffatt suggested the much-watched convention warranted a nationally-aimed buy online. “The convention is one of those transformative moments when the entire country takes time to reflect,” said Moffatt.

The campaign can’t risk tipping off its opponents to online ad plans, said Moffatt, since they would almost definitely pounce and buy up their own keyword-targeted ads on Google and Twitter to compete. Thus, he remained mum on the actual content of the Promoted Trend.