Data show NRA ad increase after Parkland

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, including ads on YouTube, banner ads on websites and Facebook ads.

Within four days, though, the NRA had returned in force, increasing its advertising aggressively on Facebook, and spending so widely and indiscriminately that its ads on YouTube showed up on videos for school-age kids. According to a previously unpublished review by Pathmatics, a company that scrapes data from online ads, the NRA spent more than six times as much on digital ads after the Parkland shooting than it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, primarily Facebook, where the NRA took its spending from an average of $4,400 a day in the three weeks prior to Parkland to $34,000 a day in the three weeks after the silence. Florida was heavily targeted in the ad burst. The state went from ninth most targeted in January to third between mid-February and midMarch. The NRA didn’t change its message. The message was just pushed much harder. For the past year, the NRA was ranked No. 706 by Pathmatics on its list of top YouTube video advertisers. In the period since Feb. 21, it jumped into the top 100 at No. 92.

In its sudden rush to counteract widespread criticism, the NRA appears to have aimed its marketing messages rather carelessly. Pathmatics found NRA membership-drive ads running on a YouTube 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. 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 slayings, and has kept a lid on it ever since.

Going dark after a gun-related tragedy is a common tactic for the NRA. But the NRA’s silence would almost always end once the public’s clamoring for stricter gun control laws 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 TV and radio advertising. “This one is a little different because you have more sustained discussion.”

The Federal Communications Commission has long enforced strict rules about how network and cable television 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 FTC over the YouTube Kids app, alleging that the app allows deceptive marketing to parents based on inappropriate videos. That complaint centered on advertising within YouTube videos themselves — not the pre-roll ads or ads on the side, 120 100 80 60 40 20 Source: Pathmatics which have even less oversight.

There hasn’t been much research comparing the ways 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 PwC.