State Rep. Marty Walsh was good enough to join BostInno and the New England Venture Capital Association last week to explain to the entrepreneurs, startups, venture capitalists, and the aspiring why he should be the next Boston mayor. And while the crowd seemed content with the general responses Walsh gave on municipal policy, it’s safe to say a lot of ears perked when he mentioned nonchalantly that he’s spend $250,000 on social media campaigning alone.
We reached out directly to Walsh’s campaign to see where exactly he’s spent all of that money and while they refused to disclose exact figures, they did point us in the right direction. According to Walsh’s press secretary, social media expenditures have been across multiple platforms including search optimization, paid advertising on unnamed Boston-based websites, and YouTube ads and video campaigns. In similar respect, the campaign refused to disclose how much money was spent on each particular platform.
It was mentioned, however, that the campaign has done business with Bully Pulpit Interactive. This Washington D.C.-based media marketing company has worked on President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, Senator Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, a LIVESTRONG grassroots campaign, and the campaign of Trinidad and Tobago’s first female Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
Rarely, it seems, that such a firm would work on a mere municipal election but they also boast the work they’ve done with Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago. And while nobody doubts Boston’s clout on the national stage, The Hub is well below half of Chicago’s population, land area, and economic size. And Marty Walsh is surely one of the company’s lower-profile players.
But that hasn’t stopped the campaign from producing a steady cash flow for Bully Pulpit. Of the $250,000 Walsh estimates to have spent on social media, about $174,000 was spent on Bully Pulpit’s services.
We recently reached out to Bully Pulpit for a comment regarding the work they’ve done with Walsh but have yet to receive a response.
But there’s still approximately $75,000 unaccounted for. So naturally we did some digging and came up with some interesting answers. The Walsh campaign has also funneled about $16,500 into Goldman Associates of Marblehead, MA; $2,500 with AKPD Message and Media; $6,000 with Globe Strategy Group; and $10,500 with CK Strategies.
The Massachusetts Office of Campaign & Political Finance (OCPF) vaguely lists all of these expenditures as consultants but based on his campaign having specifically noted Bully Pulpit’s contribution, it’s not out of line to consider that perhaps these other groups contributed in similar fashion, though, at this point, we can’t say for sure. As for the remaining thousands of dollars that still don’t add up to Walsh’s $250K suggestion, it’s likely that those aren’t forcibly filed with the OCPF or he simply used that number as a reference for the sizable chunk of change he’s thrown at social media.
