Three of the four most expensive political ad campaigns on YouTube in April run by Fidesz and NGO close to it

Hungarians who have spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos in recent weeks likely had the impression that they were bombarded with messages from Fidesz during commercial breaks. And they're not imagining things: as the April summary of the Google Ads Transparency Center shows, Fidesz and the government-affiliated CÖF (Civil Összefogás Fórum – Civil Cooperation Forum) conducted an ad campaign of outstanding size, even at the European level. Of all political advertising within the EU (this means more than 13,000 video ads) in the month of April, the most expensive political ad, as well as the second and fourth most expensive ones were all Hungarian.

There are eight Hungarian ads among the top 20 most funded political ads (see image below): five were paid for by CÖF and three by Fidesz. Each of these were negative campaigns, all of them aiming to discredit opposition politicians (Péter Magyar, Péter Márki-Zay, Gergely Karácsony) and the opposition in general. In addition to the two Hungarian players, the European People's Party and the EP's liberal group Renew Europe are also among the top ten with several advertisements.

The most expensive political advertisement in April was commissioned by CÖF's company, Kövess minket 2022 Kft, and it focused on Péter Magyar. Its price was in the 40-45 thousand euro range (15-17 million HUF), for which the client received more than 10 million placements.

The second most expensive is Fidesz's advertisement with the image already well-known to Hungarians from billboards around the country, about the "humble servants of Brussels" with a similar cost and reach (Google does not provide exact figures on the cost and reach of ads, it only provides the ranges; the top category for number of views is above 10 million). These two videos generated over ten million views in just 8 and 9 days of running, which means that during the campaigns' running time, the two ads were shown over one million times a day.

In total, the eight Fidesz and CÖF ads which made it into the top 20 were played more than 50 million times on YouTube, which is a rather steep number in a country of just under 10 million people. In the month of April CÖF was the second biggest political advertiser on the platform in the entire European Union, while Fidesz was the fourth. When looking at the number of ads directly targeting Hungarian internet users, the 278,000 euros (108 million HUF) spent earned them the top spot for the month.

The domination of the Fidesz side in YouTube advertisements is reflected in the fact that while CÖF spent 114 thousand euros on such advertisements and Fidesz spent 72 thousand euros in April, the highest figures on the opposition side were 25 thousand (LMP), 8 thousand (Anna Donáth) and 5.6 thousand (Piroska Visi, the losing candidate in the preliminary election of the opposition parties in Budapest's Hegyvidék district).

In just four months, Hungarian political spending on YouTube ads is already nearing the total sum spent in 2023, but it is nowhere near the 2022 figure. Back then, in the last month of the election campaign, the total Hungarian bill was €983,000, three and a half times the amount spent in April – although back then, more than a third of that was spent by the opposition's camp.