Political advertising
Political advertising
• “Televised political advertising is now the
dominant form of communication between
candidates and voters in the presidential
elections and in most statewide contests”
• Kaid, “Political advertising”
– Online sources are becoming more important,
but TV advertising remains dominant
• “Political candidates are products, and
political advertising is advertising.”
• Elissa Moses, chief analytics officer for EmSense
• "Since you're the ones who are selling the
soap, I thought you'd like to see the bar,"
– Ronald Reagan, upon sticking his head into the
room where the ad execs were creating the ad
known as Morning In America
• The application of marketing principles to
political campaigns is clearly reflected in
the nature and volume of political
advertising.
• Traditional product marketing principles
and techniques have been adapted to use in
political marketing
– Political marketing more negative, combative,
dishonest, though
The cost of campaigning
• Political strategists have found that for very
public races the most effective means of
promoting their candidate is televised
advertising
– Efficient means of reaching widespread
audience
– Can be effective in education, image-building,
emotional bonding, persuasion
As a result, the amount of
campaign spending has
mushroomed
Aggregate Operating Expenditures US House
Principal Campaign Committees 1998-2008
$Millions
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
$Millions
1998
2000
2002
2004
Source: GAO
2006
2008
Ad targeting
• Campaigns target ads based on likelihood of
increase in votes/margin
– Get supporters to the polls
– Influence undecided voters
– In presidential, must consider electoral college
• http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president
/advertising/index.html?hp
Undecideds
• The ‘swing vote’ in elections is made up
largely of those persons who are relatively
ill-informed, have a less-developed
ideology and are swayed by late events,
advertising and non-policy news
• They often decide the elections, though, and
are a major target of candidates
– Going negative can work here
The danger of expense
• Politics could become a ‘rich man’s game’
– Can well-heeled candidates buy elections?
• Those who cannot afford to run must raise
the money
– Do large donors gain inordinate influence?
– Do candidates prostitute themselves?
– Does fund-raising undermine the ability of
candidates to speak to the wider public?
Campaign strategy development
• Research
– Polling
– Opposition research
• Image (Brand) strategy development
• Campaign development
– Message strategy
– Media strategy/targeting
• Monitoring and adjustment
Elements of Campaign Strategy
• Targeting
– Media strategy
• Branding (Image)
– Message strategy
Targeting
• “If you want to get up to 51 percent of the
vote, you probably have to assemble a
coalition of 20 or 30 or 50 demographic
groups. So as a modern candidate, you want
a targeted ad on the gun control, on the prolife, on the military, on the economic
issues.”
• Peter Swire, Ohio State Law Professor, on PBS
Frontline, The Persuaders
• “You're going to want to have a message
that's tailored for each one of those groups.
If you don't do it, you're putting out
broadcast ads in a narrowcast world.”
Message strategy
Research: Frank Luntz:
• “The way you communicate an idea is different
than the way you communicate a product.
However, the way you measure [the response of
the public in both instances] is quite similar.”
– PBS Frontline: The Persuaders
• “My job as a pollster is to understand what really
matters. . . . . What causes people to buy a
product? What causes someone to pull a lever and
get them to vote? I need to know the specifics of
that. And in politics, more often than not, it's about
the personality and the character of the individual
rather than where they stand”
Incumbent strategies
Bush
Kerry
Use of symbolic trappings
15%
0%
Presidency stands for
legitimacy
12%
0%
Competency and the
office
25%
5%
Charisma and the office
5%
0%
Emphasizing
accomplishments
25%
12%
Above-the-trenches
posture
7%
0%
Depending on surrogates
to speak
5%
8%
Challenger strategies
Bush
Kerry
Calling for changes
3%
59%
Speaking to traditional
values
31%
13%
Taking the offensive
position
19%
16%
Emphasizing optimism
31%
28%
Attacking the record of
the opponent
61%
54%
Simplification
• To be able to communicate a single idea,
whether it be a policy position, personality
trait, or critique of opponent performance,
the candidate’s views are oversimplified
– Remove nuance, detail and exceptions
• "We're in a sound-bite world, and you have
to work to get people's attention.”
– Scott Howell, quoted in The Nation
Implications of simplification
• Some scholars point to clear evidence that
constituents do learn from political
advertising—many studies indicating that
they learn more from ads than from news
coverage
• Others argue that simplification leads to
sloganeering, demagoguery, and unrealistic
expectations among the electorate.
Image
• Tie values, mythic qualities, trappings of
the office, cheering crowds, perceptions of
success, biography (with military service or
business success), personality
Issues v. images
• Most advertising focuses on issues rather than
image
– 78% of 2000 presidential campaign ads (historic high)
• However, “the percentage of spots with specific
policy issue information was much lower than the
overall number of issue spots”
– Vague, general statements
– Claims without context (often misleading or even false)
Issues
Proportion of ads
emphasizing
issues
Fear appeals
Bush
85%
19%
Kerry
79%
5%
2004 Issue Mentions (source: Kaid)
2004 Candidate character
mentions (source: Kaid)
Emotion
• Political consultants and many, perhaps
most, scholars have argued that emotional
appeals are the most effective—much more
so than communication of issue positions
Emotional appeals
• Topical
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Kids, elderly
Wedge issues
Patriotic, mythic appeals
Biography
Testimonial
Humor
Fear
Appeals in presidential campaign
advertising
Verbal content 2004
Positive v. Negative
• Challengers are more likely to engage in negative
advertising, while incumbents tend to be positive
– Challenger criticizing record, incumbent defending it
• Attack ads are more common in competitive races
– Most races against incumbents are long shots
– 2010 seems to be breaking this rule
• Negative ads are more likely to be sponsored by
parties or advocacy groups
• Negative ads have more substantive issue
information
• There has been a significant increase in
negativity over the last 30 years
Ed Rollins
• “Here’s the ugly truth they never teach you in
civics class: Negative ads work. It’s easier to
defeat your opponent than to get elected yourself.
Not all that long ago campaigns were issue-driven.
Now they’re character-driven. Party labels are
essentially meaningless. Issues don’t matter as
much as the message, and the message doesn’t
count anywhere near as much as the messenger.
• So the campaign trains its sights on the
messenger. You go out and tarnish their
personality; you run ads that beat the living
daylights out of them.”
– Ed Rollins (Republican campaign consultant)
Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms, 1996.
2000 [all] elections
(Wisconsin Ad Project)
Overall appeals
Attack ads 2004
(source: Kaid)
Personally
Anonymous
attack opponent attack on
opponent
Attack on issues
Bush
0%
95%
92%
Kerry
30%
62%
59%
Emotion and cultural symbols
• “more emotional proof than logical or ethical
proof”
• According to Hart “one must never underestimate
the importance of that which advertising most
reliably delivers—political emotion”
• Tie opponent to people or policies that are
disliked, accuse of dishonesty/illegal
activities, show lack of caring, that
opponent is from ‘elsewhere’
– Negative or “attack” ads
Framing
• Providing a particular vision of the world
and placing the narrative within it
– Good guys and bad guys/good v. evil
– Presumptions about what is important and what
isn’t
– Labeling, word use and exemplars
– Ignoring of counter-evidence, factors that don’t
fit the ideology
– Heavy use of metaphor
Truth and falsehood
• Unfounded and misleading projections from
opponent’s statements, arguments
• Misrepresentation of own record,
accomplishments
• "Advertising is essentially truthful, except
political advertising, which ... gets worse
every year ... (It's) just the artful assembling
of nominal facts into hideous, outrageous
lies."
• (Bob Garfield, AdAge columnist, quoted in PBS'
THE PERSUADERS)
• "The unfortunate thing about political
advertising, is that when you tell lies, these
lies often stick, and the liars never receive
any penalties.”
• Dr. Carolyn Lin, a communications professor at the
University of Connecticut.,
• Snippets of formally true information can be
strung together to create a completely false
impression
• Out-and-out lying is not uncommon in
political ads even though it is illegal in
product advertising
• "Political commercials pretend to be like
documentaries, but they use all the
techniques of fiction filmmaking, including
scripts, performances, and music,"
– David Schwartz, American Museum of the
Moving Image
• Production
–
–
–
–
–
Music
Visuals (faces, emotional expressions)
Voiceover
Use of color v. B&W
Slow motion, fast motion
Production techniques
Computer graphics
Slow motion
Fast motion
Freeze frames
Split screens
Superimpositions
Use of stills
Black and white
changes
Bush Kerry
92% 80%
24% 41%
15%
1%
14% 14%
17% 26%
20% 13%
7% 30%
26% 16%
Types of commercials
•
•
•
•
•
Talking heads
Cinema verite
Documentary spots
Man-in-the street spots
Testimonials
– Devlin; Joslyn: “Benevolent leader” spots