Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Negative Political Advertising
Political advertising is a special case.
2006 is an election year, so it's predictable
that by Fall we're going to see a lot of
paid political advertising, and a fair amount
of it will be negative.
It's also predictable that we'll see a lot of
moaning and groaning and mud-slinging and how
voters don't like negative advertising etc
yada yada yada . . .
Yet it still goes on.
Again, I personally prefer a somewhat rational
approach. As long as it's factual, I like the
kind of ads that say things like, "My opponent
voted for Bill #444 that would have
outlawed Mom, cherry pie and the Fourth of July.
You can't get more unAmerican than that."
Of course, you run the risk of educating voters
who're on the other side. If you run an ad
attacking Senator JoeBob for voting for a
pro-abortion bill, you run the risk of him
getting more votes from pro-abortionistss
than of you getting votes from anti-abortionists.
However, the 3 most famous political TV ads are:
1. The little girl counting down to a nuclear
explosion. Run one time by LBJ against Barry
Goldwater in 1964.
2. The bear in the woods ad run by Ronald Reagan
in 1984.
3. The Willie Horton ad run by George Bush Sr
against Michael Dukakis in 1988.
These ads did attack their opponents in a
very emotional rather than factual tone. Only
the Willie Horton ad had any facts in it (Willie
Horton did commit those crimes).
Unlike commercial ad campaigns, we are final
to at least some of the final results: We know
the final vote tally.
In all 3 of the above cases, the candidates
running the ads won the elections -- two of them
in major landslides.
But what we can't really measure is how much
the ads contributed to this result. It's quite
likely that all 3 candidates would have won
anyway. Maybe with even more vote totals.
Maybe with less. Who knows?
Nor can we trust whatever people say about the
effective of negative ads.
The first two above were brilliantly executed
to appeal to people's buried fears. It's quite
likely that many voters had the classic
buying response.
They decided to vote for LBJ and Ronald Reagan
based on the emotional appeals.
They then found "rational" reasons to justify
their emotional decision.
copywriting for non-profits
2006 is an election year, so it's predictable
that by Fall we're going to see a lot of
paid political advertising, and a fair amount
of it will be negative.
It's also predictable that we'll see a lot of
moaning and groaning and mud-slinging and how
voters don't like negative advertising etc
yada yada yada . . .
Yet it still goes on.
Again, I personally prefer a somewhat rational
approach. As long as it's factual, I like the
kind of ads that say things like, "My opponent
voted for Bill #444 that would have
outlawed Mom, cherry pie and the Fourth of July.
You can't get more unAmerican than that."
Of course, you run the risk of educating voters
who're on the other side. If you run an ad
attacking Senator JoeBob for voting for a
pro-abortion bill, you run the risk of him
getting more votes from pro-abortionistss
than of you getting votes from anti-abortionists.
However, the 3 most famous political TV ads are:
1. The little girl counting down to a nuclear
explosion. Run one time by LBJ against Barry
Goldwater in 1964.
2. The bear in the woods ad run by Ronald Reagan
in 1984.
3. The Willie Horton ad run by George Bush Sr
against Michael Dukakis in 1988.
These ads did attack their opponents in a
very emotional rather than factual tone. Only
the Willie Horton ad had any facts in it (Willie
Horton did commit those crimes).
Unlike commercial ad campaigns, we are final
to at least some of the final results: We know
the final vote tally.
In all 3 of the above cases, the candidates
running the ads won the elections -- two of them
in major landslides.
But what we can't really measure is how much
the ads contributed to this result. It's quite
likely that all 3 candidates would have won
anyway. Maybe with even more vote totals.
Maybe with less. Who knows?
Nor can we trust whatever people say about the
effective of negative ads.
The first two above were brilliantly executed
to appeal to people's buried fears. It's quite
likely that many voters had the classic
buying response.
They decided to vote for LBJ and Ronald Reagan
based on the emotional appeals.
They then found "rational" reasons to justify
their emotional decision.
copywriting for non-profits
