Campaign advertising
Encyclopedia
In politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, campaign advertising is the use of an advertising campaign
Advertising campaign
An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication...
through newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s, radio commercial
Radio commercial
Commercial radio stations make most of their revenue selling “airtime” to advertisers. Of total media expenditures, radio accounts for 6.9%. Radio advertisements or “spots” are available when a business or service provides valuable consideration, usually cash, in exchange for the station airing...
s, television commercials, etc.) to influence
Influence
Influence may refer to:In science and technology:*Sphere of influence , the region around a celestial body in which it is the primary gravitational influence on orbiting objects...
the decision
Decision
A decision is the selection between possible actions.A choice is the selection between two or more objects.The term decision may refer to:* Judgment , as the outcome of a legal case...
s made for and by groups. These ads are designed by political consultants
Political consulting
Political consulting, beyond the self-evident definition of consulting in political matters, refers to a specific management consulting industry which has grown up around advising and assisting political campaigns. This article deals primarily with the development and nature of political consulting...
and the political campaign staff
Political campaign staff
Political campaign staff are the people who formulate and implement the strategy needed to win an election. Many people have made careers out of working full-time for campaigns and groups that support them, but in other campaigns much of the staff might be unpaid volunteers...
. Political advertising is a form of campaigning used by political candidates to reach and influence voters. It can include several different mediums and span several months over the course of a political campaign. Unlike campaign finance
Campaign finance
Campaign finance refers to all funds that are raised and spent in order to promote candidates, parties or policies in some sort of electoral contest. In modern democracies such funds are not necessarily devoted to election campaigns. Issue campaigns in referendums, party activities and party...
, there are very few regulations governing the process, and many candidates use various techniques to influence their intended audience. Unlike the campaigns of the past, advances in media technology have streamlined the process, giving candidates more options to reach even larger groups of constituents with very little physical effort.
History
Political advertising has changed drastically over the last several decades. In the 1948 presidential campaign, Harry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
was proud of his accomplishment of shaking approximately 500,000 hands and covering 31,000 miles of ground across the nation. But that accomplishment was soon to pale in comparison when in 1952, the next presidential election saw a major change in how candidates reached their potential audiences. With the advent of television, war hero and presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
, created forty twenty-second television spot commercials entitled, “Eisenhower Answers America” where he answered questions from “ordinary” citizens in an attempt to appear accessible to “the common man.” These questions were filmed in one day using visitors to Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...
, who were filmed gazing up at Eisenhower as he answered questions about the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, government corruption, and the state of the economy. He didn’t have to shake a half a million hands or travel the country extensively. He won the trust of the American people with his direct approach and subsequently the Presidential election. His vice president was Richard M. Nixon.
In 1960, Vice President Nixon used a formal television address in his presidential campaign, designed to answer questions about The Cold War and government corruption, and to show Americans that he was the stronger, more experienced candidate. On the other side of the fence, Catholic born John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
created approximately 200 commercials during his campaign, but there were two that made Nixon’s efforts futile. The first was a thirty minute commercial created from a speech he delivered in Houston, where he called for religious tolerance in response to criticisms that Catholicism was incompatible with a run for the Oval Office. The second and more memorable was the first Kennedy-Nixon debate. In the first of four televised debates, Kennedy appeared tanned and confident in opposition to Nixon, who looked pale and uncomfortable in front of the camera. Seventy-five million viewers watched the debates, and although Nixon was initially thought to be the natural successor to Eisenhower, the election results proved otherwise, and Kennedy was ultimately declared the winner.
In 1964, aggressive advertising paved the way for a landslide Johnson victory. One of the first negative and maybe the most controversial commercial, perhaps of all time, was an advertisement dubbed “The Daisy Girl.” The commercial showed a young girl picking the petals off a daisy. After she finishes counting, a voice off camera begins a countdown to a nuclear explosion. The ad ends with an appeal to vote Johnson, “because the stakes are too high for you to stay home.” The commercial was designed to provoke not only fear, but also guilt, an effective advertising principle, among people for not taking action to protect the next generation. Even though was under a minute and it was aired only once, but due to the right wing, pro-war views of the Republican candidate, it resulted in a 44 to 6 state victory for Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
.
Over the next decade, America saw the rise of the televised political attack ad. Richard M. Nixon was especially proficient at this form of advertising, and his commercials proved to be very successful in his reelection campaign of 1972, where he won handily with a 49 to 1 state victory. McGovern
McGovern
McGovern may refer to ther following:* McGovern , surname of Irish origin* McGovern Institute for Brain ResearchPeople:* Barry McGovern, Irish Actor* Brian McGovern, former Irish professional footballer...
ran a campaign free of political attack ads until the very end of his campaign, when he tried to attack Nixon after he realized he was dipping lower in the polls. His attempt proved to be too late, but his neutral style of attack ads against Nixon, featuring white text scrolling across a black background, became what is now seen as a fairly common method used in political and product advertising.
Attack ads continued to become the norm in political advertising. Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
used them against Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
in 1980, and it was also the first time that a family member was also used to attack the opposing candidate. One particular advertisement showed Reagan’s wife Nancy accusing Carter of a weak foreign policy. This campaign also saw the rise of campaign finance
Campaign finance
Campaign finance refers to all funds that are raised and spent in order to promote candidates, parties or policies in some sort of electoral contest. In modern democracies such funds are not necessarily devoted to election campaigns. Issue campaigns in referendums, party activities and party...
issues when Reagan used political action committees to solicit funds on his behalf. However, in his reelection bid in 1984, we saw the beginning of a different form of political advertising; one with a much more positive flow and a stronger, more powerful message. With the country in a relatively prosperous state, advertisements in support of Reagan evoked an emotional bond between the country and its president. Visions of Americans going about their daily lives with relative ease were compiled to convince America that voting against Reagan was a vote against prosperity. The positive and emotionally provocative ads proved more successful than negative attack ads. He was so highly successful that he won against Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
with a 49 to 1 state victory.
In the following election, attack ads returned with a renewed vigor. In 1988, George H. Bush used campaign ads that ridiculed his opponent, making him appear soft on crime. He contrasted these negative ads, with the emotional style commercial used by Ronald Reagan, to capitalize on his connection to the former president. Again borrowing from Reagan’s campaign practices he used free publicity as often as possible, making sure he was photographed in various situations that were likely to be aired in the evening news. Although Michael Dukakis
Michael Dukakis
Michael Stanley Dukakis served as the 65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and from 1983–1991, and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He was born to Greek immigrants in Brookline, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, and was the longest serving...
tried to discredit the Bush campaign in many ways, he was ultimately unsuccessful, losing to the former Vice President by thirty states.
There is no other election prior to the 1992 presidential election that capitalized more on the growth of technology. The rise of cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
became a formidable marketing tool used quite successfully by former Arkansas governor, William Jefferson Clinton. Both in 1992 and in his bid for reelection in 1996, he used various media outlets to reach demographics that had seldom been targeted in prior bids for the White House. Using brilliant campaigning techniques, he frequented daytime talk shows and popular culture media outlets such as MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, to show he was in touch with the American public in a way that no other presidential candidate had been before. His paid advertising was also successful, placing him right in the middle of the political spectrum, appealing to a wide and diverse audience by using clean consistent messages and modern visions for the future. With the stark contrast of attack advertising and limited charisma coming from the opposition, George H. Bush lost his seat in the Oval Office to Bill Clinton in 1992, and presidential hopeful Robert Doyle was left behind in 1996.
The 2004 election saw yet another, and possibly the biggest change yet in political advertising; the growth of the Internet. Web-based advertising was easily distributed by both campaigns, and for the first time, advertisements were tailored to target specific audiences, a process known as narrowcasting
Narrowcasting
Narrowcasting has traditionally been understood as the dissemination of information to a narrow audience, not to the general public. Narrowcasting involves aiming media messages at specific segments of the public defined by values, preferences, or demographic attributes. Also called niche...
. Both campaigns hired firms who specialized in the accumulation of personal data, and they used this information to highlight their strongest and weakest areas. Then unique advertisements, sometimes with completely different messages, would be delivered to specific demographic regions in order to generate support for their respective presidential candidate. Negative campaign advertisements were used primarily by the Bush Administration, although plenty of attack ads were generated on behalf of the Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
campaign, produced by special interest groups protesting George Bush’s decision to enter into the War in Iraq in 2003. The race was close, but resulted in a photo finish win for the incumbent George W. Bush.
The latest general election in 2008 was not the flashiest or even the most remarkable presidential election in terms of technological advancement, but it was revolutionary in a couple of ways. Perhaps the most significant, was the impact on the country, as Illinois Senator Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
was elected the first African American president in US history. However, the campaign itself was not extraordinary. Both parties spent a great deal on political advertising. Negative attack ads were more prevalent in the Republican camp, but they were used by the Obama administration as well, mostly to discredit Sarah Palin, who was the running mate of the Republican contender and war veteran, John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
. But aside from its historical significance, a small but important aspect of this campaign was the way it changed how American people viewed a presidential hopeful, and subsequently their President. The art of narrowcasting was being refined by both candidates, but Obama took it to a new level. With the amazing growth of the World Wide Web, communication between candidate and constituent was becoming more and more instantaneous. Feedback was almost immediately available, and with Obama’s intimate knowledge of internet technology, unsurpassed by any other presidential candidate, he connected to the American public in a very real and familiar way. During and even after his election, he used “personal” email messages to communicate directly with the public. He was so successful at this practice that it began to be, and still is, questioned by Republicans and other various organizations, as to whether Obama violated any disclosure rules in his effort “to keep the public informed.”
Existing laws and regulations
While there has been progress in regulating campaign finance, very little has been done in the way of regulating political advertising content. Candidates can and will display messages in their advertisements that come very close to propagandaPropaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 is a United States federal law that amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which regulates the financing of political campaigns. Its chief sponsors were Senators Russell Feingold and John McCain...
of 2002 addressed the issue of "soft money” or money contributed through political action committees, it raised the legal limits of hard money
Hard money
Hard money may refer to:* Hard currency, globally traded currency that can serve as a reliable and stable store of value* Hard money donations to candidates for political office* Hard money currency policies...
that could be raised for any candidate, and set limits on what funds could be spent on election broadcasts, but it did nothing to challenge the lack of truth in political campaign advertising. As of this time, there is no pending legislation addressing this issue.
The future of political advertising in America
Since America has become more culturally diverse, political advertising must become less negative and more dialed into the minds and homes of the American public. Messages must be customized to reach very small audiences with very different needs and beliefs, everywhere in the country, and on an ongoing basis. AcxiomAcxiom
Acxiom is a global interactive marketing services company that uses consumer data, analytics, information technology, data aggregation, data integration, and consulting solutions to help companies conduct direct marketing programs...
in Little Rock, AK, was mentioned in a PBS Frontline report as one of the many market research firms that are becoming tuned into what is happening with each and every one of us. Their records come from several sources such census reports, tax files, and consumer product surveys, and their goal is know everything there is to know about us. This data is then compiled for sale to advertising firms and political campaigns, who use that information to draft their messages in a language we can understand within our own unique culture or group demographic. Data of this sort was used in both the 2004 and the 2008 political campaigns, and with the continued ease of information gathering, more and more targeted political campaign advertising will be an integral part of election strategy in the near future.
List of election advertising techniques
- Attack adAttack adIn political campaigns, an attack ad is an advertisement whose message is meant as a personal attack against another candidate or political party...
- Bumper stickerBumper stickerA bumper sticker is an adhesive label or sticker with a message, intended to be attached to the bumper of an automobile and to be read by the occupants of other vehicles - although they are often stuck onto other objects...
- Campaign buttonCampaign buttonA campaign button is used in the United States during an election as political advertising for a candidate or political party, or to proclaim the issues that are part of the political platform. Political buttons date as far back as President George Washington. They have taken many forms as the...
- CanvassingCanvassingCanvassing is the systematic initiation of direct contact with a target group of individuals commonly used during political campaigns. A campaign team will knock on doors of private residences within a particular geographic area, engaging in face-to-face personal interaction with voters...
- Direct marketingDirect marketingDirect marketing is a channel-agnostic form of advertising that allows businesses and nonprofits to communicate straight to the customer, with advertising techniques such as mobile messaging, email, interactive consumer websites, online display ads, fliers, catalog distribution, promotional...
- Election promiseElection promiseAn election promise is a promise made to the public by a politician who is trying to win an election. They have long been a central element of elections and remain so today...
- Get out the voteGet out the vote"Get out the vote" are terms used to describe two categories of political activity, both aimed at increasing the number of votes cast in one or more elections.- Non-partisan contexts :...
- Lawn signLawn signLawn signs are used for local advertising. They can be used by business such as real estate and are popular in election campaigns in some countries. They are small signs that can be placed on the property of a business or on the lawns of a candidate's supporters...
- Negative campaigningNegative campaigningNegative campaigning, also known more colloquially as "mudslinging", is trying to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent or of a policy rather than emphasizing one's own positive attributes or preferred policies...
- Opposition researchOpposition researchOpposition research is:# The term used to classify and describe efforts of supporters or paid consultants of a political candidate to legally investigate the biographical, legal or criminal, medical, educational, financial, public and private administrative and or voting records of the opposing...
- PIGPIG (elections)PIG is an electoral technique commonly employed in the United Kingdom, consisting of three steps:*Persuade — in which the organisation concerned convinces the public to support them—usually a political party attempting to solicit votes....
- PosterPosterA poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...
s - Push pollPush pollA push poll is a political campaign technique in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. In a push poll, large numbers of respondents are contacted, and little or no effort is made to collect and analyze...