Is Political Advertising The Ultimate Vulgarity?

While some ad agencies willingly make political campaigns, such as Saatchi & Saatchi, some withdraw themselves from such services, such as Ogilvy & Mather. And some only do political advertising. In Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963), David Ogilvy expressed his disinterest in taking politicians as clients for two reasons: "The use of advertising to sell statesmen is the ultimate vulgarity." and that "If we were to advertise a Democrat, we would be unfair to the Republicans on our staff; and vice versa."

Among other reasons that ad agencies refuse to engage in political advertising are ideological deferences, and the fact these clients are short-term clients and come in cycles. An average client changes agencies once every 4 or 5 years while 10-15 year long client-agency relationships are not uncommon. Another reason is that around election times, these clients constantly need a particularly high level of attention which can overwhelm and exhaust the staff. Reputation risks are also a factor. Every time an ad agency supports a political party, it risks losing clients and prospects.

However, it is no secret that a hefty amount of money is spent on political campaigns. In 2012, the presidential election cost hit $2 billion mark, making it the most expensive election in the history. Half of this was spent on TV and radio advertising. Then comes the costs of digital advertising and print, and other costs such as fundraising, salaries, administrative, etc.

The ultimate purpose of this research is to find out how political advertising influence the voters' behaviour and possibly along the way answer why it has been described as the "ultimate vulgarity" by one of the most influential figures in Advertising industry. I will share with you some important information I came across during my research.

- A lot of protection, little regulation and lack of incentives to self-regulate: Politician are privileged to be over-protected. The First Amendment creates the perfect environment for politicians to engage in continual attacks and counter-attacks during election times. Basically, they are legally permitted to do whatever they want. They can make false claims and groundless accusations without ever getting caught. No politician has ever been disciplined for unethical or dishonest advertising. This makes the truth irrelevant.

Commercial advertising on the other hand is bound by restrictions. Studies show that people clearly distinguish between political advertising and commercial advertising and not surprisingly, political advertising scores much lower in believability and credibility compare to commercial advertising. Political advertising is usually done in a negative form (also known as attack ads). The purpose is to draw attention to the opponent's weaknesses and create a negative perception about him/her. The following ads are a few examples:

Some politicians believe that they are stuck in a "prisoners' dilemma", that they have to use attack ads as their opponents are using them and if they don't, they will lose.


- Political ads bore people: Research shows that people are jaded with political ads, especially the attack ads. They're described as unfair, uninformative, stupid, unethical, and deceptive. I have to admit that I find them particularly entertaining though, watching a bunch of politicians ridiculing themselves in front of a nation is wicked. :D

People believe that negative advertising is not useful as it is often image-based and not issue-based. Some argue that the lack of enthusiasm for voting and cynicism is partly due to the intense dislike that people have towards political advertising, and the low perceived utility of such advertising. Political campaigns often use mixed strategies (a combination of negative ads and other forms of political ads) to be less annoying. That being said, people might hate the attack ads but studies show they don't necessarily hate the candidate for it (negative ads occasionally cause backlash though). As a matter of fact, research suggests that negative ads actually work. Let's see how.

- Negative messages are more easily remembered than positive ones: Not only people remember them more easily, but they tend to weight negative information more heavily than they do positive information when assessing someone's likeability. This partly explains the last minute ads the day before the election. Politicians bring up new claims close to the election when their opponents don't have enough time to respond. The negative message sticks to people's minds and since it's the most recent information, it's remembered most easily. Some ad directors refuse to print last minute political ads for this reason.

- Special effects do have special effects on voters' behaviour: One study has found that the special effects used in television ads affect voters' judgements about political candidates, even if they're fully aware of them. They significantly increase a candidate's chances of winning. This includes editing and any distortion like changing a scene from colour to black-and-white, stretching the nose of the opponent to look like Pinocchio's (this is their favourite, it has been done for almost all politicians), using slow motion or still images, adding background noise (people cheering up in the background), etc. I lost count of the distortions in the following video:

 Barack Obama inspirational TV ad

- Getting people emotionally engaged is the secret: Another study revealed that voter emotion will significantly influence advertising believability. When people are less emotional, they tend to believe the positive messages delivered through advertising; when they are more emotional, they tend to believe negative messages more. So if an attack ad makes you cry, it means it's working, like this one:

- The elderly are easier targets: They have more difficulty accurately remembering the claims made in the ads and are more likely to make illogical inferences from them. Older people usually fall for the attack ads.

The federal election is around the corner. Candidates have already started the war. We'll be exposed to a lot of attack ads. A healthy dose of skepticism is necessary and it wouldn't hurt if we remember these few points when making our decision.

 Let's have a look at this very old ad made by Disney in 1952 for Eisenhower presidential campaign.

I like Ike...