Are presidential election TV ads effective anymore?
Remember those 1988 Willie Horton TV spots, with a mug shot of the man who raped and assaulted a couple while on weekend furlough from prison? How about the 1964 Lyndon Baines Johnson ad with the sweet child picking petals off a daisy. Seconds later: kaboom! Mushroom cloud.
These are some of the most remarkable images ever on TV. But in today’s 24/7 news cycle, where Republican Donald J. Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton can take messages directly to the electorate through social media, do televised ads still have impact?
That depends on whom you’re trying to reach. Millennials are more likely to be cord cutters than their elders, who still mostly watch shows on actual televisions.
But the youngest eligible demographic, said J.J. Balaban, creative consultant for The Campaign Group in Philadelphia, is “least likely to vote.” Corralling them is probably a bigger priority in the future.
“I often joke the average age of the average voter in an off-year election is ‘deceased,’ ” Mr. Balaban said. “Now, that’s not true in a presidential election year.”
The Campaign Group creates ads and provides strategic advice for Democratic campaigns across 35 states and 60 congressional districts.
Mr. Balaban said good political advertising is direct because “elections are fundamentally about defining yourself, defining your candidate and defining the stakes of the election.”
“Failing to define a candidate allows [your opponent] to compete for votes that they have no business competing for, down the stretch,” Republican strategist Josh Holmes told Politico in August.
Steve Irwin is an attorney and strategist who has his own cable show, “Political Jungle,” on PCTV in Pittsburgh. He said he believes traditional television still carries a gravitas unmatched by the web.
“Television, unlike social media that anybody can do from their desktop or smartphone, carries with it a certain legitimacy,” Mr. Irwin said.
For campaign strategists, that whirring spin cycle means more scrambling to keep up.
“It used to be, you had a response for the evening news and then the morning papers,” said John Geer, who is a vice provost of academic and strategic affairs in the political science department at Vanderbilt University. In his 2006 book, “In Defense of Negativity,” he posits that attack ads create a stronger democratic voting process.
Attack ads create doubt about presidential candidates, and while this might prompt eye rolls and be perceived as unfair, the points made often are based on some level
“All political ads begin to have diminishing returns as people’s political views begin to become more solidified.” — Richard Vatz Professor of rhetoric and communication at Towson University
of truth. This makes voters curious for more information.
Negativity in presidential campaign ads is hardly new. It only seems that way; Mr. Geer said his research shows a steady rise over the past 20 years.
“It’s a foundational aspect of the [election] system,” he said. “Jefferson was referred to as an anti-Christ. That’s pretty strong language. Jackson’s wife was attacked, as a prostitute, in 1828.
“Lincoln was savaged as being, basically, really stupid. Now Lincoln may have had many weaknesses, but he had plenty of brains.” So here we are in 2016. “I have to say that Trump has set a new standard for tone in the modern era, with his reference to people’s height, reference to hand size, ‘Crooked’ Hillary, etc.”
Mr. Trump did not have to run ads, negative or otherwise, on his way to winning the Republican nomination. He managed to stay in the media spotlight in myriad ways without them. But he’s running them now that he’s in the thick of the general election.
With two well-known polarizing candidates, some experts say there is little reason to expect TV ads will have much influence on a slim undecided electorate. That does not mean campaigns won’t spend a boatload of money, however, especially in October.
“Ads in general at this point are not as effective, once voters begin to collect impressions,” said Richard Vatz, a Squirrel Hill/ Shadyside native who is professor of rhetoric and communication at Towson University. “I don’t think there are a lot of undecideds right now between the two.”
Mr. Vatz, author of “The Only Authentic Book of Persuasion,” is a self-described political conservative who contributes regularly to national forums.
“All political ads begin to have diminishing returns as people’s political views begin to become more solidified,” he said.
Through the end of August, Trump/Clinton had spent less ($139 million to $423 million) than their 2012 counterparts had at that same point. This falls short of industry predictions, but likely will exceed Obama/ Romney campaign spending by the time Americans head to the polls.
To clarify, there is a huge difference between candidates’ spending and that of super PACs, which are unlimited in their ad buys. Super PACs cannot have access to either Ms. Clinton or Mr. Trump, but they are free to create content using images and b-roll from the official campaign sites.
Memorable ads, positive (such as Ronald Reagan’s 1984 feel-good Morning in America spots) or negative (the 2004 Swift Boat series attacking John Kerry), are remembered for their punch. But were they effective?
Mr. Geer notes the first Swift Boat spot reached only a million viewers when it aired. But thanks to CNN and other round-the-clock media, up to 75 percent of the country came to know the term and its implications by September 2004.
In comparison, the 1964 LBJ Daisy ad ran just once. It’s remembered to this day as carrying a strong message against Barry Goldwater, whose name is never mentioned.
Yet political historians often say it reached too few people to have had that big an impact.
“The Daisy spot gets a lot of credit,” Mr. Geer said. “It’s a touch point for historical memory, but it’s not clear if had much of an effect.”
Even if television’s ad power seems to be slipping, the medium’s impact is still massive. To wit: Monday’s scheduled debate between Ms. Clinton and Mr. Trump might well approach Super Bowl-level viewership.