What's A Political Ad?

By Author: Jordon
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By contrast, the politician out of power wants to indict the status quo and pin the blame for the ills of the system on the incumbent. These indictments are most effective when they are underscored visually. Consequently, the candidate will tape ads in slum housing to establish that the incumbent's promises of change have been unfulfilled. Political ads will also feature testimony from the Cartier Replica disenchanted—those who are unhappy at the way in which government is being run. Political ads are able to feature the poor, the unemployed, and those who are ill, and ads attacking incumbents are prone to do just that. Ads for liberal candidates, in particular, will include the disadvantaged, who are otherwise seldom seen on television except on an occasional segment of the evening news.

Political ads are also more likely to include persons with regional dialects because their presence is a signal to the corresponding regional or ethnic group that the candidate has support from their peers. To reach the widest audience possible, commercial advertising, ...
... by contrast, tends to employ characters who speak standard American English with a general American accent.

Both candidates and manufacturers want to reach their target audiences in a cost-efficient fashion. It is generally easier for the manufacturer to meet this objective than it is for the politician, because the ways in which the electorate is segmented for electoral purposes do not always lend themselves to cost-efficient purchase of media space.

For example, a candidate who is running for governor in Connecticut can reach viewers in Fairfield County only if time is purchased on New Breitling Replica York television stations; Fairfield County is part of the Greater New York Metropolitan Area for broadcasting purposes. But over 80 percent of the money spent on New York television advertising will reach New Yorkers who cannot vote in Connecticut. This means that, all things being equal, a candidate who is well known in Fairfield County has an advantage. Such a candidate can focus the media budget on buying television time in the central Connecticut cities of New Haven and Hartford, reaching primarily Connecticut voters. The candidate who is unknown in Fairfield County, however, must decide whether be-coming known there is of sufficient importance to warrant spending 80 cents of every dollar reaching nonvoting out-of-starters.

The competition for media time is particularly fierce in those markets that serve many states simultaneously. For example, Philadelphia stations reach voters in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey; Washington, D.C., stations reach the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and a slice of West Virginia. Because audiences are accustomed to being addressed by those who want them to purchase an accessible product, they run the risk of responding as did one Philadelphia resident, who told a focus group that she planned to vote for Christine Todd Whitman—who was running for the governorship of New Jersey.