Creating An Image And Targeting The Audience

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The image for a product can be created more easily than the image for a politician be-cause politicians bring to office a documentable past. Often the campaign attempts to capitalize on that past by stressing that experience has prepared the candidate in specific ways for the office sought. But the past can be a liability too. A politician with no previous experience in an elected office can attempt to Tag Heuer Carrera Replica(http://www.rep1ica.com/GoodsSeries/Replica-Tag-Heuer-Carrera-Watches-383.html) frame that lack of experience as an asset by creating an "outsider" image, but experience that isn't in the record cannot be fabricated. A politician—even a vice president—with a shady past may find that it returns to haunt him or her. By contrast, if a product doesn't taste the way potential consumers would like, the manufacturer will determine that fact in product testing and reformulate the product. The product can be repackaged more easily than the candidate can.

The politician wants to reach potential voters. In most states, that audience includes unregistered voters until the registration books close. ...
... Once the deadline has passed, the politician can effectively discount those who are not registered to vote. In a primary election in which only registered Democrats can vote for a Democratic candidate, the various Democratic candidates will focus their attention on reaching registered Democrats. The politician also focuses on voters who can be swayed to vote for him or her. When it is possible to separate one from the other, the politician is unlikely to target advertising to those committed to an opponent.

The politician often focuses attention on age groups different from those important to the commercial advertiser. For example, children and teenagers are prime audiences for the marketer of commercial products. For the politician, these audiences are comparatively insignificant because they can't vote. By contrast, the politician will focus more attention on the older segment of the audience than will the commercial advertiser. As we age, the likelihood that we will vote increases. Persons over 65 cast proportionately more votes than their percentage of the population would suggest. The commercial advertiser is interested in those who are likely to spend money to purchase a product; the politician is interested in those who are likely to cast a vote.

Nonpolitical commercials are rarely broadcast to reach lower-income groups. Al-though people with lower incomes are less likely than their more affluent counterparts to vote, Democratic politicians, particularly liberal Cartier Replica(http://www.watcopy.com/B-Cartier-11.html) Democrats, routinely aim advertising at these groups. Often this advertising includes appeals to register and to vote as well as messages designed to persuade the audience to vote for the liberal Democrat. Voting power is a great equalizer in political advertising. It means that persons who otherwise are not the focus of product advertising will become the target audience in some sorts of campaigns.

Earlier we noted that the typical commercial was set in an upper-middle-class or upper-class environment. Nonpolitical ads do not show poverty, slums, or incorrigible despair. Product ads affirm the basic health of the economic system by creating a world in which people live comfortable, pleasant lives. The only discomforts the people in these ads experience easily can be remedied by purchase of a product.