The Science of Political Advertising

How much do political ads really matter? This year campaigns will spend a good $3 billion on broadcast television ads. Yes, that is 3 billion dollars. A positive light shed on negative ads is that when the ad is negative, people tend to pay more attention to it. There was a study in 2005 in the American Journal of Political Science where colleagues found that campaign ads that make people feel fear caused people to go out and get more information and research politics. 

            Ads that had upbeat music or happy children that generated good feelings of enthusiasm reduced viewer’s interest and they didn’t go out to research the different candidates of elections. It seems to go that when a candidate is ahead in the election, they would use positive ads and save the negative ads for when they’re behind.

            Campaigners need to shake things up and make people anxious about different candidates when they’re behind. Sometimes they would be wary about using negative ads because of a backlash, however campaign workers see signs that negative ads can break through party affiliations and can also sway independent voters.

Brittany Aho