Political Ads Analyzed

I found this in-depth article, analyzing the presidential candidate’s tv ads on Salon.com and wanted to share with you. Kathleen Hall Jamieson is a well known expert in the area of political advertising, something I was very interested in when I was in graduate school. In fact, I looked up many of her articles to do my Master’s project, which was a marketing campaign for a third-party candidate. But enough about that.

This campaign is going to play out across two electronic arenas–television and Internet. I have said before that I think McCain’s ads are not going to help him, as long as he continues a personal attack against Obama. I know McCain has to discredit Obama, and especially, he has to strike at the issue of experience. The truth is that Obama does not have much national experience, and McCain does. However, the generation of voters that will make the difference in this election, in my opinion, is GenY. And they certainly don’t care about experience per se. I think they are idealistic and don’t tend to think that the older you get, the better you are.

On the Internet, Obama has shown prowess in collecting money. He has a well thought out social media and Internet marketing campaign. This will help with GenY voters. Recently, it was reported that McCain is not very astute on the computer. This is such a strike against him. So of course, McCain’s main tactic will be to portray Obama as inexperienced. They will also try to make him out to be “foreign.” This was reported yesterday in the media…it was one of the tactics offered to the Clinton campaign, and which was wisely ignored. McCain certainly can lay claim to the patriotic mark–after all, he fought in Vietnam and was a POW. The question remains, is it sufficient to win over hearts and minds?