Campaign advertising
In politics, campaign advertising is propaganda through the media to influence a political debate and, ultimately, voting. Political consultants and political campaign staff design these ads. Many countries restrict the use of broadcast media to broadcast political messages. In the European Union, many countries do not permit paid-for TV or radio advertising for fear that wealthy groups will gain control of airtime, making fair play impossible and distorting the political debate.
In both the United Kingdom and Ireland, paid advertisements are forbidden, though political parties are allowed a small number of party political broadcasts in the run-up to election time. The United States has a very free market for broadcast political messaging. Canada allows paid-for political broadcasts but requires equitable access to the airwaves.
Campaigns can include several different media. The period over which political campaign advertising is possible varies significantly from country to country, with campaigns in the United States lasting a year or more to places like the UK and Ireland, where advertising is restricted by law to just a short period of weeks before the election. Social media has become very important in political messaging, making it possible to message larger groups of constituents with minimal physical effort or expense. Still, the totality of messaging through these channels often needs to be put in the hands of campaign managers.
History
Political advertising has changed drastically over time.United States
In his campaign for the 1948 United States presidential election, Harry S. Truman was proud of his accomplishment of shaking approximately 500,000 hands and covering 31,000 miles of ground across the nation. But that accomplishment was soon to pale in comparison when in 1952, the 1952 United States presidential election saw a major change in how candidates reached their potential audiences. With the advent of television, war hero and presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower, created forty twenty-second television spot commercials entitled, "Eisenhower Answers America" where he answered questions from "ordinary" citizens in an attempt to appear accessible to "the common man". These questions were filmed in one day using visitors to Radio City Music Hall, who were filmed gazing up at Eisenhower as he answered questions about the Korean War, government corruption, and the state of the economy. He did not have to shake a half a million hands or travel the country extensively. He won the trust of the American people with his direct approach and subsequently the presidential election. His vice president was Richard M. Nixon.In the 1960 United States presidential election, Vice President Nixon used a formal television address in his presidential campaign, designed to answer questions about The Cold War and government corruption, and to show Americans that he was the stronger, more experienced candidate. On the other side of the fence, Catholic born John F. Kennedy created approximately 200 commercials during his campaign, but there were two that made Nixon's efforts futile. The first was a thirty-minute commercial created from a speech he delivered in Houston, where he called for religious tolerance in response to criticism that Catholicism was incompatible with a run for the Oval Office. The second and more memorable was the first Kennedy-Nixon debate. In the first of four televised debates, Kennedy appeared tanned and confident in opposition to Nixon, who looked pale and uncomfortable in front of the camera. Seventy-five million viewers watched the debates, and although Nixon was initially thought to be the natural successor to Eisenhower, the election results proved otherwise, and Kennedy was ultimately declared the winner.
In the 1964 United States presidential election, aggressive advertising paved the way for a landslide victory for Lyndon B. Johnson. One of the first negative and maybe the most controversial commercial, perhaps of all time, was an advertisement dubbed "The Daisy Girl." The commercial showed a young girl picking the petals off a daisy. After she finishes counting, a voice off camera begins a countdown to a nuclear explosion. The ad ends with an appeal to vote Johnson, "because the stakes are too high for you to stay home." The commercial used fear and guilt, an effective advertising principle, to make people take action to protect the next generation. The ad ran for under a minute and only aired once, but due to the right wing, pro-war views of Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate, it resulted in a 44 to 6 state victory for Lyndon B. Johnson.
Over the next decade, the United States saw the rise of the televised political attack ad. Richard M. Nixon was especially proficient at this form of advertising, and his commercials proved to be very successful in his reelection campaign during the 1972 United States presidential election, where he won handily with a 49 to 1 state victory. George McGovern ran a campaign free of political attack ads until the very end of his campaign, when he tried to attack Nixon after he realized he was dipping lower in the polls. His attempt proved to be too late, but his neutral style of attack ads against Nixon, featuring white text scrolling across a black background, became what is now seen as a fairly common method used in political and product advertising.
Attack ads continued to become the norm in political advertising. Ronald Reagan used them against Jimmy Carter during the 1980 United States presidential election. It was also the first time that a family member was also used to attack the opposing candidate. One particular advertisement showed Nancy Reagan accusing Carter of a weak foreign policy. This campaign also saw the rise of campaign finance issues when Reagan used political action committees to solicit funds on his behalf. However, in Reagan's reelection bid during the 1984 United States presidential election, the United States experienced the beginning of a different form of political advertising; one with a much more positive flow and a stronger, more powerful message. With the country in a relatively prosperous state, advertisements in support of Reagan evoked an emotional bond between the country and its president. Visions of Americans going about their daily lives with relative ease were compiled to convince America that voting against Reagan was a vote against prosperity. The positive and emotionally provocative ads proved more successful than negative attack ads. He was so highly successful that he won against Walter Mondale with a 49 to 1 state victory.
In the 1988 United States presidential election, attack ads returned with a renewed vigor. George H. W. Bush used campaign ads that ridiculed his opponent Michael Dukakis, making him appear soft on crime. He contrasted these negative ads, with the emotional style commercial used by Ronald Reagan, to capitalize on his connection to the former president. Again borrowing from Reagan's campaign practices, he used free publicity as often as possible, making sure he was photographed in various situations that were likely to be aired in the evening news. Although Michael Dukakis tried to discredit the Bush campaign in many ways, he was ultimately unsuccessful, losing to the former vice president by thirty states.
Regulation
United States
While there have been some increases in regulation of campaign finance in the United States, there is generally little regulation of political advertising content. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 addressed the issue of "soft money" or money contributed through political action committees, raised the legal limits of hard money that could be raised for any candidate, and set limits on what funds could be spent on election broadcasts, but it did not mandate verifiability in political campaign advertising. As of this time, there is no pending legislation addressing this issue.Currently the Federal Communications Commission requires that the contracts for political ads shown on broadcast stations be posted online, but the agency is considering a proposal to expand that disclosure requirement to other platforms, including radio and cable.
A 2022 study found that candidate-centered campaign advertising became increasingly more prevalent in the United States around 1910. The study linked the increased frequency of candidate-centered advertising to the introduction of direct primaries and nonpartisan elections.
European Union
In most EU Member States, campaign advertising is heavily regulated.In contrast to advertising in the print, radio and internet media, many Member States of the European Union have consistently restricted advertising on broadcast media which are aimed at political ends, both party political advertising and political advocacy by non-partisan groups. These restrictions have been justified on the basis that the ban offers a level playing field in which money interests cannot gain an unfair advantage in the political discourse of a Member State. The broadcast media has been singled out due to its historical reach and influence.
Outright bans on advertising engaged in political advocacy have been referred to the European Court of Human Rights, which has held that such restrictions may be a breach of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. But the Court has also held that restrictions on political advertising can be justified in certain circumstances, provided they were proportionate to the public interest they aimed to protect. Certain Member States including the United Kingdom, Ireland and Switzerland have repeatedly refused to remove their blanket bans. An attempted television ad campaign by the Association against Industrial Animal Production which drew a comparison between battery farming and the Holocaust was persistently refused in line with Swiss law, and was the subject of two ECtHR cases, the second case resulting from the persistent refusal by Switzerland to modify its laws on political advertising. However, in a similar UK case involving Animal Rights advertising, the Court upheld the UK ban on political advertising on several grounds. It held the UK had consulted widely before legislating, the court recognized the legitimacy of limiting political advertising on television, acknowledging the argument that there was a "risk of distortion" of public debate by wealthy groups having unequal access to advertising, and accepted that the ban was not a ban on free speech given that other methods of communication were available. The court thus recognized that television advertising is especially powerful and thus wealthy groups could block out the valid arguments of less wealthy groups and thus distort public debate.
In Ireland for example, party political advertisements on broadcast media are restricted to specific circumstances such as political party conferences and a limited time period before a General Election. In the latter instance political parties are allowed specific time slots on the broadcast media in which the advert may be aired. These are limited in time, offered to all registered parties and must be aired at times during the schedules that have similar levels of viewership. Furthermore, a moratorium on all election coverage is mandated on the day of the ballot.
Some Member States regulate the posting of election posters at both national and municipal level. In Ireland there are restrictions on the erection of election posters which mandate the time period after an election by which time the poster must be removed, with fines as a potential sanction. Some local councils have voted to ban the placement of election posters, citing the cost of removal and the waste generated.
Many municipalities in France restrict the placement of election posters to specific areas, often erecting stands specifically for that purpose.