The Great 2016 Ad Sell

Political ads really do work — and now they’ll be working their wiles on Americans in more ways than ever before.

This presidential campaign cycle is likely to feature the heaviest political-ad barrage in history. Television spots still make up the bulk of campaigns’ budgets, just as they have for decades, but heavy investments in new media have surged as campaign consultants look to find you on your phone, laptop, tablet, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter feeds.

Digital political consultants are also diving headfirst into trendy apps Periscope, Meerkat, Vine, and Snapchat in an attempt to connect messages with younger Americans. An advertising forecast report from industry analyst Borrell Associates expects digital campaign spending to reach near $1 billion for the 2016 cycle, up from $270 million spent during the 2014 midterm election.

Television advertising, also on the rise, is projected to hit around $6.4 billion for the 2016 elections. The rapid growth across all mediums will mean more ads will embed themselves in the minds and daily conversations of American voters. Borrell estimates political campaigns and organizations will spend an average of $51 for every eligible voter in the United States, “that’s 21 [percent] more than the last Presidential election year in 2012,” according to the report.

“Attack ads need to be accurate, believable, informative and fully documented,” Fauchaux said.

So why does spending on political ads reliably increase substantially every cycle? Because they work, said Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group, a nonpartisan polling company, and publisher of Lunchtime Politics, a daily newsletter on polling.

“More than ever, voters want to be informed by advertising,” said Faucheux to LifeZette. “They want reliable information to make their own choices.”

When driving home negative perceptions about an opponent, “attack ads need to be accurate, believable, informative and fully documented,” Fauchaux said. One such example he highlighted was the catchy, yet hard-hitting ad cut for Maryland’s GOP gubernatorial candidate Larry Hogan by the Republican Governors Association.

“Picture Perfect,” as the ad was named, “attacked both [Hogan’s] opponent, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brow, and incumbent Gov. Martin O’Malley on raising numerous taxes. It broke open the race for Hogan, which he won in a stunning upset. The ad was specific, informative, funny and pointed.”

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While “Picture Perfect” opened the path for underdog Hogan to pull off an upset, other effective ads, like the 2012 Obama campaign ad on Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” comments, drive the final nail in the coffin.

“The ad consolidated support for Obama, which had been soft and cleared up uncertainty about him,” Peter Hart, a former Democratic pollster, told LifeZette. “You saw women move toward [Obama], especially independent women.”

The Obama campaign aired the ad in seven battleground states starting in late September 2012. By Oct. 6, 2012, Romney’s poll numbers dropped from 49.3 to 47 percent in the key state of Florida. On Election Day, Obama eked out a win in Florida by less than 1 percentage point.

In the right situations, positive ads can also have a huge effect. Consider this scene, from late 2011: A group of women watched as a candidate played sports with his children, embraced them, read to them, and walked side by side with his wife. The women in the focus group could not hear the sound from the ad as it played, but they said they could see the love the candidate had for his family. And they responded favorably — quite strongly so.

This occasion was recounted by John Brabender, chief strategist for Pennsylvania’s former Sen. Rick Santorum’s presidential bid in 2012.

Santorum’s ad “Popup” aired in early December 2011, leading up to the January 2012 Iowa caucus.

“Popup” also kept true to the most important trick of the trade according to polling expert Ron Faucheux: “Make sure in family pictures everybody’s smiling.”

“It cut through all of the background noise of the campaign and other ads,” Brabender told LifeZette.

At the time, Santorum was mired in sixth place in the Republican Party’s presidential contest, according to RealClearPolitics’ poll of averages. By the day of the Iowa caucus in early January, Santorum had vaulted from 7.7 percent to 16.3 percent. By late-January, after an 18-day recount, Santorum was declared the winner of the nation’s first nominating contest.

“Popup” also kept true to the most important trick of the trade according to polling expert Ron Faucheux: “Make sure in family pictures everybody’s smiling.”

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The television ad blanket bombing missions in key early states have not yet begun, but it will not be long before voters begin to take the pummeling during every commercial break.

Some ads are made to be purposefully wacky to go viral, some drive home the negative qualities of an opponent, and others swell up positivity around the candidate.

Here are some other recent examples of ads that mattered — either vaulting a candidate to victory, keeping a tight race from pulling away, or noticeably closing a wide gap and making a candidate competitive in what eventually remained a losing race.

Go Viral — Joni Ernst 2014 ‘Squeal’ (Iowa)
If your campaign is stuck in an evenly matched slugfest with an opponent, a rush of national attention from a viral ad can land you the momentum you need to get out in front. A viral ad can bring national attention to your fundraising base, fire up supporters at home, and get the ad in front of voters for free as pundits play it over and over to analyze its effectiveness.

Such was the case for now-Sen. Joni Ernst when she launched the commercial called “Squeal” during her 2014 race for the U.S. Senate in Iowa.

“I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm, so when I get to Washington, I’ll know how to cut pork,” the ad starts. That line, and a later line about making Washington “squeal,” set the punditry, and YouTube, on fire.

“The prominence of the ‘Squeal’ ad cannot be overstated,” wrote Nma Winnie Obike of the University of Maryland’s Political Advertising Resource Center. “She garnered cultural currency with her Iowa constituency.”

Obike noted Ernst led her Democratic opponent Bruce Braley by 6 points in survey released shortly after the introduction of “Squeal,” after the race had been essentially tied in the polls for months.

Ernst went on to defeat Braley with 52 percent of the vote.

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Stand Out from the Pack — David Perdue 2014 ‘Outsider’ (Georgia)
The 2016 Republican field is bursting at the seams with more than 15 candidates likely to run for the nomination. In a crowded contest it is essential for candidates to set themselves apart from the pack and attempt to define the others’ in one clump of negativity.

When businessman David Perdue entered the 2014 race to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss in Georgia, he was an unknown and untested figure in politics. Perdue had never run for elected office and faced six opponents, at least three of whom were credible politicians who had been elected to major office.

Enter the outsider. A Feb. 4, 2014, poll showed Perdue in fifth place with 8 percent of primary voters naming him their first choice. The next day, Perdue’s campaign unveiled the TV ad “Outsider” portraying his four main opponents as crying-baby professional politicians. Perdue was an outsider, a businessman, a man with solutions.

Fifteen days later, a new poll showed Perdue had rocketed from fifth to first place. Perdue led most public polls for the remainder of the primary with different iterations of “Outsider” running throughout. Perdue had effectively cast himself as substantially different from his opponents who all shared a past life in politics.

Perdue came in first in the May 12, 2014, Republican primary and ultimately defeated GOP establishment favorite Congressman Jack Kingston of Savannah in the July runoff election. He then beat nonprofit executive Michelle Nunn in the November general election.

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The Contrast Ad — Allen West 2012 ‘Decide’
Nothing is more important to candidates than to differentiate themselves from their opponents. The question must be answered: Why should you vote for me over the other guy? While purely negative ads are important tools used to define perceptions of an opponent, some of the most effective ads define an opponent in the context of the competition. One candidate’s weaknesses must be matched against another’s strengths.

In 2012, then-Congressman Allen West of Florida released a scathing Call of Duty-esque ad called “Decide,” which took only 30 seconds to demonstrate to voters that their choice was between a war hero or a drunken fool.

“This is what a curb-stomping looks like,” tweeted Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist, about the ad.

Great ads aren’t always enough to win an election on their own. West ultimately lost the race to Murphy in the swing district by a mere 0.58 percent in a bad year for Republicans nationwide.

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Evoke Nostalgia — Scott Brown 2012 ‘Let America be America’
Americans love to feel nostalgic about the good days gone by — perhaps the days when politics were civil, Michael Jordan played basketball, and the United States led the free world in the successful struggle against Communism.

Channeling nostalgia into voter action was exactly what the re-election campaign of Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts sought to do with his 2012 web ad “Let America be America.” Looking to capitalize on the YouTube-age of viral attention, the ad was longer than a traditional television ad, clocking in at two and a half minutes. The ad notched more than 1.1 million views on YouTube, including almost a quarter million in the first week it was live.

The Brown campaign evoked Republican and Democratic presidents alike in a combination of stirring rhetoric and scenes on the subject of American enterprise. The nostalgic whirlwind culminated in clips of President Obama and Brown’s Democrat challenger Elizabeth Warren seemingly bashing business people.

Brown winded up losing to now-Sen. Warren by 7.5 percentage points, but did outperform Mitt Romney in the state — the very state Romney had served as governor — by more than 15 percentage points. Brown also left us a great video for a nostalgic mood.

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Mark Stricherz contributed to this report.
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