Political advertising is a feature of most modern elections, with a particular focus being placed on online advertising in recent years. Is this advertising actually effective, however? New research from Yale University suggests that even when accounting for context, content, and audience, political adverts did little to persuade voters.
The researchers looked at 49 high-profile adverts aired during the 2016 presidential campaign, with around 34,000 people involved in 59 randomized experiments. The results suggest that the ads had little impact on the preferences of the participants, and what’s more, had little effect regardless of the timing of the ad, its tone, or the partisanship of the audience.
“There’s an idea that a really good ad, or one delivered in just the right context to a targeted audience, can influence voters, but we found that political ads have consistently small persuasive effects across a range of characteristics,” the researchers say. “Positive ads work no better than attack ads. Republicans, Democrats, and independents respond to ads similarly. Ads aired in battleground states aren’t substantially more effective than those broadcast in non-swing states.”
Changing our mind
The researchers split the representative sample into groups at random, before asking them to watch either a placebo advertisement for car insurance or a campaign advertisement. They were then asked to complete a short survey afterwards.
A range of adverts were chosen, including those both attacking and promoting the Republican candidate Donald Trump or the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
The impact the adverts had on the participants were then analyzed according to the candidate, party, or political action committee that sponsored them; whether they were positive or negative in tone; the partisanship of those viewing the ads; the time to Election Day when they aired; whether they were viewed in a battleground state or not; and whether they aired during the primary or general election.
The analysis revealed that on a five-point scale, the adverts moved the favorability rating for a candidate by just 0.05 of a point, which while small, is still statistically significant. The impact on the candidate people would vote for was even smaller, a statistically insignificant 0.007 of a percentage point.
It’s a finding that the researchers believe should prompt campaign teams to think carefully about their advertising spend, as the impact of campaigns seems limited.
“TV ads help candidates increase their name recognition among the public, which is extremely important,” the researchers conclude. “Moreover, the effects we demonstrated were small but detectable and could make the difference between winning and losing a close election.”
With campaign teams diverting more of their advertising budget to online in recent times, findings such as these are likely to exacerbate that trend as attempts are made to better influence key demographics prior to elections.
