10 thoughts on “Here Come the Political Ads!”

1. What political advertising?

   • Texts – reply stop without reading them.
   • Direct mailers – my wife discards them (and all junk mail) into recycle in the garage before bringing the rest of the mail into the house.
   • TV – we have a DVR and so skip all ads.
   • Digital – like most I've trained my eyes to focus on the content and ignore the ads.

   And for those that do watch/read the political ads, it becomes so overwhelming that it's hard for an ad to break out and have an impact. Probably not too bad this year here in Colorado as CD-8 is the only competitive race worthy of heavy spending (state legislative races have a lot less money). But it'll still be a heavy deluge across all the content.

   I don't know what the answer is for a candidate to break through. And having something up on TV is almost certainly of value. But I think a lot of what's done in political marketing is of minimal impact.

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   1. TV:
      1. Don't watch live local TV. If you must, use your mute button.
      2. Don't watch live national TV. We do watch MSNBC, but 90% of the ads are fro drugs and I have a mute button.
      3. Watch house porn and food porn. Mostly completely ad free if you pay for the top tier.

      Digital:
      The gods invented adblockers for a reason. I almost zero ads.

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2. Both the CD-8 jobs are preaching to their choir. Caraveo is pointing out she will keep abortion legal. Kirkmeyer is pointing out she is up for drilling everywhere.

   Reminding has value but I don't think these ads are designed to change any minds. I guess it's make sure your base gets of its ass and votes.

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   1. I know it's trite, but close elections, like CD-8, will be decided by turnout. I am not a campaign professional, but I assume that means boots on the ground, knocking on doors, including the candidate, not tv ads. 

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      1. boots on the ground … and postcards to voters.

         The Women’s Effect Action Fund commissioned a study to see if personal postcards could be used to mobilize women to get out and vote for a family-friendly economy agenda (issues like paid family leave). Postcards4VA writers served as the force behind the 26,000 postcards in this study, and results showed that the postcards increased turnout by 0.4 percent (a typical get-out-the-vote, or GOTV, canvass increases turnout by 0.3 percent) and concluded that the postcards had as good or better effect on voter turnout than going door to door…..

         a small random trial study in the 2017 Alabama Senate race and found that voters who received his letter had a turnout rate 3 points higher than those in his control group. ..

         Postcards to Swing States got its start with a congressional district primary where they ran a randomized control study and found their postcards increased turnout by 1.2%. 

          

          

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3. Agreed, DT. Political ads are an entirely insider baseball game at this point, and mostly because consultants get a percentage of the ad buy.

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4. Aadland does have a TV ad up, saw it last night. 

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   1. Yeah, he's had ads running on YouTube for at least a few weeks. It's fairly generic rah-rah stuff: husband, father, businessman, combat vet, Colorado should make its own decisions, etc. No mention of his being an election denying whackjob.

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      1. "No mention of his being an election denying whackjob"

         But they left out the best part.

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5. Most interesting ad I've seen was a couple days ago on one of the Channel 9, 9News, stations.

   It was an ad asking people to re-elect Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine). Wonder how that one ended up on a Denver TV station.

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