"Do Political Ads Actually Work?"

"Kantar Media CMAG finds out that
out of the 1,014,484 ads about the
presidential campaign that have aired
between April 10 and October 22, a
majority have had a negative tone."

            Lately, I have noticed a great increase in hearing the two lines: "I am Barack Obama, and I approve this message" and "I am Mitt Romney, and I approve this message." Not only do these lines come after countless commercials, but the content in these commercials always seems to put down the opposing side, not boost up/brag about their own.  Today we have come to a time that putting down others, helps boost up yourself.  Do people across the United States really listen to these ads? I listened to the npr: morning edition asking this exact question. It turns out that there may actually be influence in ads; in fact, from April to October ads were on a negative term of the opposing side by 7 to 1 provided by the ad-tracking firm.

            Not only do the ads reflect negative light on both sides, but in order to accomplish this goal both Democrats and Republicans are "on track to spend $1 billion each." They will mostly aim at the nine battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Virginia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The new question that also arises is: When is a good time to show ads on TV? And to what audience do we want to aim for? Ken Goldstein, President of Kantar's Media Analysis Group, brought up an example of white males in the Midwest watching college football games and how commercials with airing time during the games would be very valuable, "campaigns target certain voting blocks."

Ad spending per electoral vote--
source: Kantar Media, CMAG

            Now as I was hearing this story, I started to think to myself... Is this just another curveball ad that will suddenly say at the end, "I am Barack Obama, and I approve this message?" Turns out it wasn't just npr. But a new shocking number did turn up. "Former Democratic nominee, Al Gore, lost by 537 voters in Florida in 2000." That is about 1/16th of the people living in Glencoe! Because of that, Goldstein figured "that there are about 800,000 truly undecided voters in the battleground states; factor in a total of $1 billion in ads -- and that means campaigns are spending about $1,000 per persuadable voter." I guess each and every vote really does count! Personally, one of my brothers used to go to school in Pennsylvania and registered to vote there instead of in Illinois because it has been a swing state. My other brother now goes to school in Denver and will vote there. A recent Obama ad publicized a woman speaking about "her first time" (voting) and making the right decision about who to vote for. The race is on as these ads frequently pop up, my door bell rings with solicitors whom I do not answer to, and phone calls come in even though my parents claim we are on a list for people not to call. Will all of this impact the race to the end?
          Take a look at this video clip of how Governor Mitt Romney manipulated one of President Obama's speeches to put him in a bad "light."