Tis The Season To Be Negative

In a way, the residents of blue Oregon are lucky in 2012. This is not because Oregon has an overwhelming liberal majority, but simply because an obvious majority exists. Unlike swing states in an election year, we witness a seemingly reserved number of political attack ads. It's just not cost effective to fight the numbers if victory is highly unlikely.

But Oregonians are still aware of what the commercial airwaves turn into as the country approaches election day. It's gotten worse every year, and this year shows no signs of changing direction. Super-PAC's have drastically changed the form campaigning takes in the U.S. It's ugly out there and it's only going to get worse. Reading this Feb 13, 2012 article in The New Yorker got me thinking about parts of the pre-election system that grind my gears (all political beliefs aside).

Due to the political nature of negative political advertisements, they receive the highest level of protection under the First Amendment. You would think political free speech would always be a good thing, right? Well it also means that lying and misguiding is perfectly legal. As a result, the public is subject to six or more months of crude manipulation, often through flat out falsities. In an era where trust in businesses and politicians are at an all time low, its beyond disturbing to find that there's no burden of truth standing between candidates and control.

Political advertising has taken such a positive tone in America...

The man leading the Mitt Romney proxy campaign through Restore Our Future (he's one of three directors and the recipient of all the business) is Larry McCarthy. McCarthy is the mastermind behind the racially charged Willie Horton spot that supposedly sunk Dukakis is 1988, as well as countless other negative ads. He is dubbed "the attack ads go-to guy" by Politico and is deeply involved with every on and off election race. One of my overarching arguments for brands is that every touch point of the experience should ring true with the brand. Mitt Romney has positioned himself as the outsider in the Republican primaries. Unlike his counterparts, Romney has never spent time in Washington, and he is keen to use that as a weapon. However, McCarthy and his pseudo agency are in the heart of D.C. and is a master at playing the political games of Capitol Hill. There is a gap between the McCarthy line and the Romney line, leaving a critically thinking citizen wondering what the Romney message really is.

 Little accountability and even less truth has become the norm.

Attack ads usually look bad. You can see it coming before the dialogue even begins. They paint the world as good versus evil and tend to treat viewers as idiots. They look like cruddy PowerPoint presentations. Yet they work. Even when people don't think they work, they work. So for all the effectiveness, why don't we see this style of advertising in other sectors? It would certainly cut through the clutter. Still, the shear tone of it would probably offend people. Attack ads were originally regarded as horrendous, but have since become expected. The vulgarity is now ignored, and they work instead. Still, politicians are fleeting brands in the minds of consumers. Every few years they receive lots of attention and everyone seems to have an opinion, but it fades away quickly after election day. Each election season, candidates can choose to start fresh and re-brand themselves how it suits the times; the public tends to go with it. The brands we brush up against every day don't enjoy this luxury. Organizations that offer products and services need to maintain their brand persona 24-7, otherwise they risk losing long time supporters.

In February of this year AdAge heralded the top ten political ads of all time. Six of them were of a very negative tone. In Iowa alone 73% of the political spots were attack ads last December. What if all advertising was this negative? What if 60-73% of all messages from businesses were vilifying attacks on competitors? I think it would have a terrible effect of the psyche of the entire nation. We'd all be pissed off and judgmental around the clock as a result of seeing nasty messages everywhere we looked. Every fourth November the country gets swept up in the negativity of a black and white political fever. I shudder to think what our world would look like if the messaging from political campaigns spread to other parts of communication.


McCarthy says he's trying to make “what every ad guy is seeking: the Holy Grail of the perfect spot.” I guess I'm no ad guy in his book then. I'm seeking to make the world a better place and advertising is a way of getting there. Shit-slinging like this is not on my agenda.