Political Advertising The Game Changers

With elections just around the corner, Advertising Age published a great article outlining “The Top 10 Game-Changing Political Ads of All Time.” What made these ads memorable and why were they “game changers”? Advertisements like television spots, radio spots and even print advertising (like yard signs, magazine ads, etc.) have mere seconds to make an impact on a viewer make every second count.

Visuals do play a strong role in the world of advertising, but when it comes to politics, the language used plays a crucial role. You have to be very strategic combining your powerful message while using verbal techniques and emotional appeal.

Here is the list that Ad Age published as “The Top 10 Game-Changing Political Ads of All Time” and here are our comments on some of them:

1.Peace, Little Girl (“Daisy”)

Who can forget the most controversial political ad put out by President Lyndon Johnsons team,” Daisy”? You may have not been around in the 60s, but this television spot is famous because it displayed a little girl, who represents the youth of America, innocently pulling petals off a flower, then cuts to a nuclear explosion with a voice-over of a countdown.

This ad instills fear, especially when the spot zooms into the girls wide eyes as she looks up into the sky. Even the language used was meant to be a scare tactic. Words and phrases like “these are the stakes,” “make a world in which all of Gods children can live in or go home in to the dark,” “love each other or we must die,” and “stakes are too high” combines the emotion fear with over tones of taking action.

2.Prouder, Strong, Better (“Morning in America”)

Any time a candidate is faced with economic troubles, their campaigns focus on confidence, faith, and hope with voters. President Ronald Reagans “Morning in America” combined both visuals and language that did just that. If you listen to what was said you can easily identify what phrases were “positive.” “More men and women will go to work than ever before,” “interest rates at about half the record highs,” “2,000 families will buy new homes, more than at any time,” and it continues. What President Reagan did was list accomplishments and showed how he is moving America in a positive direction — which makes this ad and his message very powerful.

3.Tank Ride

This ad is what we see more of and could be labeled as “propaganda.” However, Ad Age identifies this as a definite game changer. This spot combines a somewhat humorous footage of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis riding in a tank with statements about how he opposes our defense system. The effect there decreased the confidence America had in him to be President. The ad goes on to say how America cant afford that risk and how could he expect to be our commander in chief when he opposes Americas defense efforts. There are overtones of sarcasm while portraying Governor Dukakis as someone who doesnt have what it takes to defend America, much less run America.

4.Yes, We Can

This video is different from most political ads and wasnt actually done by President Obamas team; instead, it was created by Will.i.am. and Jesse Dylan. This video took parts of President Obamas speech and used them as lyrics. During a time of financial crisis and economic downfall, this ad was successful because of the language. Phrases like “Not divided, were one nation” and “next great chapter,” and the entire video had huge overtones of hope. It made America feels like “Yes, we can” make the changes we need to move in a positive direction.

5.Man in the Arena

6.America First

This spot geographically targeted Michigan and at the time President Bush was losing in polls to the opposing candidate, Pat Buchanan. The economy was down, support for the GOP was down and specifically in Michigan, the auto industry wasnt performing well either. At the time, it appeared that President Bushs chances were slim, until this spot was released. It exposed Buchanan contradicting his message “America First” because he had a foreign car and also labeled American-made cars as “lemons.” This ad exposed Buchanan as being deceitful.

7.Hound dog

8.Dean for America

9.Windsurfing

This ad exposed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as someone who cant make up his mind. It gives various scenarios where Kerry was opposing and supporting various issues. It pokes fun of Kerry windsurfing in different directions and paired it with “which way the wind blows” to ultimately show that he is unfit for being President.

10.Sleeping Bear

Language in political advertisements is carefully chosen and works with multiple elements (e.g. visuals and emotional appeal) to convey a message. You have to be strategic and most importantly you need to be memorable. The above examples work because they succeeded in all those aspects. They used visuals and carefully crafted language to depict the politicians intent.

Same can apply to other campaign materials and your political yard signs. You need to strategically craft what your message it is and how youre going to make your signs distinct and memorable.

How To Choose A Digital Advertising Agency

Digital Advertising has broken all pace barriers and become a necessity for every business looking for growth and increase in sales. Association with a Digital Advertising Agency is also a must as the Digital Media requires a team specialized in the desired technicalities and round-the-clock monitoring. A correct assessment of the potential agencies is vital as investing in an agency ill-equipped to provide the appropriate Digital Advertising Solutions may result in a waste of time and revenue. This article provides a few points to tick while deciding on the agency best suited for your needs.

Mobile Digital Advertising

It has become the golden word now: tabs, smartphones, and even some feature phones are the new promised lands where the Digital Media is shifting to. It is imperative for a business to have an online presence optimized for the handheld devices. Agencies providing advertising in the digital media must have resources dedicated to looking after the Digital Ads in the mobiles. The Mobile Advertising Media requires specific set of skills and expertise and has specific demands. Make sure that the Digital Publishers you are considering are capable of handling the mobile media too or else your business will end up leaving out a major chunk of the target group.

Local Digital Advertising

In the case of retail businesses, though it is true that Digital Ads will be read by users across the world, it is more likely that most of the business will be done with the local consumers. Therefore, targeting them through Local Digital Advertising should be of the topmost priority. Make doubly sure that the publishers hold expertise in the nitty-gritty of Local Digital Advertising and can attract the local consumers searching for the nearest businesses straight to you.

Accurate Targeting

Every Digital Advertising Campaign involves thousands of emails that reach the inboxes but are never opened and countless cases where the ad simply ends up irritating the users. This happens in spite of brilliantly designed ads with attractive ad copies. The problem here lies with improper targeting. Top Digital Ad Publishers are known for their accuracy in targeting. Check out the facts and figures which are with the agency you are considering. If they correspond with the latest and updated figures of the market, that agency is well equipped to target accurately and ensure that your Advertising budget is not wasted in unopened or irritating ads.

Fast Implementation

Speed is one of the key elements in a market where data and techniques become outdated by the minute. Taking too long to implement a campaign will result in the employed techniques getting outdated. Look for an agency which has the means and resources to make a fast implementation of the campaign.

Tracking the Performance

The internet is a place infamous for springing surprises. Sometimes even the best conceived campaigns do not yield the desired results. We have, in fact, seen a few occasions where even some of the best in the industry blundered. It is very essential that the associated publisher has the expertise and capability to keep a real time track of the performance of the ad in terms of the views, shares, comments attracted, and the actual business being done due to it. A proper track will enable the agency to predict any undesirable affect and make the necessary changes in time.

The Digital Medium enables the users to express their opinions and provide feedbacks openly. It has increased the scope of Digital Advertising which is now, in fact, the entire process of Digital Marketing. The Best Digital Advertising Agencies form the complete bridge between the business and the consumer and plays an active role right from the point of attracting to revenue generation.

LinkedIn PPC Advertising – Is it just another PPC Ads Platform

You can reach out to your target market by using LinkedIn Advertising. This is another Social Media Pay Per Click platform. LinkedIn PPC Advertising uses demographic targeting, structured like the Facebook advertising. The LinkedIn PPC advertising is known as LinkedIn Direct Ads. Facebook PPC Advertising is strictly more result-oriented for -business to consumer- models. On the other hand, LinkedIn Advertising records more success with -business to business- models.

LinkedIn PPC advertising works like any other Pay Per Click advertising – meaning that you must spell out an identifiable goal in your mind prior to getting ahead with the campaign. It is also necessary to have insights on the makeup of your target market and on the common characteristics of this target market.

Find out the demographics you can target using LinkedIn Direct Ads
Conspicuously, you are likely to reach less number of prospective users as you get more granular!

As mentioned earlier, the LinkedIn PPC is structured like Facebook Advertising, where you can incorporate text and may also employ a 50 by 50 pixel image if you choose to do so. Experts recommend the use of an image to aid outstanding ads and thus increase the chances of evoking the interest of a user.

Tracking your LinkedIn advertising effort is very essential. Bear in mind that LinkedIn does not make conversion tracking available. Consequently, ensure that you create goals in Google Analytics with ads attached to track traffic. Be a fast learner and follow the quick path of online marketing strategies that make the most out of LinkedIn Pay Per Click Advertising and other PPC advertising options.

Jeff Matthews is a freelance writer who writes about Internet marketing ideas To know about this subject and Jeff please visit http://www.aceinternetmarketing.co.uk a>

Advertising Post-testing

The projective techniques are used to overcome the barriers of rationality, logicality and politeness, which often play an important role in case of direct questioning. In direct questioning people often tend to give politically correct answers that are considered right by many. Also they try not to hurt the researcher and thus avoid negative answers. In case of projective techniques, an indirect approach is adopted. Instead of asking questions, the respondents are subjected to different test. These include the associations test, sentence completion test and thematic appreciation test.

Association tests attempts to get an immediate response to a stimulus such to get an immediate responses to a stimulus such as a word or picture by asking the respondent to say the first thing that comes to his mind. Sentence completion tests are an extension of the association test. Here the respondents are given incomplete test use pictures, which are shown to respondents. They are asked to tell stories about the pictures. These descriptions and interpretations are analyzed to find out about their attitudes.
In depth interviewing the respondent is first put at ease by the researcher while he tries to build up a rapport with the respondents. Then the respondents are asked leading or probing questions to bring out his underlying subconscious reaction to the brand or organization advertised. The questions are never structures and the interview is always conducted in a free and cordial manner. The flexibility and freeness brings out many facts. Which usually are hidden beneath the conscious mind of the respondent? Depth interviewing needs to be conducted by highly skilled and trained psychologists to be able to fully explore the attitude of respondents.

One often face the problem of artificiality a while conducting pre-testing. This problem is easily overcome during post-testing. Post-tests attempt to measure the actual effect of real advertisements in real situations. This is a more practical approach to measure the effectiveness of car mat advertisements. Different types are conducted as part of post-testing advertisements.
Whatever the purpose of a car mat advertisement, its first task is to be seen, read, or heard. Every advertisement uses some means or other to get attention and hold it. Here comes the first big hurdle recognition. This is simply a matter of identifying an advertisement that one has seen before. Recognition is a necessary condition for effective advertising. If advertisements cannot pass this hurdle, it will probably not be effective. Recognition tests are usually used for print ads.

While many types of recognition have been designed for the car mats advertisements. The starch recognitions test sends newspaper or magazine to respondents and then sends interviews to conduct the tests. Starch tests usually finds out the recognition rates of various elements of the ads like the visual or illustration, headline, logo, body copy, color, size, shape etc.

Ways to Make the Most of Your Yellow Page Advertising Space

With the cost of yellow page advertising rising every year, small business owners need every advantage when it comes to getting the most out of their advertising budget. Make your yellow page advertising work harder for you with these five tips.

1. Focus on the benefits. You might have the largest car lot in town, but that won’t matter to your customer unless you can translate it into a benefit for her. When writing your ad, be sure to look at it from your customer’s point of view while asking yourself, “What’s in it for me?” A large collection of cars means your customer is sure to find the perfect car for her needs at a price that matches her budget.

Even better – take that one step further and tell her the benefit of the benefit. That great price that fits perfectly well within her budget? Now she can afford to buy her son that baseball glove he’s been wanting. All because you own the largest car lot in town.

2. Focus on your customer. Instead of saying how great your business is or how well trained your staff is or how many dentists make up your practice, make the ad about your customer and her needs. Address her concerns, her anxieties, her questions. Talk to her about her life, not your business.

Too many yellow page ads are all about the business. By using the word “you” more, you’ll make your customer feel like she’s important, and she’ll be more likely to buy from the business that is interested in her.

3. Sell to women. Women make or influence 85% of all purchases. You can’t afford to forget that. Even if your business is selling men’s clothing, women are involved in the decision making, and should be considered when designing your ad.

4. Make a great offer. Yellow page advertising doesn’t have to begin and end with a phone number and a website. Give your reader a reason to call or stop in, like a free consultation or a discount on their first purchase. Just make sure it’s something you can continue to offer. A print yellow page ad lasts far longer than the single year printed on the cover. Many people continue to refer to old phone books for several years, and you don’t want to alienate a potential customer just because you ran out of personalized golf towels.

5. Offer a guarantee. Be careful with this one. You want to build a relationship with readers and earn their trust, not make them cross-eyed with exclamation points and unbelievable hype. If you guarantee to beat any advertised competitor’s price, then say so. Just don’t say it in 48 point red caps.