Critically Analyze The Concept And Use Of Negative Advertising In An Essay.

The Concept of Negative Advertising

Question:

Discuss about the Impact of Negative Advertisements.

Advertising is basically a way of communication between a business and its prospective buyers. The company selling products and services using advertisements to tell the public about their product’s nature, uses and advantages in comparison to substitutes available in the market. Advertisements hold great importance in this era of cut throat competition. The major modes of advertisement are television, radio, hoardings, newspapers and magazines, personal mails, etc., depending on the nature of the product and the relevant target audience. While the main aim of advertising is to promote your own product, sometimes companies advertise by showing the similar products of other companies in bad light. This helps to attract the customer base of competitors towards your company. This is commonly known as Negative Advertising. This kind of advertising shows competitors in a bad light in order to make the advertiser appear better. It is mostly used in political sector, but has started gaining popularity in casual business as well (Sehba, 2016).

This paper provides detailed information about the concept of negative advertising. The aim of this paper is to critically analyze the views of different authors about this practice. The main area of focus is the use of negative advertising in the political arena, different campaigns and their effect on the pollsters.

According to Richardson, the term negative advertising covers a very broad area of different concepts and terminologies and hence it becomes difficult to research. The result of research is mostly contradictory, making it difficult to differentiate the intended and unintended impacts of negative advertising. While the focus of this method of advertising is to make the competitors’ products look bad, but a company should not build up false content. In fact the genuine flaws in the competitors’ product should be highlighted and how the advertiser’s product is better should be focused on (Robertson, 2017).

Johnson-Cartee and Copeland state that there are three modes that are used for negative advertising in the political sector. These are the direct attack ad, the direct comparison ad, and the implied comparison ad. In case of a direct attack ad, a specific party or candidate is attacked directly. The author found that this form of negative argumentation decreases the targeted candidate’s image and voting preference scores tremendously. In case of the direct comparison ad, both candidate and opponent are compared in terms of their experience, their records and the importance of their independent commitment (Chang, et al., 1998). According to the authors, this form of ad has the greatest impact on the voters and significantly decreases the targeted candidates’ evaluation. Lastly, the implied comparison ad does not feature the targeted candidate and in some cases the sponsoring party is not revealed too. These ads give some details about the sponsoring candidate’s position in the campaign without talking about the opponent. These ads are presented in a way that it forces the viewers to start making comparisons between both candidates (Robison, 2016). The implied comparisons advertisements are not intended to be negative, but their interpretation by the viewers make them negative. These ads increase the voting preferences towards sponsoring candidate drastically.

Different Types of Negative Advertising in Political Sector

Negative advertisement has two kinds of issue appeals namely political issue appeals and personal characteristic issue appeals. Political issue appeals analyze and comment on the political standing of the candidate, the voting record, issue positions and the criminal records if any. On the other hand, personal characteristic issue appeals talk about the personal life of the candidate, their religion, sex, family background and present or past marriages. Research shows that more than 70% of viewers support negative advertising of political issue appeals as a fair comment, but do not support negative advertising of personal issue appeals (Gregory, 2015).

Another author Mayer argues that this research finding cannot be considered genuine as in the course of changeability of issue positions during campaigns, it is the personal character of the candidate that would talk on his behalf. His personality will help to judge if he will fulfil his commitments once he is elected. According to him, if a candidate is free to present himself as a leader or highly moral, then the opponents should be given the right to freely contest their claims. The acceptance of political issue appeals was more among highly educated people who exhibited a better understanding of political efficacy. On the contrary, the people with low education income accepted personal issue appals due to their low levels of political efficacy and participation (Parker, 2013). Johnson-Cartee and Copeland suggested that the overall acceptance of both issues is also affected by the local political culture. Newhagen and Reeves also provided three categories of negative advertisements namely true negative ads, where the image of the opponent is tarnished without mentioning the sponsor; the comparative ads, where the objective is to not only decrease the image of the opponent, but to increase the evaluation of the sponsor; the hope ads, where the sponsor is promoted as the person who could resolve a particular issue without bringing up the opponent’s name. It is evident that these three categories are very similar to the mode of negative ads recognized by Johnson-Cartee and Copeland (Lariscy, 2012).

When it comes to the importance of negative advertising, Mayer argues that negative advertising is one that forces candidates to be more honest than they would otherwise be in case of absence of this form of advertising. Finkel and Geer support this view. According to them negative advertising holds great importance in democratic countries where the candidate is elected by the general public. Finkel and Geer state that the candidates should not just highlight their own accomplishments and positive character, but should also emphasize on the weakness of their opponents policies and qualifications. Every candidate has a duty to prove why he is better than the rest of the candidates and why his opponent should not be voted for (Kolovos & Harris, 2015). Negative advertisement becomes a very important part of such a campaign because it’s not necessary that the most liked candidate shall win but the chances of the least disliked one to win are fairly high. The successfulness of this kind of advertisement was evident in the latest American Elections. Both parties launched an extremely negative advertisement campaign against each other and the less disliked one managed to win. This also proves that praising oneself does not have that significant an effect as proving your opponent to be a bad person.

Issue Appeals in Negative Advertising

Mostly all advertisement consultants hold the view that negative advertisement has a stronger impact on people than positive advertisement. Republican consultant Roger stone argues that during focus groups, voters tend to say that they do not like negative ads, but the negative information is retained for far longer by people than the positive information. Democratic consultant Philip Friedman bluntly states that in most campaigns the question is raised that whose negative campaign is better. The negative campaign always works if the campaign is positive, it should be saved for the tombstone. Winston Fletcher explains that positive campaign is not very impressive as all parties are inclined towards the same goals like prosperity, peace, safe streets, removal of unemployment, poverty, illiteracy and so on. The challenge is how they plan to attain these and this complex pathway cannot be explained in an advertisement. So, rather than saying that you are capable to do it, promote that the opponent is incapable to do it (Schemer, 2010).

Talking about the unintended effects of negative advertising, a study conducted by Garramone found that voters did not believe every kind of negative advertisement. Highly educated tend to question the rationality of the comments passed in the negative advertisements. Also, the older voters perceived these advertisements to be less truthful than the younger generation of voters. Johnson-Cartee and Copeland stated three major damaging effects of using negative advertising in political campaigns. Firstly, the boomerang effect, where the negative advertisement puts a bad light on the image of the sponsor and not the target. Secondly the victim syndrome in which a negative ad is perceived as unfair by the voters and it gives rise to positive feelings towards the target (Basil & Reeves, 2008). Lastly, there is the double effect, where negative ad infuses negative feelings towards both target and sponsor.

The negative advertisement also influences the number of voters who turn to vote. According to Ansolabeher and Iyengar, evidence states that negative advertising discourages people to vote, whereas positive advertising has an opposite effect. Finkel and Geer contradict the findings of Ansolabeher and Iyengar and argue that negative advertising might discourage a group of voters but might stimulate another set of voters to vote by providing them more awareness about both candidates. Their findings show that there is no effect of negative ads on voter turnout. According to Kahn and Kenny, negative advertising has different effects on different people depending on political predispositions. Jamieson finally concludes that mixed advertising is the most influential type of ad when it comes to mobilizing voters. Strong attacks mostly reduce the sponsoring candidate’s votes as well an overall voter turnout where as contrast ads increase both.

Gaps Identification and Conclusion

The most important question that remains is how successful negative advertisement really is.  Kellerman suggests that negative information has the capacity to change the impression of a good person more quickly than the capacity of positive information to change the impression of bad person. On the contrary, a study by Pinkelton et al proves that people found negative ads less useful than positive ads. Johnson-Cartee and Copeland found that direct attack ads might not be very effective, but direct or implied comparison ads can benefit the campaign as they give voters a fair chance to choose the better person out of the available candidates. These ads are also perceived as more genuine by the voters as compared to the direct attack ads.

To conclude, I would say that due to inconsistencies in the terminology and methodology of research and boundaries of negative advertisement, it is unclear to decide if the negative advertisement is more informative than positive advertisement. Even though definite results are not clear, yet one thing that has been proven is that negative advertising holds great importance in any campaign. If this aspect is used tactfully, it can change the whole game. Negative information is retained for a longer time has been proven time and again. Using that information carefully can help the campaign greatly. The precaution to be taken here is that in the course of making the opponent look bad and magnifying his/her weaknesses, the basic ethical ground should not be lost. If that is done, the whole negative ad might just bite the sponsor back. The facts shown in negative ad should be well researched. Hypothetical claims and false accusations might lead to the failure of the campaign. Mayer and Finkel and Geer correctly state that truthful “negative” advertising is an integral part of the election campaign. The works of different authors suggest that a negative ad should not directly attack the opponent because that might get him/her sympathy votes. In fact, a clear and effective comparison should be made which not only makes the sponsor fair, but also prevents the opponent to play the victim card. Lastly, there is no definite result that proves the extent of the effectiveness of negative advertising. The content and extent of negative advertising in any campaign depends on the local political environment, demographic structure and the economic development factors like literacy rate, employment and per capita income.

References

Basil, M. & Reeves, B., 2008. Positive and negative political advertising: Effectiveness of ads and perceptions of candidates: Academia, Available at: https://www.academia.edu/20854930/Positive_and_negative_political_advertising_Effectiveness_of_ads_and_perceptions_of_candidates

Chang, W., Park, J. & Shim, S., 1998. Effectiveness of Negative Political Advertising, Available at: https://www.scripps.ohiou.edu/wjmcr/vol02/2-1a.HTM

Gregory, P., 2015. Comparing the Effectiveness of Positive and Negative Political Campaigns. Volume 11, Available at: https://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1311/comparing-the-effectiveness-of-positive-and-negative-political-campaigns

Kolovos, I. & Harris, P., 2015. Does negative advertising work?, Available at: https://www.academia.edu/29087959/Does_negative_advertising_work

Lariscy, R., 2012. Why negative political ads work, Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/02/opinion/lariscy-negative-ads/index.html

Parker, R., 2013. Does negative advertising work?, Available at: https://www.smartcompany.com.au/technology/does-negative-advertising-work/

Robertson, T., 2017. Ethics of Negative Advertising, Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/ethics-negative-advertising-26128.html

Robison, M., 2016. People say they don't like negative political ads, but do they work?, Available at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-negative-political-ads-work/

Schemer, C., 2010. Reinforcing Spirals of Negative Affects and Selective Attention to Advertising in a Political Campaign: NCCR, Available at: https://www.academia.edu/9344448/Reinforcing_Spirals_of_Negative_Affects_and_Selective_Attention_to_Advertising_in_a_Political_Campaign

Sehba, 2016. Meaning, Objectives, and Importance of Advertising, Available at: https://www.importantindia.com/23997/meaning-objectives-and-importance-of-advertising/