Using Advertising as a Window on Campaign Message Targeting

Posted: 29 Mar 2010

See all articles by Travis N. Ridout

Travis N. Ridout

Washington State University

Michael Franz

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Abstract

Scholars know too little about the message targeting strategies of political campaigns. There just is not much data on which messages are being targeted to which voters. Although recent efforts have attempted to study this by asking people to save the political mailings they receive, there remains much to learn about candidate message targeting strategies. For instance, do candidates primarily focus on existing supporters, trying to get them to the polls, or do they attempt to attract on-the-fence voters? Moreover, how does the use of these strategies vary depending on time to Election Day or the context of the race? To gain leverage on these questions, we turn to a unique source of data: the television programs during which candidates air their advertising. We combine ad tracking data with survey data on the audience of each television program in order to understand which candidates are pursuing which types of voters and when. Examining ads in three different presidential races, we find that the Republican and Democratic candidates distributed their ads across programs quite differently. Moreover, an analysis predicting the ratio of the Democratic to Republican advertising on each program shows that audience demographics - most especially race - predict where candidates place their ads. Ultimately, our findings suggest that candidates do target specific audiences with their ads, though the specific audiences targeted can change with each election.

Suggested Citation

Ridout, Travis N. and Franz, Michael, Using Advertising as a Window on Campaign Message Targeting. Western Political Science Association 2010 Annual Meeting Paper , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1580582

Travis N. Ridout (Contact Author)

Washington State University ( email )

816 Johnson Tower
Troy Lane
Pullman, WA 99164
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.wsu.edu/~tnridout/

Michael Franz

affiliation not provided to SSRN

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