I Guess Bad is the New Good

On my blog, there appeared an ad for a media group, McCleskey Media, who I guess produce political ads.  On the main page, there are slides of the different advertising awards they won for different political ads.  I figured, if these ads are so good maybe I should check them out.  I clicked on the "Our Work" tab on the top of the page, and of the first seven ads I picked to watch six, were negative ads.  I'm guessing I didn't pick the only six negative ads on the page.  If these are the ads which are winning awards and elections, I guess going negative is the way to go. Do I think negative ads are better or worse than "content-free" ads, I'm honestly not sure, which by itself says something.  It should be obvious that negative ads are worse than anything positive but, they the "content-free" ads are so useless that it may actually be a tossup between the two.

What do TV Ads Do?

What is the real point of a political TV ad?  When it comes to products or services, the main purpose of an ad is to create brand recognition.  Is that true too by politics?  Is the point of TV ads for politicians just to get their name out there so people recognize it, and not to explain the ideas which the politician stands for?  If this were true then the popular "content-free" ads should be the perfect ads, because they are simple and they give the politician a recognizable, positive image to the politician.  If this were true then, in my humble opinion, negative ads would not be as popular.  I think the reason negative ads are so popular in politics and unpopular in any other sort of market, is because the aim of political advertising is different than regular advertising.  I think the point of political advertising is to create the believe in the minds of the viewers that the candidate featured in the ad, is the best person for the job.  It is not like when one is shopping and you decide to buy the brand you know.  People go to vote with the intent to vote for a certain candidate, so the aim of political ads is to create the belief that this candidate is the best, or in the case of a negative ad, the worst person for the job.  I think this is why there is so much negative advertising in politics and so little in regular market advertising.