ATLANTA — According to AdImpact, midterm candidates are on track to spend $9.7-billion on political advertising nationwide, even though some voters say it’s all a waste of money.
Yet according political experts, campaign ads aren’t so much about swaying your vote as they are about convincing you that you need to vote.
“I don’t enjoy them,” said one Atlanta voter of campaign commercials. “It’s a little bit of a bombardment. It’s all too much.”
Candidates in Georgia’s key races are spending millions and political action committees have spent millions more on ads coming at us on television, radio, and our smart phones.
Joseph Watson, a professor of Public Affairs Communications at UGA’s Grady College of Journalism, said for the most part, political ads aren’t aimed at undecided voters. The purpose is to motivate voters who’ve already made up their minds.
“If they (the candidates) have a record that they really are proud of and want to promote, that does incentivize their voters to turn out and cast their ballots for them,” Watson explained.
A study out of Northwestern University found political ads will have a different effect on voters depending on their tone. A slight increase in positive ads led to a slight increase in voter turnout while an increase in negative ads led to a drop in voter turnout according to the study.
Seeing the same ad over and over again on your television may be annoying, but Watson says repetition works.
“The same reason that teachers repeat things over and over again and we learned our times tables over and over again, you have to repeat something 10 plus times to get people to remember it,” said Watson.
So while you might consider political ads to be an annoying waste of money, research indicates they do have an impact.