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Why Negative Political Advertising Works & What Can Stop It

10/31/2020

by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

In thousands of ads each day, companies consistently focus on themselves, rarely mentioning competitors, let alone firing a direct shot at one. So, why do political ads routinely take aim at their opponents? As a resident of a 2020 election battleground state, I’ve witnessed an unprecedented barrage of such attacks from both sides of the political spectrum:

The PAC America First Action sent a direct mail piece to our home featuring a photo of Joe Biden on an old-west wanted poster with the text, “WANTED for attempting to kill 600,000 Pennsylvania jobs!” The other side of the piece blames Biden for wrecking families’ finances and cozying up to China.
The Lincoln Project PAC has discredited Donald Trump through a one-minute video, “Mourning in America.” Against a backdrop of barren cities and towns, narration explains, “Today, more than 60,000 Americans have died from the deadly virus Donald Trump ignored,” and “Under the leadership of Donald Trump, our country is weaker, and sicker, and poorer.”

Neither of these ads even mention the candidate they endorse; rather, their aim is to undermine the adversary—a strategy that contradicts the research of Sorin Patilinet, global consumer marketing insights director for Mars, Inc. In analyzing over 700 ads, Patilinet’s team found that negative emotions often backfire on the firms that employ them.

Given the tenuous nature of negative ads and their infrequent use by businesses, why do political campaigns regularly resort to antagonism? It must be that negative ads work for politicians; if they didn’t, PACs and others wouldn’t spend millions of dollars making them.

But, what makes negative advertising effective for those seeking a senate seat or the presidency but not for businesses building their brands?

Not every type of advertising fits every industry. For instance, humor is hard for financial planners and funeral homes to pull off since their customers expect seriousness. Politics is a very unusual ‘industry’ for advertising, as the following seven distinctions summarize:

Fear appeal: Playing on people’s fears isn’t a viable way to promote most products, but it does work well for some, like home security systems, and political candidates. In fact, some ads, like the two described above, effectively use fear to position political opponents as threats to citizens’ ‘home’ towns, states, and countries.
Lower consumer expectations: Gallup’s annual survey about the ethics of 20 different occupations supports that people hold politicians, and likely their ads, to a lower standard: Members of Congress consistently bring up the bottom of Gallup’s list, suggesting little esteem for them and other elected officials.
Familiar fighting: If there are too many “serious” Super Bowl commercials, people complain, mainly because they’re used to seeing funny ones. Whether we like them or not, we often expect political ads to be negative.
Rationalized outcomes: Political ads also get a pass because of the importance of governance. As a result, we place political advertising in a different category, accepting its enmity because ‘the ends justify the means.’
The lesser of two evils: Unlike the overwhelming number of good product options consumers usually enjoy, elections often entail a choice between just two candidates who many find equally unappealing. As a result, one ends up on top as the ‘candidate of least compromise.’
Negativity bias: I recently conducted a study of advertising humor that suggested that people remember unpleasant experiences more than pleasant ones. The same phenomenon explains, in part, why negative political ads work—their animosity stands out and sticks with people.
Fight over flight: One reason businesses don’t want to brawl is there’s no telling how long a battle could last. Politicians, however, have finite promotional timelines that end after election, allowing them to engage in all-out warfare without the worry of a never-ending war.

These seven reasons help explain the success of negative political advertising and its heavy spending, but they don’t justify its use. Instead, they lead further into the logic trap that ethics aims to avoid: reasoning from ‘is’ to ‘ought.

Just because advertisers can do something doesn’t mean they should. There are at least three reasons there shouldn’t be caustic political advertising:

Polarization: To say that the U.S. is increasingly a nation divided is a severe understatement. Negative political advertising ads fuel the acrimony. Ultimately, one candidate wins, but because of the extreme public belittling, he/she enters office having already earned the enmity of a large portion of the population. Negative ads help set up elected officials to fail.
Opportunity Cost: There’s limited space in a 30-second radio spot and on a 9” x 12” mail piece. If a PAC makes smearing an opponent its priority, there’s little or no room to address real issues. As a result, voters end up knowing all the reasons they shouldn’t select someone but few of the reasons they should elect another. Insight into truly important concerns is the casualty.
Moral Compromise: Public service is an important calling and citizens should understand significant weaknesses of candidates, but it’s not right to recklessly vilify a person. Most negative political ads sacrifice objectivity and civility. Endorsing disrespect and exemplifying disparagement unmoors society’s moral anchor.

Amid unprecedented campaign-spending and unrestrained animosity, is there a way forward?

Exiting the downward spiral seems like trying to end a nuclear arms race: The urge is to add armaments, not abandon them. No nation or politician wants to risk their existence by being the first to disarm.

It’s unlikely, therefore, that political candidates or PACs will self-censor and curb their own negative advertising. Instead, resolution seems to rest on one of three approaches:

Advertiser Pressure: Media that run negative political ads can conceivably refuse them, which could cause introspection and perhaps ad alterations. It’s unlikely, though, that many media will take a moral stand; rather, they’ll find the revenue too hard to resist and rationalize that campaigns will just “place their ads elsewhere, if not with us.”
Government Regulation: Law is an effective form of advertising behavior modification. If the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) decides a Super Bowl commercial is too risqué, it doesn’t run. However, the policies needed to reform political advertising require the support of legislators who worry they’ll need such ads for their next election, which makes regulation improbable.
A Social Movement: Over recent years, we’ve seen the power that social media gives people to speak out against injustices. The #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements have shown that real change can occur when enough committed citizens actively embrace a cause.

These and other movements have demonstrated that socially-driven change depends first on the realization that a real problem exists. People must perceive negative political advertising as more than periodic unpleasantry and recognize that these ads tear at our national fabric by feeding political polarization and eroding respect for anyone whose political opinions differ from our own.

Boycotting advertising that fuels hate is a start, but America needs an even broader uprising against acrimonious ads, perhaps encouraged by #EndNegativeAds or #PositivePromotion. To avoid becoming a country consumed by anger, our nation needs to get angry at these ads that contribute to domestic division. We need to vote against such “Single-Minded Marketing.”

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Moving Aside To Let Consumers Drive

10/17/2020

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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

It was a frightening experience. After driving around the parking lot for a few hours, we turned onto the main road, which I had been on many times before, but now 40 mph seemed like 80, and my whole body tensed as cars whizzed by in the opposite direction. I was afraid because I was a passenger, teaching one of our children to drive. I wasn’t in control of the car, they were. I wonder if Ocean Spray has felt similar fear during its rapid TikTok ride.

In a social-media-driven world, marketers increasingly face a dilemma: Should they keep communication control or slide into the passenger seat and allow someone with no professional experience and little company commitment drive their promotional strategy? That’s the question Ocean Spray has had to answer as a longboard-riding, selfie-stick-toting Idaho potato worker unexpectedly drove the firm into pop culture prominence.

Nathan Apodaca wasn’t well-known before he posted the 25-second TikTok clip of himself skateboarding to work, while lip-syncing to the Fleetwood Mac classic “Dreams,” and sipping from a 64 oz. bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice. However, the video went viral, gaining over 46 million views and almost 8 million likes, while also grabbing mainstream media attention from the likes of CNN to NPR.

Meanwhile, the cranberry cooperative from Middleboro, MA must have been asking itself, “What just happened?” and “How do we handle it?”

When you think of food companies with conservative product lines, there aren’t many more staid than Ocean Spray. It’s not Nantucket Nectars or Snapple with their overabundance of very creative drink concoctions. The majority of Ocean Spray’s juices, as well as many of its other products contain cranberries, which seem positioned somewhere between raisins and prunes and probably appeal more to ‘mature’ than to youthful palettes.

Case in point, I’m a member of Gen X whose beverage repertoire happens to be boring—I drink little besides water, but I do have a glass of Ocean Spray Cran-Grape juice every day. All that to say, I suspect much of the company’s revenue comes from other mundane middle-agers-or-olders like me. I doubt those in Ocean Spray’s target market are heavy users of TikTok, which makes the firm’s reaction to its sudden social media fame even more remarkable.

However, Ocean Spray didn’t jump on Apodaca’s longboard immediately; instead, it ‘took a beat’ for over a week, which in social media time can seem like an eternity. Still, positive public reaction suggests that the company’s move was ‘lit’—not sure if I’m using that term correctly.

The firm first did its homework and found that Apodaca wasn’t simply someone aiming for internet fame or a corporate payday. He was a hard-working father, living in a mobile home, whose pickup truck died on the way to his job at the potato factory. Rather than miss work, Apodaca pulled the skateboard from his truck, jumped on and, with hydration in hand, began cruising toward the plant. Videoing himself was a spontaneous thought, brought on by the “Dreams” tune and a desire to capture the uniquely ‘chill’ moment.

Ocean Spray, in turn, captured the hearts of the nation and beyond by gifting the stunned Apodaca a new cranberry red Nissan pickup truck, packed with a generous cache of the company’s products.

Meanwhile, TikTok parodies have proliferated. Those grabbing a bottle of Ocean Spray and skateboarding to the sound of “Dreams” have included legendary Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood, Ocean Spray CEO Tom Hayes, and lieutenant governor of Montana and governor candidate Mike Cooney.

From surprising Apodaca with a new truck to filming their CEO’s own TikTok tribute, it seems like Ocean Spray did everything right, but one could also argue that the company was living dangerously by jumping on the TikTok longboard, for three reasons:

1. Skateboarding Spills: From the first time I saw Apodaca’s TikTok, I wondered about the safety. Since my own skateboarding experience was very limited and decades ago, I ‘let it ride,’ until I had an opportunity to ask those in a college class their opinions.

One student, Jordan, said he uses an E-skate (electric skateboard) to commute to campus. While he acknowledged the freedom that some enjoy from riding unencumbered, he was quick to call Apodaca’s approach “ill-advised” because of: multiple distractions (juice, music, camera), no protective equipment, and proximity to fast-moving traffic. He also showed a nasty scrape he sustained from a recent spill, even while wearing a helmet and reinforced leather gloves.

But, why should Ocean Spray worry about any such accidents? It would be tragic to read the headline: “Car Kills Teen Doing Ocean Spray TikTok Parody.” Yes, people will mimic Apodaca regardless what Ocean Spray does, but the company’s support of the viral celeb and its own CEO's imitation could be construed as support for the act and its disregard for danger.

2. Unknown Endorser: Most of the time, famous spokespeople work out well for their sponsors, largely because celebrities are ‘known commodities’ who have been living in the public spotlight for years. Even then, though, there are times when a celebrity’s poor choices sour the promotional partnership, e.g., Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte in Brazil.

When an ordinary person suddenly rises from obscurity to become the face of a brand, there is increased risk related to an unknown history and uncertainty how he/she might act going forward, both of which could lead to another very undesirable headline, e.g., “BREAKING NEWS: Ocean Spray Spokesman Apodaca . . .”

3. Brand Confusion: In keeping with the prior point, brands carefully choose their spokespeople and dozens of other identity-defining elements in order to position themselves precisely where they’d like to be in consumers’ minds relative to the competition. Allowing whoever happens to shoot a viral video of themself become the face of one’s brand seems like a pretty nonstrategic approach.

If Ocean Spray wants to move its image in the direction of ‘younger,’ ‘carefree,’ and possibly even ‘irreverent,’ the TikTok tie-in works. If not, embracing the viral video could create some cognitive dissonance when consumers attempt to interpret it in light of the company’s other marketing communication.

However, the three cautions above must be interpreted against the reality that Ocean Spray really had to do something. Not acknowledging the viral video would have made the company seem ungrateful, not to mention completely out of touch.

Even though Ocean Spray didn’t ask for Apodaca’s promotional help, the right thing to do was to reward him for the enormous exposure he created for the brand. When someone shows you kindness, you thank them; and, if you’re a company with the resources of Ocean Spray, you do more.

In deciding how much gratitude ($$$) to show, company management may have wondered whether the Tik Tok-driven sales uptick would last. As parodies focus on other things, the firm’s revenue will relapse, but probably not entirely. Some of its newly-won market share may last, as operant conditioning suggests: At least some people who never had Ocean Spray before shooting their own video probably tried it, liked it, and will buy it again.

Similarly, the entire Tik Tok episode may have the effect of lowering the bottom end of Ocean Spray’s age demographic, which is something almost any brand would like. At some point, every organization must appeal to the next generation; otherwise, it goes to the grave with an ever-aging target market.

Still, were these rewards worth the three risks outlined above? My cautious answer is—Yes.

First, the idea of Ocean Spray implicitly endorsing Apodaca’s somewhat dangerous ride is mitigated by the fact that his truck broke down and he was just trying to get to work. It wasn’t a thrill ride for the sake of social media shares. Plus, company CEO Hayes and others have modeled safer and still-satisfying Tik Tok tributes.

Second, should anything unseemly surface from Apodoca’s past or taint his future brand ambassadorship, Ocean Spray could easily pull the plug on the affiliation. Likewise, knowing Apodaca’s situation and the impromptu circumstances under which the relation was formed, the public probably would give some grace to both the individual and the organization.

Third, most of the people who could potentially experience brand confusion from Ocean Spray’s positioning pivot probably aren’t on Tik Tok anyway. That media/demographic separation combined with what will likely be a relatively short shelf-life for the video, should mean that traditional perceptions of the brand remain largely intact.

I still enjoy the control of being behind the wheel. I don’t mind, though, when someone else drives, as long as I feel safe and I have some input into where we’re going. Marketers increasingly need to know when to slip into the passenger seat, yet continue to influence the way to the destination, all while someone with less promotional experience drives.

Like Ocean Spray, those who can successfully navigate that unique balance are on the road to “Mindful Marketing.”

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Learn more about the Mindful Matrix.
Check out Mindful Marketing Ads and Vote your Mind!

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Was Pulling "Finger Lickin’ Good" Just Publicity Grabin’?

10/4/2020

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by David Hagenbuch - professor of Marketing at Messiah University -
author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing

It’s comforting when a company puts society’s needs ahead of its own interests. One of the world’s leading purveyors of comfort food appeared to be following that recipe when it decided to drop its iconic tagline for health and safety reasons. So, why does it feel like Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) has served up a bucket of artificial altruism?

Firms are fortunate if people remember their slogans for a few minutes, let alone days, weeks, or months. To create a theme that endures for decades is a creative coup that only the best marketing minds can claim, e.g., Just Do It (Nike), You’re in Good Hands (Allstate), The Real Thing (Coca-Cola).

KFC first served its iconic Finger Lickin’ Good tagline more than a half century ago. A restaurant manager reportedly cooked up the storied slogan in 1956, “off the cuff.”

Fast forward to August 2020, when many media began broadcasting the big news: In a show of public support, KFC decided to suspend its Finger Lickin’ Good slogan. Catherine Tan-Gillespie, KFC’s global chief marketing officer, explained the move saying that the slogan “doesn't feel quite right” or “fit in the current environment” in which licking one’s fingers violates best practices for avoiding the virus.

As a marketing professor who enjoys slogans and pays special attention to their use, I was surprised by the story for two reasons:

I thought KFC had already stopped using its one-time staple slogan.
I don’t recall any tagline ever grabbing so much publicity, especially for being taken off the menu.

In short, I was suspicious: Was the fast food giant’s concern for public safety genuine, or was the firm actually feeding consumers a line?

Because of other priorities, KFC's decision dropped off my radar, until a student in one of my marketing classes restored it: He shared an article he’d read about the suspended slogan and offered his assessment of KCF’s strategy, calling it “Mindful Marketing.”

When I questioned the motives behind the company’s move, much of the class clapped back against their professor, in support of their fellow student (they always do that). However, their reaction made me even more suspicious of hoodwinking, which doubled my determination to understand what was really happening.

It had been a while since I paid much attention to KFC. About five years ago I wrote a piece about the firm that wasn’t exactly flattering: I described how KFC’s own ads were lampooning, of all people, its deceased founder, the hard-working visionary Harland Sanders. I argued that he and any departed person deserved better.

So, I set out to investigate my hypothesis that KFC’s theme recall was less about protecting people’s health and more about grabbing headlines. The first step was to see if the company had been using its classic Finger Lickin’ Good theme before the August announcement. If you remember above, I said that I didn’t think it had been. Well, I was right . . . and wrong.

I found one website that catalogs companies’ slogans and another that curates their commercials, which I spent too much time watching. In the process, though, I discovered that for a few decades KFC had used in its ads a wide variety of other taglines with no mention of the iconic one, for instance:

However, I was wrong in that KFC did recently reprise Finger Lickin’ Good in its ad campaigns featuring Colonel Sanders fakes. Over a period of about five years, the company has employed an incredible 18 different ‘colonels,’ ranging from Rob Lowe to Reba McEntire. Most of these commercials have used Finger Lickin’ Good.

Watching KFC ads, which were often entertaining, was the easy part. The hard part is supporting that the company’s motives in pulling the classic slogan are not as pious as they appear. Here are four reasons I still maintain that KFC’s tagline tactic is more than a little suspicious:

1. Poor Health History: This is the same company that three decades ago, amid growing public concern about the health effects of fried foods, changed its name to an acronym rather than significantly altering its product line. It’s also the same firm that promotes $5 Fill Up Meals, which contain a whopping 2,160 calories, 104 grams of fat, and 202 carbs.

People certainly need to be careful about coronavirus, but if KFC is truly concerned about consumers’ health, why does it appear apathetic to heart disease—the leading cause of death in America?

2. Rap Sheet of Irreverence: While KFC hasn’t been known for championing healthiness, it does have a reputation for insolence. It’s commercials featuring the Colonel Sanders imposters, are prime examples of the offhand humor, which makes fun of people in all sorts of social situations while also roasting its founder. So, if KFC doesn’t take itself and its customers seriously, why should we believe that jettisoning Finger Lickin’ Good isn’t also a joke?

3. Expert Agreement: CNN has described KFC’s tagline takedown as a “clever” “marketing campaign.” Although, I take issue with the news conglomerate’s implication that all marketing is manipulative, it’s worth noting that the media giant sees KFC doing the same thing I do: making a weakly-veiled attempt to gain brand exposure.

4. Reverse Psychology Strategy: The most compelling evidence that KFC’s slogan stoppage is a stunt can be ‘somewhat seen’ in its own advertising. Rather than removing the tagline entirely from billboards and chicken buckets, the company simply blurred two of the four words to read: It’s - - - - - - - - - - - - - good! In addition, a video showing images of the same items ends with the message, “That thing we always say. Ignore it. For now.”

In psychological terms, KFC is using ironic process theory, which holds that “deliberate attempts to suppress certain thoughts actually make them more likely to surface.” The classic example is telling someone not to think about a pink elephant.

KFC’s ‘don’t think about it’ strategy reminds me of Doritos 2019 “No Logo” commercial in which the company intentionally kept its brand name and mark out of a 60-second TV spot in order to play on consumers’ curiosity and create a buzz. Given how often the commercial was shared, the strategy seemed to work.

Many people, however, have seen through KFC’s charade. In the UK, the Advertising and Standards Authority (ASA) has received 163 complaints about the ads. These critics and others can tell when an organization is truly trying to be socially responsible and when it’s just giving Finger Lickin’ lip service.

It’s nice when large companies wield their significant influence to nudge people in a positive direction, especially one that keeps them from harm during a pandemic. However, a firm pretending to encourage consumer well-being, when it's really just trying to grab publicity should make all of us at least a little sick to our stomachs.

In a best case scenario, the public just laughs off KFC’s ploy. In a worst case, the company’s irreverence encourages people to take virus-prevention measures less seriously, placing themselves and others at greater risk of COVID-19.

Kudos, KFC, for removing the inappropriate tagline. However, this food marketing critic still gives you a poor review for cooking up a big serving of “Single-Minded Marketing.”

Subscribe to Mindful Matters blog.
Learn more about the Mindful Matrix.
Check out Mindful Marketing Ads and Vote your Mind!

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Why Negative Political Advertising Works & What Can Stop It

Moving Aside To Let Consumers Drive

Was Pulling "Finger Lickin’ Good" Just Publicity Grabin’?

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