Negative Advertising

Negative advertising

Introduction 

Negative advertising is a way of approach that focuses on the negative aspects of a rival brand or candidate. In this blog we will look at the arguments for and against negative advertising and using the topic of politics to do so.

Main Body

For Negative Advertising

There are arguments that see negative advertising as a positive way of campaigning a point across. Like seen in the image above it has a strong message that campaigns the different parties against each other by sharing stats and figures which hinder the other parties campaign for election. Many studies have been undertaken in negative advertising, Coulter (2008) finds in his journal that the most favorable impact is that negative advertising is memorable. This is will be of new advert campaigns every election which will be made to catch the audience's eye to make them vote. Austin & Pinkleton (1995) find that negative advertising is also more informative to the viewer with information and stats in the negative campaign to the audience, it engages the voter to read figures and compare the parties. For example in the image above figures say that Gordon Brown let '80,000' criminals out of prison. These stats will capture the audience although they may be false statements as political advertising isn't owned by advertising rights so advertisements like this one can be false. 
Moving on Chou and Lien (2011) find that important appeals or advertisements are more intense than unimportant ones. If the information is given to them in a negative advert they increase voter satisfaction which basically means evidence and satisfaction is more helpful for the voters decision like mentioned with the image this information against Gordon Brown can be a positive for the voter on what party they vote for through a negative statement. Negative information receives more weight in overall evaluations, Showronski & Carlston (1987) which alternatively give the voter more evidence for a particular political party.  Negative advertisements for political elections help the voter with valuable messages about candidates or provide a judgement if they do vote for that party Chou & Lien (2011). Using the theory of Homer and Batra (1994) when negative advertising uses negative attacks voters will pay more attention to the detail about it having evidence or lacking evidence even and plays a further role on the importance of the appeal, like the example shown the information is almost an appeal to the audience. Do they really want 80,000 criminals released early again? It makes the voter think and with its bold and powerful statement it raises the attention and awareness of the voter to think about a decision. Negative adverts of more complex than a positive advert negative information travels more slowly because of how complex it may be because of this it means the negative advert will become stuck into our heads even if the voter does not agree with the advert. Negative advertising also uses something called the 'sleeper effect' many voters dismiss a negative advert now as being just about politics what the sleeper effect does is dissociate the idea but when it comes to voting for a party in the future that advert will come back into the brain as the content becomes stuck. 

Against Negative Advertising



Negative advertising can also be seen in a negative light as well. Ahluwalia and Shiv (1997) state that they believe the negative information can emulate the negative effect of the advert this makes the negative information less valuable to the voter. The image above is from an American election campaign the negative message is bold and could be shown to be less value to the audience who want positives of parties rather than negatives. A lack of evidence in the adverts can distaste the voter and causes them to be more negative about the information within the advertisement Pinkleton (1998). Many of the political arguments start unprovoked arguments against each other for the audience this can be seen as negative and show the negative characteristics of each party in the election which can produce poor responses from voters. Tinkham & Weaver-Lariscy (1996) also show in there article that negative adverts lead to negative evaluations of the target. 

Chou & Lien (2011) discover that negative ads worsen voters candidates attitudes about the political election, the image above may change the impression of voters who see the advert as to negative and to straight to the point with limited evidence shown. When negative adverts lack evidence that they claim for example the image above, the advert can become more unfavorable because of this. Ansolabehere (1994) believes that attack adverts can be used as a form of demobilization they argue that negative adverts are placed intentionally by political strategists which intends to the stop different segments from voting making the turn out of voters for elections lower and when they are shown positive political adverts it will give them more reason to vote. Garramore (1984) speaks about how a forceful attack in a political advert like shown above can be seen as unpleasant by the voter which can give a general negative reaction and the worse the voters feelings become about putting their trust in that party. 

Conclusion

Looking at the research about negative advertising in politics it is clear to see there are many arguments for and against the subject. When looking at the positive reactions we can see that researchers see its effect as memorable, informative and intense as just some of the examples when comparing this to the against argument. Authors such as Coulter (2008) who see negative advertising as memorable get there argument hindered by ideas that suggest it is unpleasant and negative evaluations of the target which make it more unfavorable. Pinkleton (1995) believed negative advertising to be more informative to the voter while Ahluwalia and Shiv (1997) disagree with this statement and argue the complete opposite with negative information being less valuable to the voter. The argument I believe could be continued for many years within politics and it is even forming in other forms of advertisements now such as food and charity. But overall I believe that negative advertising is a new way of delivering messages to the audience and will only continue to grow. From the four examples used it shows the power and force of the message and it does have the ability to make the audience think and make a decisions. On that conclusion I am for negative advertising not only in politics but other forms as well. 



References

-The Guardian . (2010). We all hate negative advertising but it often works. Available: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2010/mar/29/negative-advertising-michael-white. Last accessed 1st March 2015.

- Coulter, K.S. 2008, "The Tri-Mediation Model of persuasion: a case for negative political advertising?", International Journal of Advertising, vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 853.

- Austin, E.W. & Pinkleton, B.E. 1995, "Positive and negative effects of political disaffection on the less experienced voter", Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 215.

• -Chou, H. & Lien, N. 2011, "What does a negative political ad really say?: the effects of different content dimensions", Journal of marketing communications, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 281-295. 
• - Skowronski, J.J. & Carlston, D.E. 1989, "Negativity and Extremity Biases in Impression Formation: A Review of Explanations", Psychological bulletin, vol. 105, no. 1, pp. 131-142.
• - Homer, P.M. 2008, "Perceived quality and image: when all is not "rosy"", Journal of business research, vol. 61, no. 7, pp. 715-723.
• - Ruthann Lariscy. (2012). Why negative political ads work. Available: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/02/opinion/lariscy-negative-ads/. Last accessed 1st March 2015. 
• - hopehering. (2013). Balancing Negative Advertising. Available: https://talkingpoliticsjomc.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/balancing-negative-advertising/. Last accessed 2nd March 2015.
• - Ahluwalia, R. 2002, "How Prevalent Is the Negativity Effect in Consumer Environments?", Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 270-279.
• - Pinkleton, B.E. 1998, "Effects of print comparative political advertising on political decision-making and participation", Journal of Communication, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 24-36.
• - Weaver-Lariscy, R.A. & Tinkham, S.F. 1996, "Advertising message strategies in U.S. congressional campaigns: 1982, 1990", Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 53-66.
• - Wattenberg, M.P. & Brians, C.L. 1999, "Negative Campaign Advertising: Demobilizer or Mobilizer?", The American Political Science Review, vol. 93, no. 4, pp. 891-899.
• - Matthews, D. & Dietz-Uhler, B. 1998, "The Black-Sheep Effect: How Positive and Negative Advertisements Affect Voters' Perceptions of the Sponsor of the Advertisement1", Journal of Applied Social Psychology, vol. 28, no. 20, pp. 1903-1915.
• - Pringle,B. (2011). Political advertising media spend in the UK under threat. Available: http://politicaladvertising.co.uk/2011/11/24/political-advertising-media-spend-in-the-uk-under-threat/. Last accessed 2nd March 2015.