Advertising's Best and Worst of Times

For advertising, the 2007-08 federal campaigns were the best and worst of times. A CNN news anchor expressed disappointment November 5 that the federal elections were over, but she acknowledged that a lot of people were joyful that it had finally ended.

Stations, agencies, consultants, websites, artists, announcer and writers probably enjoyed the millions of dollars pouring into advertising. But after nearly two years, some of us outside the industry were willing to accept any winners just to end the nasty negative commercials that had turned our television viewing into unpleasant experiences.

The nastiness wasn’t confined to the presidential campaign. It also dominated Congressional, state and local campaigns.

The 2007-08 string of commercials enriched many advertising coffers. It demonstrated how many graphics techniques the industry had in its arsenal. It was given credit for a major role in Barrack Obama’s victory.

The campaigns demonstrated the faith that leaders still place in advertising, even on television. It demonstrated the power of Internet advertising. It demonstrated that there are still niche roles that newspaper advertising can play. Obama even gave mobile advertising a chance to show off its potential.

But the barrage of commercials probably made viewers wonder how tricky and tasteless advertising can get. It probably made them wonder how much commercials should be believed in the future. The non-stop schedules may have made them wonder how much money has to be spent and how many times a commercial has to run to get results.

The millions spent by losing campaigns demonstrated loud and clear that some advertising does not work, without telling us why they didn’t work.

We can expect a barrage of studies and books to analyze the spending in the next year or so. There are a lot of lessons to learn before the 2010 elections. The industry's oldest lesson is that what works one year may not work the next year.

Negative Ad Techniques