Text11 Political Advertising

There are different spheres of advertising: economic, social, legal, confessional, personal advertising, advertising of goods and services, advertising of interpersonal relationships and so on. Political advertising is used to advertise politicians, political parties, their ideas on how to solve social problems, and programs of improving standard of living in the society. Political advertising uses paid media in an organised effort which seeks to influence the decision making process of target groups. The purpose of political advertising is to arouse a desire to a certain perception or an action, let it be acceptance of the political party’s ideas, support for its suggestions and actions, or voting in favour of a particular candidate.

The functions of political advertising are traditional. They are: informative function, comparative, communicative, and ideological ones. Political advertising can be considered as an ideas conductor, and images, symbols and myths retranslator. Political advertising helps the political party to win the supporters and new members, to promote political ideas and actions. The state provides financial resources for the state legislative bodies elections. During the election campaigns political advertising is much more active than between the elections, when it is financed by political parties themselves.

Political advertising gives the voters the opportunity to catch the main idea of a political platform in understandable, laconic, and easy to remember messages. It inclines the target groups in favour of the certain political forces or politicians, forms and implants their desirable images into the mass consciousness. Political advertising tries to determine people’s feelings, sympathy and actions.

The subject of political advertising is an advertiser (a political party, a politician or a candidate). They advertise their programs and political actions. The objects of political advertising are the political process participants, which are to make their choice and to determine political direction they will follow. These people, grouped by their age and occupation, are called target groups. The political advertising goal is to make people belonging to a target group participate in political processes, to delegate power to the candidate, shortly, to provoke a certain political behaviour, including electoral behavior.

The electorate must be segmented into groups thoroughly and the program of the election campaign must be developed separately for every target group of audience. There could be such subprograms as ”Pensioner”, “Housewife”, “Company X”, “Student” and so on. Then it is necessary to study what kind of mass media this or that target group prefers. It will help to optimise media planning, to save money, and to increase influence of advertising messages.

Advertising uses rational and emotional ways to influence the audience, which must be in balance. While choosing the way of advertising it is necessary to take into consideration a political situation, social conditions, people’s consciousness and predominant perception mechanisms. Political advertisements can be delivered by press, radio and television. They can also be distributed by means of multimedia channels, on transport, billboards, and souvenirs.

Political advertising is a component of political marketing. The aim of political marketing is to help political parties and candidates to develop and fulfill an effective election campaign. Politicians have never been strangers to the latest trends in marketing and public relations. First of all, in order to gather and analyse information about the political market a sociological research is held. Information collected by the researchers helps to create an image of the candidate, to develop his political and social program, to organise his campaign, to create supportive groups, to arrange meetings and other events, to publish posters, leaflets, booklets, articles in magazines and newspapers.

Political consultants try to form the image of the candidate. The image must influence target audience so that the candidate becomes the head of the poll. Political consultants consider the candidate’s personal, social and symbolic characteristics. Personal characteristics are his age, gender, appearance; his character, temperament, individual decision-making style, personal traits and leadership quality, ability to generate the ideas, his values and beliefs. Social characteristics are the candidate’s education, his income, social status, official position, experience in management and politics. Symbolic characteristics of the candidate refer to one of the archetype (style of behaviour: Saint, Martyr, Saviour, Magician, Chief, Hero, and Father). For example, Saint, Martyr, Saviour are carriers of truth and revelation. They are clear and infallible. Magician is able to resolve irresolvable problems. Chief is wise and powerful, he is a defender and a patron. Hero is brave, honest and ready to sacrifice. Father is authoritative, strict and aggressive.

Political consultants take into account the correlation of these characteristics with the voters’ expectations (it is called the candidate’s quality). When the candidate’s characteristics and his quality are considered, it is necessary to estimate internal and external environment of pre-election marketing. External environment includes competitors, electorate, state, Constitution, law. Internal environment comprises the party’s organizational structure, its leaders, the candidate’s team, his program and so on.

Political struggle is a cruel fight; it is a matter of paradox that the audience is excited with this struggle, which often causes the feeling of growing heat. A voter must be educated and experienced enough to make a fair choice under the circumstances of positive and negative political advertising flow.