Don’t worry, political ads still work

OAKVILLE, ONT.—A poll came out recently which, if taken at face value, would be bad news for all the good people in this country who write political advertisements for a living. The poll in question, conducted by Forum Research, asked Canadians if any of the political advertisements they’d seen over the past month had an impact on their opinions of parties, leaders, or local candidates. The results weren’t good for advertisers. Indeed, according to Forum, out of the Canadians who had seen a political ad, 65 per cent indicated the advertisements had no impact on them at all, 15 per cent said the ads had only some impact and a measly 5 percent declared the ads had a strong impact. What’s more, the survey also showed that of those who were impacted by political ads, 64 per cent said the impact was negative, while 36 per cent said it was positive, which I take to mean to mean most Canadians didn’t like the ads. Notably, the exception to this overall negativity seemed to be those Conservative Party supporters who were impacted by ads, the majority of whom, according to the poll, said the ads had a positive impact. At any rate, Dr. Lorne Bozinoff, president of Forum Research, summed up the poll thusly: “Most Canadians say they weren’t impacted by a political advertisement. But Conservative voters are far more likely to say that the ad impacted them positively, than supporters of the other national parties. The question becomes, can the Conservatives turn this into a campaign advantage amongst the small subset of the population who is affected by political advertising?” Yet, before the Conservatives try to answer that question, there’s a more fundament question that needs to be asked: is this Forum poll reliable? I don’t think it is. Please note, I’m not questioning the poll’s accuracy; as matter of fact, I’m more than willing to accept this poll as an accurate measurement of what people are saying. My problem centres on the poll’s bluntness. In my view, directly asking respondents if a political advertisement had any impact on them is not the best way to judge an ad’s effectiveness, nor is asking them if the poll had a negative or positive impact. Why? Well, sometimes what people say to pollsters is not what they truly think. This is especially true when it comes to political ads. People don’t like to admit they’ve been influenced by some stupid spot they saw on TV, particularly if it’s a “negative” ad; plus, good political ads often work on a subconscious level, meaning people are impacted by them even if they don’t realize it. To measure an ad’s impact you need to use more of an indirect strategy. For instance, let’s say you wanted to test the effectiveness of an ad the Conservatives were running that suggested Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was going to double the carbon tax. Rather than bluntly asking, “Did this ad impact you?,” a pollster should gauge attitudes by asking something like, “What’s one policy about Justin Trudeau you oppose?” If the answer is, “I’m against his idea to double the carbon tax,” you know the ad is probably working, even if this person also says he wasn’t impacted by any ads. I’m not saying Canadian political ads over the past month have been great, all I’m saying is the Forum Poll, asking about their impact, doesn’t really tell us if they’re effective or not. The most accurate poll of an ad’s effectiveness is the one that happens on Election Day. Gerry Nicholls is a communications consultant. The Hill Times

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Don’t worry, political ads still work

It's no surprise people told Forum Research they weren't affected by political advertising, but that doesn't mean it's the truth.

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