# Advertising had little effect on the 2012 election

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advertising-had-little-effect-on-the-2012-election/659615>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [May 29, 2013, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advertising-had-little-effect-on-the-2012-election/659615 "2013-05-29T10:14:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advertising-had-little-effect-on-the-2012-election/659615/21 "2013-06-03T19:15:00Z")

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> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> The only time that is true, is when you have a situation where any candidate in the race can unilaterally decide to spend nothing at all on advertising, without at all affecting his/her chances of winning.
> 
> Did that situation arise anywhere in 2012?

I don’t remember any ads for Senator Feinstein’s re-election campaign in California in 2012.

Then again, that may have been in response to the Republicans in 2008 not running any ads (including at least one opportunity to run a free one) against Senator Boxer, which gave them quite a bit of extra money - presumably, quite a bit of it being used on last-second campaigning in Ohio.

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**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advertising-had-little-effect-on-the-2012-election/659615/22 "2013-06-03T19:29:42Z")

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> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> This doesn’t work either. You can’t define informational ads as boring and negative ads as exciting.

Yeah I can - in that that’s what I think was meant by those terms. But I can’t speak for someone else.

> [@](#):
>
> Informational ads can take many viewing to fully process their content. Negative ads can quickly become boring turn-offs. There certainly is evidence that negative ads can turn voters against a candidate, although with both sides using them their net effectiveness is lessened. That doesn’t imply that softer-sell informational ads can’t be effective.
> 
> There is no one format that makes an ad interesting or cause people to watch. Ads can be loud or soft, overt or covert, funny or angry, insinuating or direct. Any or all can make for a good ad. That goes for political ads as much as consumer product ads. The overall effect is probably small, maybe even as small as the cited article claims. But I guarantee that you can’t tell the effectiveness of an ad by whether you think it’s boring or not.

Okay, let’s put it this way - effective ads are effective, ineffective ads aren’t. The point is that some ads work and some don’t, and so you can’t just count the effect by counting how much money was spent on ads.

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**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advertising-had-little-effect-on-the-2012-election/659615/23 "2013-06-03T19:35:27Z")

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> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#):
>
> I don’t remember any ads for Senator Feinstein’s re-election campaign in California in 2012.

Feinstein was leading her opponent by a large margin. She didn’t need to run many ads. Still, she did run them statewide. Her total spending was $12 million, but I didn’t look up how much was for ads.

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