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[Boney]

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/8/14848636/hillary-clinton-tv-ads

Hillary Clinton’s campaign ran TV ads that had less to do with policy than any other presidential candidate in the past four presidential races, according to a new study published on Monday by the Wesleyan Media Project.

But only 25 percent of advertising supporting her campaign went after Trump on policy grounds, the researchers found. By comparison, every other presidential candidate going back to at least 2000 devoted more than 40 percent of his or her advertising to policy-based attacks. None spent nearly as much time going after an opponent’s personality as Clinton’s ads did.

Beyond overall ad spending, the study also breaks down the content of the attack ads aired on behalf of each candidate. It says about 70 percent of Trump’s ads “contained at least some discussion of policy.” About 90 percent of Clinton’s attack ads went after Trump as an individual — compared with just 10 percent that went after his policies, the study found.

The study concludes that Clinton’s strategy may have backfired badly. Here’s what they have to say:

"Evidence suggests that negativity in advertising can have a backlash effect on the sponsor (Pinkleton 1997) and that personally-focused, trait-based negative messages (especially those that are uncivil) tend to be seen as less fair, less informative and less important than more substantive, policy-based messaging (Fridkin and Geer 1994; Brooks and Geer 2007).

In stark contrast to any prior presidential cycle for which we have Kantar Media/CMAG data, the Clinton campaign overwhelmingly chose to focus on Trump’s personality and fitness for office (in a sense, doubling down on the news media’s focus), leaving very little room for discussion in advertising of the reasons why Clinton herself was the better choice.

Trump, on the other hand, provided explicit policy-based contrasts, highlighting his strengths and Clinton’s weaknesses, a strategy that research suggests voters find helpful in decision-making. These strategic differences may have meant that Clinton was more prone to voter backlash and did nothing to overcome the media’s lack of focus on Clinton’s policy knowledge, especially for residents of Michigan and Wisconsin, in particular, who were receiving policy-based (and specifically economically-focused) messaging from Trump".

But the new report also confirms what multiple outlets have already reported: that the Clinton campaign did not appear to realize its vulnerability in the Rust Belt until the final days of the election and, as a result, blew millions that could have been spent elsewhere. Clinton’s team spent virtually nothing advertising in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania until the final week — when they then decided to exponentially increase their resources there.

The blown money on TV advertising in Arizona was exacerbated by a ground strategy that local Rust Belt Democrats have heavily criticized. As Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) told Vox in December 2016, the Clinton campaign appeared to do little to relate to Midwest union workers in the runup to the vote:

"As far as I know, she didn’t stop at any UAW halls. I probably would have been invited to be with her if she was going to one, and I never got that invitation. She didn't do any labor-specific events that I'm aware of. It's pretty rare that you aren't working closely with labor in a campaign, especially for statewide office. I'm sitting right here now, talking to you in the parking lot of the sheet metal workers before their holiday party. I'm going to be with my friends, with the sheet metal workers, to convey that they are important to me by showing up at their events. Labor simply cannot be taken for granted in Michigan. Not doing that sort of event certainly was a major oversight."

The study was conducted by a Wesleyan Government Professor, a Washington State University philosophy and public affairs professor and a Bowdoin College government and legal studies professor.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/for.2016.14.issue-4/for-2016-0040/for-2016-0040.xml?format=INT

I know, this is spilt milk but thought it'd be interesting to share considering people deny that Clinton's policy message was obscure and unfocused. Also, considering how much more Clinton outspent Trump, fundraising and cozying it up with corporate donors isn't a priority or not even a necessity.

 

[entremet]

Pride comes before the fall....

What's weird is that we case studies of Presidents winning and it's based on a strong narrative:

http://www.quantifiedcommunications.com/blog/storytelling-in-politics

https://vimeo.com/155823636

Hope and Change

Make America Great Again

I'm With Her seems to feed into the desires of an egomaniac and didn't really convey what are you're going to do for me.

 

[Daria Morgendorffer]

Not surprising, as an outsider it seems like a lot of American political spots are just one party antagonising the other.

 

[Brinbe]

Since when do people give two shits about policy. She didn't lose because of that, I can assure you. This sort of analysis is annoyingly awful.

 

[SliceSabre]

"There's very little evidence that ads make much of a difference in a presidential campaign," she says. "Most people are shocked when they learn about what the likely effects are relative to the huge amount of campaign resources that gets poured into advertising.

"It's shockingly small bang for the buck when it comes down to it."

-Do Ads Work?


Eh I'm not convinced that is the case considering how often we hear ads donn't actually work. You can't say "Well on one hand ads don't work" while on the other say "Uninformative ads are partly why Clinton lost."

Not to mention when the two of them actually spoke he hardly ever spoke on policy and how to do the things he wanted and all she did was speak on policy.

 

[teruterubozu]

The usual retort was, "Why don't you read her policies?!!" which illustrates the basic disconnect with voting Americans. Americans don't read.

 

[gcubed]

I was a Hillary fan and this bothered the ever living fuck out of me during the campaign.

Although not sure we needed some formal study to tell us this

Since when do people give two shits about policy

Policy in its most raw, distilled and dumbed down form

 

[Vermillion]

Weren't people talking about how she talked about policy more than Trump? Hm.

 

[entremet]

Since when do people give two shits about policy. She didn't lose because of that, I can assure you.

Trump ran on very specific protectionists and "America first" policies.

 

[tbm24]

It's humorous to read that Hillary's ads were negative but Trump's weren't and instead called policy.

 

[Sinfamy]

Feeling vindicated.
Post # 17

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1246362

 

[Funky Papa]

Since when do people give two shits about policy

Many people don't care about policy, but they absolutely want to hear about it and feel reassured on their convictions and prospects. Hillary screwed up pretty badly there. Meanwhile, Trump couldn't stop bloviating about Making America Great Again. It's a shit message, but it's a message.

 

[Volimar]

I think it was an overreaction to people saying what an awful candidate she was while not giving any policy specifics. We could have had a basic continuation of Obama's policies with Sanders continuing to push her left. What could have been.

 

[Aselith]

Not surprising, as an outsider it seems like a lot of American political spots are just one party antagonising the other.

It often is. HOWEVER, it's very often scare tactics focused around what the other candidates policies are going to do to you. Like, "If you elect Hillary Clinton, she's going take all your money and send it to Mexico" or whatever. West Virginia was very focused around what Hillary Clinton's policies were going to do to coal country, etc.

These candidates basically ran opposite campaigns. Trump was focused on attacking character in debates while Hillary talked policies and Hillary was focused on policy in debates and ran ads to attack character.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Feeling vindicated.
Post # 17

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1246362

Man, there are some classic misfires in that thread. I feel bad for pigeon, essentially all of his pre-election predictions got completely destroyed.

 

[Frustrated_me]

"I'm with her" was so, so awful.

 

[zma1013]

I didn't even know she had a campaign slogan.

 

[Morat]

"I'm with her" was so, so awful.

It was merely forgettable in my opinion, but that is probably a bigger sin in politics.

Edit:

I didn't even know she had a campaign slogan.

Exactly

 

[Aselith]

I didn't even know she had a campaign slogan.

Her slogan going into the election was "Love Trumps Hate". It was awful.

 

[teruterubozu]

Feeling vindicated.
Post # 17

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1246362

Wow major cringe. Hillary Landslide Imminent!!! Dear lord the bubble was strong.

 

[Brinbe]

Many people don't care about policy, but they absolutely want to hear about it and feel reassured on their convictions and prospects. Hillary screwed up pretty badly there. Meanwhile, Trump couldn't stop bloviating about Making America Great Again. It's a shit message, but it's a message.

I agree and disagree in some respects. I think her messaging did work in that the majority of people (close to 3 million) agreed with her messaging, and this isn't some electoral college argument, it's just reality.

Her major problem, and one that did hurt her in end, was that she ignored doing the hard and dirty work that Obama did in 08 in that he campaigned relentlessly everywhere. He went and stumped all over the place while she took the entire month off after the DNC to fundraise.

That's not really policy though, more the opportunity to impart that message. But that was enough to deliver the midwest to Trump because credit to Trump, he did put that work in. He went to those places and earned their votes.

And I'm with her only sounds bad in retrospect because she lost, obviously. It's missing the context that she was the first formidable female candidate for POTUS and "I'm with her" touched on that.

 

[Zaru]

I'm With Her seems to feed into the desires of an egomaniac and didn't really convey what are you're going to do for me.

I came here to say this.
Checking the campaign slogans of major presidential candidates of the last few decades, "I'm with her" stands out as devoid of any context aside from making it about Hillary.
Whoever thought that up should never work on campaigns again.

 

[cloud_sleep]

Her slogan going into the election was "Love Trumps Hate". It was awful.

She put her opponents name in her own campaign slogan? LOL.

 

[BlazinSkatinAxel]

This is literally, "Why am I going to vote for someone that makes me feel negative?"

 

[Sesuadra]

Her slogan going into the election was "Love Trumps Hate". It was awful.

Sounds like a slogan for trump

 

[teruterubozu]

I came here to say this.
Checking the campaign slogans of major presidential candidates of the last few decades, "I'm with her" stands out as devoid of any context aside from making it about Hillary.
Whoever thought that up should never work on campaigns again.

Was that really her campaign slogan though? I thought it was just a Twitter hashtag that took a life of its own.

 

[dragonfart28]

They did tie into her platform for women though.

I wonder how that one about showing Trump to kids would go over now.

 

[dave is ok]

Feeling vindicated.
Post # 17

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1246362

Plenty of people were dog piled for pointing this stuff out as it was happening here

 

[Random17]

Since when do people give two shits about policy. She didn't lose because of that, I can assure you. This sort of analysis is annoyingly awful.

This entire election came down to foreign policy in regards to free trade agreements, immigration control and "national security."

It was an incoherent, bastardised discussion, but Trump battered down this point hard ever since his first Mexico point.

It was absolutely about policy... or at least policy direction. Not the type of fruitful discussion we would have liked to seen, but it was an election that fundamentally came down to those principles.

 

[aeolist]

I came here to say this.
Checking the campaign slogans of major presidential candidates of the last few decades, "I'm with her" stands out as devoid of any context aside from making it about Hillary.
Whoever thought that up should never work on campaigns again.

don't forget "america is already great"

 

[Beartruck]

Yeah, as much as I hate Trump, you have to admit that he campaigned as hard as he possibly could have even when all the evidence suggested he would lose (and even he probably thought it as well). Hillary by contrast was so overconfident I think she had the impression that all she had to do was slam Trump and not actually push why she was a good choice. I heard a million ads on why Trump was a piece of shit and practically none on what Hillary would actually plan to do.

 

[televator]

"I'm with her" was so, so awful.

I felt it just begged the question, "Okay, but is she with us?"

 

[zelas]

As a Hillary fan and a minority, I always thought some of the "identity politics" criticisms thrown at her were always legit. Those white voters don't give a shit about morality or the civil rights of others when it comes to protecting their pocket books.

That's a lesson that I don't think those to my extreme left have even come close to learning with how hard they pushed Clinton to focus on those issues and with how they still talk today. We're just not going to pull in moderate voters with that talk.

By 2018 I hope we'll be over accusing the dem candidate of being an enemy of the left for daring to focus on more than just minority issues.

 

[Boney]

-Do Ads Work?


Eh I'm not convinced that is the case considering how often we hear ads donn't actually work. You can't say "Well on one hand ads don't work" while on the other say "Uninformative ads are partly why Clinton lost."

Not to mention when the two of them actually spoke he hardly ever spoke on policy and how to do the things he wanted and all she did was speak on policy.

The study does approach the efficacy of political ads, specially to top ticket candidates which dominate the airwaves on entretainment news shows and other of the same type.

Although the impact of advertising in 2016 on the outcome of the general election race was likely minimal, we urge caution in concluding that television advertising is no longer effective. For one, we never expect advertising to have a large effect in a presidential race. Research has demonstrated that advertising effects are smaller in presidential contests than in other down-ballot races (Ridout and Franz 2007), and this may be especially true in a presidential race that features two well-known candidates, a former First Lady and a celebrity who has been on Americans’ television screens for decades. Because voters have a large store of pre-existing information about the candidates, they are less open to influence by advertising. Nevertheless, advertising is an important way in which candidates can talk directly to voters, and research does suggest that advertising advantages do correlate with movement in the polls (Ridout and Franz 2007; Sides and Vavreck 2014). Despite the fact that pro-Clinton advertising dominated the airwaves overall, in several of the pivotal states – especially Michigan and Wisconsin – Donald Trump actually had ad advantages on local broadcast up until the very last week of the campaign, which may well have mattered.

Second, in a presidential race, advertising must compete with almost limitless media coverage of the race, which tends to neutralize the impact of the advertising. Perhaps the intense media coverage in 2016 was driven less by the messages of political advertising as it has been in the past and more by Donald Trump’s Twitter account. Although the Clinton campaign may have viewed the news media’s focus on Donald Trump as beneficial to them, they also claimed to have trouble getting coverage of policy statements. Yet the Clinton campaign itself did not focus on policy in its own messaging either, a tactic that very well may have hurt their candidate, which leads to our next point.10

[Clinton] did nothing to overcome the media’s lack of focus on Clinton’s policy knowledge, especially for residents of Michigan and Wisconsin, in particular, who were receiving policy-based (and specifically economically-focused) messaging from Trump. As such, it may very well be that Clinton misallocated advertising funds (both hyper-targeting on local cable and advertising in non-traditional battlegrounds like Arizona rather than in the Midwest, for example) and a lack of policy messaging in advertising may have hurt Clinton enough to have made a difference.

Enough to make a difference is the usual talk when blaming outside factors, Comey, Russia, Susan Sarandon (lol) and third parties (double lol), but factors under your control aren't usually addressed like that, especially because the sum of the bad strategic decisions should've made it so there wasn't such a small margin that left it open for any small element to swing the election.

 

[Dingens]

are you telling me that Hillary may have lost because her campaign was fucking awful?

Spoiler

nah... I'm sure it was because of those evil Russians, that makes way more sense.

Spoiler

/s

 

[water_wendi]

I felt it just begged the question, "Okay, but is she with us?"

She couldnt re-adjust and use "I'm With You" because that was Trumps response to "I'm With Her."

 

[tbm24]

Was that really her campaign slogan though? I thought it was just a Twitter hashtag that took a life of its own.

Her slogan was Stronger Together as far as I could tell. Still have it on my window.

 

[elrechazado]

I never saw a Hillary ad that wasn't purely about how Trump said bad things. Battleground state. Great explanations of why to vote *for* you, Hillary.

 

[Sesuadra]

She couldnt re-adjust and use "I'm With You" because that was Trumps response to "I'm With Her."

"She's with us" would not have worked >.>?

 

[JORMBO]

Every commercial break here in PA I saw a commercial from her. They were always about Donald Trump.

 

[aeolist]

-Do Ads Work?


Eh I'm not convinced that is the case considering how often we hear ads donn't actually work. You can't say "Well on one hand ads don't work" while on the other say "Uninformative ads are partly why Clinton lost."

Not to mention when the two of them actually spoke he hardly ever spoke on policy and how to do the things he wanted and all she did was speak on policy.

if ads don't work then hundreds of millions of dollars her campaign spent on them were a colossal mistake, if they do work then the ones they chose were completely ineffective

 

[Garrett Hawke]

But the new report also confirms what multiple outlets have already reported: that the Clinton campaign did not appear to realize its vulnerability in the Rust Belt until the final days of the election and, as a result, blew millions that could have been spent elsewhere. Clinton’s team spent virtually nothing advertising in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania until the final week — when they then decided to exponentially increase their resources there.

this is the main bit to focus on. the ads did their job elsewhere, but they didn't bother running any until it was too late in these states.

 

[televator]

She couldnt re-adjust and use "I'm With You" because that was Trumps response to "I'm With Her."

In retrospect, this really just gave him the ball. Ugh

 

[uncredited male]

I didn't even know she had a campaign slogan.

"I'm not Trump"

 

[Zelenogorsk]

People just needed to go to her website!

 

[Rentahamster]

Told ya.

 

[SodiumBenzoate]

She couldnt re-adjust and use "I'm With You" because that was Trumps response to "I'm With Her."

And the fact no one in the Clinton campaign thought of that tells you all you need to know.

 

[TheLaughingStock]

don't forget "america is already great"

A terrible message. Michelle Obama might've been able to get away with parroting it due to her charm but there was no way Hillary Clinton could finesse that. It's like these people thought the Sanders/Trump campaign didn't have a justified reason to exist in response to the state of the country. Hopefully the election of Donald Trump deflated their delusional bubble a bit.

 

[Volimar]

Honestly, it feels like scapegoating to me. People using her campaign misfires to justify them not voting for her. Anyone with an ounce of critical thinking skills could see she was a better candidate than Trump, reflected by the millions more votes that she received.

 

[Trokil]

Enough to make a difference is the usual talk when blaming outside factors, Comey, Russia, Susan Sarandon (lol) and third parties (double lol), but factors under your control aren't usually addressed like that, especially because the sum of the bad strategic decisions should've made it so there wasn't such a small margin that left it open for any small element to swing the election.

Well, mistakes of her and her team would make the Democrats look bad. Russia makes them only the victim without any need for change or reforms. So pushing that narrative is better for the Democratic party because it would free them from blame. Also makes Hillary the victim again.

The Democrats still have huge problems in their party, they do not reach the young voters, also still have the problem, that they have no influence on state and local levels. But reforms to change that would actually hurt some people who benefit from the old system. For example they do not have to fight against younger hungrier politicians within their own party. So it is better for them to push the Russia narrative as well.