Hi everyone.
I'm Dr Andrew Hughes here from the ANU talking about my research into why it is negative
political advertising does not work.
Before we can do that though, lets look at an ad which does work, which really gets our
attention and keeps it all the way from second one.
This is Ryanville.
This is a car ad from the US superbowl this year.
It's a great example of an ad which does work.
There's a celebrity in it, for sure, but look at the speed, the music, we can just sit back
and enjoy this one.
This is a great watch.
We can enjoy watching this and that's the key to effective advertising; that you enjoy
watching the ad because it means you like it and you can recall the information quite
favourably and you develop a preference towards the brand talked about in the message.
It's a great example of why advertising can be effective.
Okay.
Now we've seen one which does work.
Now lets see one which does not work and that's a political ad.
This is from Bill Shorten from this years campaign.
So, first thing we can see Bill Shorten, so our attitude towards politicians comes to
our head, which isn't favourable and then we've got all these words here on the screen.
Now, there's one over here.
You can see some words up here about their messaging and even though it's a very short
ad, there's a lot of content in that for us to remember, and engage with, and really connect with,
and at the same time it's a political ad; we're switching off them, not on them.
So, even though it's a positive ad what my research found is that that's still not effective
at getting our attention and making us recall the message in it.
Surely that's one example.
There's others.
Lets look at this one here from Malcolm Turnbull.
Again, a positive message and he's the prime minister so he should be able to get our attention
from second one.
But the same time, he's a politician.
So, think of our awareness in politics at the moment; it's there, but at the same time
we're sick of this campaign.
But here's where it's going wrong.
Look at all the words on the screen here.
They want us to remember, and read, and engage with these words what we're seeing on the
screen, but we don't.
Because our attitude towards the ad is negative.
Even though it's a positive message, our attitude is negative.
So we're not paying any attention to these words here on the screen, which means all
these words here are a waste.
We aren't going to remember them.
If we're not going to remember them then it's pointless having them there in the first place,
which is what my research found is that people don't remember these words here on the screen.
They're not recalled by people from watching these ads.
Okay.
Let's look at an example of an ad which does work.
This is a political ad which worked really well and my research found this to be the
most liked and recalled message of all the ones I studied and examined and you can see why.
Look at this.
The words here on the screen: simple, they're easy for us to read, they come up on the screen
slow, we have time to engage in it, and the crazy thing about this ad is it wasn't even
made by a political party.
It was made by an advertising agency for a tv show.
So, when the shackles are removed and advertising agencies are given free rein, they make an
ad like this.
Positive, nice music, engaging all the way through, picked up by the fact that
down here so far it's got nearly 40,000 views on YouTube.
The other ads I've shown you have only got a couple hundred at best.
So, it's a case in point where the market does speak and as marketers and advertisers,
you know, we need to engage with our market and that's a good sign that we are, down here.
Okay.
But can negative advertising ever be effective?
Can it ever get our attention to some point or description?
Good question, right?
So, it can if we use humour and humour takes off the edge, as it were, on the negatively
of the message itself.
We tend to watch it because it's funny, it's amusing, but at the same time we're not liking
the message because it's still negative and it's still from a politician.
So, even though we're engaged with the message some what and we can recall parts of the ad,
what we recall is that we hate the message cause it's negative.
So, that's my research found that people recalled negative ads, yes they did, but what they
recalled is how much they hate these things when they see them.
So, if anything, it was turning people off the message and off the politics.
Alright.
Lets see if there's someone out there in politics who believes me and supports what I'm saying.
Is there someone?
There is.
I'm safe and it's in fact from labor and it's from Sam Dastyari and it's proving here why
negative ads don't work.
You can see out of the mouths of these kids themselves, kids are always honest with their
opinions about things aren't they, and you can hear what they're talking about.
They don't like the negative ad and does Sam?
Lets see what he thinks.
Of course.
So, if you're wondering, even politicians themselves recognise the fact that negative
political ads don't work.
Alright.
Thanks for listening.
Hope you found this enjoyable and interesting.
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