- [Bernie] Donald Trump is the most corrupt president.
- [Narrator] These are two or Senator Bernie Sanders'
political TV advertisements.
At first glance, seemingly the same.
The one on the left first aired in Iowa
in November last year,
and the other on the right first aired in North Dakota
the day after former Vice President Joe Biden
swept a string of Southern states on Super Tuesday.
- I'm Bernie Sanders.
- [Narrator] Notice the difference?
The most recent version included images
of African Americans,
but the one on the left that first aired
more than four months earlier did not.
Making subtle changes to the same ad
is common practice with some of the presidential campaigns.
And like others we tracked,
this Bernie Sanders ad called "Belong to Us"
saw at least six different changes
as it moved through the campaign calendar.
Using political ad tracker Kantar/CMAG
along with Facebook and Google's Transparency Reports
we tracked some of the candidates' ads
to see how they evolved over the campaign cycle.
- A good political ad is a mix of artistry,
math and science.
- [Narrator] Steve Israel served in Congress for 16 years.
For four of those years he was the chairman
of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
and part of his job was to make sure
political ads resonated in specific markets.
He's now the director of Cornell University's
Institute of Politics and Global Affairs
and teaches a course that includes
dissecting political advertising.
- An effective political ad has to have several components.
One, it's gotta be local.
It's got to have music that reflects local sensibilities.
The characters have to project a certain tone.
A hard-driving aggressive New Yorker
is not going to do well endorsing a congresswoman from Iowa
in that media market.
And most important, it's got to reflect data.
It's got to be driven
not by what some producer or a candidate thinks will work
but by what the voters themselves tell you.
- [Narrator] When we started tracking the ads,
we focused on some of the top candidates
and also included President Trump.
What we found is that not all of the campaigns
actually had different versions of the same ad.
One of the reasons you repackage ads is to save money.
So when you're not bound by a tight campaign budget,
you can just create new ones.
According to Kantar/CMAG and data from Google and Facebook,
Michael Bloomberg spent at least
$590 million on advertising
over the course of the presidential primary race
and had no different versions of the same ad.
Despite spending significantly less money,
both Senator Elizabeth Warren and President Trump
appeared to have no variations of the same ad.
Tom Steyer, another billionaire in the race,
appeared to only have one ad that had different versions.
Both Biden and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg
appeared to change several of their ads
but had fewer versions than others.
Out of all the ads we tracked,
it was Sanders and Senator Amy Klobuchar
who made the most changes.
We asked the campaigns about their strategy.
Warren's team chose not to comment,
and while we didn't hear back from the campaigns of Biden,
Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Trump,
the Bloomberg team told us that having a large budget
gave them the freedom to create new ads for each market.
The Steyer campaign told us that the changes were made
with no specific intent.
And the Sanders campaign said
that they tailored ads to local markets.
- [Announcer] Is fighting to raise wages,
leading the fight--
- [Narrator] We picked out several differences
among the ads we tracked.
We then had Israel watch some of them
and analyze how the ads evolved
as they followed the candidate on the campaign trail.
- Okay, I'm looking at one.
Bernie Sanders, "What Happens."
- [Bernie] Those are the people that I will represent.
No more tax breaks for billionaires.
We're gonna fight-- - Pause.
You do see in the right-hand margin
of the California frame, cleverly,
a little snippet of the California State flag.
It's all about
local flavoring.
You cannot influence people when you have a boiler plate ad
that is not going to resonate locally.
- [Narrator] Across all the changes we noticed,
the majority reflected the locality
of where the ad was aired.
- As you continue to watch the California ad,
you're seeing more.
So it's now pulling out away from that one woman,
now we see diversity in this frame.
We see a young man, we still see young people.
It's a mostly youthful crowd,
which tells me that they're really trying
to create this narrative
that this is not an old candidate, an old campaign.
We have the support of the people.
And what people do we have the support of?
Young people.
- [Narrator] In Sanders' ad campaign called "Growing Up"
he used hospitality workers
in the California and North Carolina ad
but showed factory workers
in the Iowa and Nevada versions.
Also in the North Carolina version
they added civil rights as one of the important issues
for his campaign.
- What this is telling us is that in focus groups
or in polling,
with the demographic that Senator Sanders
was trying to attract in a Super Tuesday primary,
civil rights was a big deal,
and so he chose to accentuate civil rights.
If only for a few quick seconds,
he chose to include that very graphic image
in order to create a bond, a connection to those voters
who care deeply about the issue.
- [Narrator] While Joe Biden
had fewer versions of the same ad,
we also saw his campaign catered
to the local market in South Carolina.
The former vice president would go on to win
the state's primary
with strong support from its African American voters.
- You are seeing people, real people, authentic people,
relating to Joe Biden in South Carolina
with T-shirts that everybody knows
came from South Carolina,
in a gym that is in South Carolina,
and the US framing could be almost anywhere in the country.
And those demographics are generally chosen strategically.
- [Announcer] 100 days, 100 ways.
- [Narrator] With Facebook versions of the candidates ads,
we mainly saw just changes to the size
and other small tweaks to make them work better
on social platforms.
However, on Google's YouTube we noticed
some subtle differences in Sanders' "Growing Up" ad.
- You're seeing a digital ad.
You're seeing this tight shot of Bernie Sanders
with his head kind of slumped.
If you're watching a digital ad, you are engaged.
You have no choice when a campaign commercial
interrupts your television preferences.
Take a look at it, Bernie Sanders' shoulders.
Why that?
Because this guy has your problems on his shoulders,
that's what this tells me.
And I may be reading too much into it.
- [Narrator] So far this cycle
it's yet to be seen what new techniques might be used
in the political digital advertising space,
but with sophisticated political campaign companies
like Michael Bloomberg's Hawkfish
vowing to use its resources
for the Democratic presidential nominee,
experts are watching closely.
- So if you were living in Kenosha County, Wisconsin,
which is a swing county,
voted for Obama twice and then Trump by less than a point,
you're going to see hyper-local Kenosha County ads
by Trump and the Democratic nominee.
So both in content and visual you're going to see
very, very localized advertising
in the presidential campaign.
(gentle music)