Effective Campaign Ads

I completely agree with Zach that in order for a campaign ad to be effective you need make the major components you hit clear and very well done. Each element whether it be emotion, persuasion, truth or style is important, but if an ad, per say the 1964 Peace Little Girl commercial, doesn’t have all components it can still be effective. This ad was arguably one of the most memorable ads of all time. It scored high in 3 of the 4 elements but had a low score in truth. Not every add needs to incorporate every single one to be effective but has to incorporate at least 2, preferably 3, elements that are strong. The reasoning behind this is that the ad hit home, it stuck with you and really pulled at your heartstrings. How can something with such a strong message not leave you talking about it or at least thinking about it? In this case, and in many others, truth and facts aren’t necessarily needed to get your point across and make a statement. That all depends on the route and style you are taking when creating the ad. In my opinion if I had to pick, I would say that making your ad memorable is the key. In order to achieve that you need a combination of good style and emotion but all in all no matter how good an ad is when you see it, if it doesn’t stick with you then what good did it really do? The least important part I think would be truth. Ads like Peace Little Girl and Nixon’s 1968 ad, Convention all scored low in truth but high in every other piece. Both effective ads, it shows that incorporating truth isn’t the most important element. Specific facts may in fact bore people and are hard to retain. It also is hard to gage whether political campaign ads are reliable based on the widely accepted view of politics being corrupt in some way or the other. Conclusively, as long as your ad includes something memorable either by using a catch phrase/ jingle, pulling at your heartstrings, being comical or even being unique like the 1968 ad Laughter, then it should be effective.