What makes a campaign ad effective?

I agree with Emily and Megan that a good and effective campaign ad encompasses all four components: emotion, persuasion, truth, and style. Even if the ad is centered toward a specific factor such as style, usually at least one other factor is included as well whether it be truth, emotion, or persuasion. By doing this the audience’s attention will be captured and they will stay intrigued throughout the entire ad. Emotion allows the audience to connect to the ad or feel a specific way. In the “Peace Little Girl” ad by Johnson, emotion is very prominent. The audience gets a very strong emotional feeling and the point of the ad gets across. Persuasion does exactly that, persuade the audience. This is the one factor that directly demonstrates who the advertisers want you to vote for. It usually mentions both candidates, favoring one more than the other. In the “McGovern Defense” ad by Nixon, the advertisers focused on one topic and all of the “bad” things McGovern planned to do and what Nixon planned to do. This of course would get voters to vote for Nixon because he was doing the “right thing”. Truth is usually true facts about candidates and what they have done. In my opinion, this is the least effective because an average person watching television does not want to sit through an ad that just states facts. But if it combined with another factor, it can become an appealing ad. Also, to be a good truth ad where the information was taken from is extremely important. In the “Accomplishment” ad by Clinton, it states some of Clinton’s accomplishments while he was president while stating some of Dole’s failures; it also included where the information was obtained from. Lastly is the style factor which is, in my opinion, the most important. Almost every ad that has been produced includes this in some way whether it is sound/visual effects, music, etc. By having this factor, the audience is truly compelled. In the “Wind Surfing” ad by Bush, style is used very well; music and visual effects are both used to create a comical and compelling ad.