How Advertisements in Politics work

Capitalizing on the suggestibility of human beings, ads use emotional cues to snatch our attention and manipulate our psyche.

It all started with an idea at a table during a party. How could you sell blue jeans during a time of cultural change. The discussion blossomed into an idea that ended up becoming this:

We were very proud of what we produced. We came very close to selling the ad to Levis, but in September of 2001, there was a devastating attack on New York and Washington, leaving us with a ad piece that was terribly out of step.

Nevertheless you can see how we took broad American ideas and tied them to clothing, and even connected this with idea of how one keeps clothes clean. This is the essence of advertising. It’s about emotion not information. Emotions are the fuel that makes people move: unconsciously.

Which brings us to the subject of this post. Political ads thrive in an emotionally charged atmosphere. When facts are brought to the table, advertisements fall apart and lose most persuadability. People claim that they desire facts, but that is rarely the truth. Most people want to be emotionally secure in their station in life.

Most people are asking how this ad had such success in the Hispanic and Black male voting blocs but once you watch you have to admit that this ad appealed to the deepest darkest fears in the male mind.

There are many subtle things going on in this ad. Charlamagne tha God opening the video makes it clear that the audience are male men of color, and they are expressing disgust with a subject many men of color are repulsed by.
Of course we can argue that folks should not feel like that, but they do. The emotional fears that lurk deep within surface when sexual taboo subjects are approached. It is in these dark damp places where the GOP finds the levers of power over the American mind.

The people who come up with messages like these are the modern day wizards and magicians who can sway public opinion without employing the truth. They all seem to work for the GOP while the democrats are still using mid 20th century persuasion techniques spewing facts and reciting policy points wasting their time appealing to heads when the GOP had already won their hearts using folks worst fears.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my subscribers. I promise to write more often I had to have hand surgery and I had to take time off from my writing but with the holiday season I am back.

Cheers…..