Vote for the positive

Election Day has dawned across our land and nowhere are voters more excited than they are in Central New York. It's not because they get to exercise their privilege today but because one of the nastiest Congressional races ever will come to a close, or at least the campaigning will. Democrat Dan Maffei squares off against incumbent Ann Marie Buerkle in one of the most hotly contested -- and negative -- campaigns in the country. It's a rematch of the 2010 race when Buerkle was the challenger, Maffei the incumbent and the race came down to the absentee ballot count. Polls show similar narrow margins are also likely this time.

Both candidates ran campaigns that attacked the other but even nastier ads ran thanks to national party and PAC money that flooded the market, much to the pleasure of area TV outlets as most of the funds went to local spot buys. Buerkle made a stop at our offices last week and she was very gracious, even kidding with some of our employees that they are likely happy to see all the mudslinging come to an end. Yes, even the candidates know that voters have had enough of it. One of the local news shows this morning interviewed a university political science professor who said that a little known third party candidate in the race could see eight or nine percent of the vote come her way just from backlash voters who were sick of all the negative ads. Why, then, did they continue to blast away at each other when no one seemed happy or pleased with the results? 

Marketing and advertising are part art, part science. A good ad campaign has a target and a goal and you hit both with good planning and consistent execution. But not always. In the early days of NASA, great scientific minds -- rocket scientists -- planned and participated in rocket tests that went haywire until they found the right stuff, the technology that took us to the moon. If you're an ad rep working with clients, if you're an advertiser trying to cut through the noise in the market today don't hesitate to take a long hard look at what you're doing and don't stick to something that isn't doing what you hoped it would. Staying the course just because you authored the idea or paid good money to experts for the plan isn't smart when everyone knows it's not working. If you need a case study, Google "jc penney ad campaign" for a recent walk down the wrong marketing path. There’s probably no way to tell for sure, but I bet local voters would have gravitated to the Congressional candidate who swung back with a positive ad campaign. 

We're not scientists here at the Scotsman, but we have a lot of expertise in helping advertisers succeed with print and digital campaigns. Drop us a note at info@scotsmanmediagroup.com if we can be of help and thanks for your time today.