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Advertising Effects in Presidential Elections

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  • Brett R. Gordon

    (Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027)

  • Wesley R. Hartmann

    (Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305)

Abstract

Presidential elections provide both an important context in which to study advertising and a setting that mitigates the challenges of dynamics and endogeneity. We use the 2000 and 2004 general elections to analyze the effect of market-level advertising on county-level vote shares. The results indicate significant positive effects of advertising exposures. Both instrumental variables and fixed effects alter the ad coefficient. Advertising elasticities are smaller than are typical for branded goods yet significant enough to shift election outcomes. For example, if advertising were set to zero and all other factors held constant, three states' electoral votes would have changed parties in 2000. Given the narrow margin of victory in 2000, this shift would have resulted in a different president.

Suggested Citation

  • Brett R. Gordon & Wesley R. Hartmann, 2013. "Advertising Effects in Presidential Elections," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(1), pages 19-35, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:32:y:2013:i:1:p:19-35
    DOI: 10.1287/mksc.1120.0745
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    3. Brett Gordon & Mitchell Lovett & Ron Shachar & Kevin Arceneaux & Sridhar Moorthy & Michael Peress & Akshay Rao & Subrata Sen & David Soberman & Oleg Urminsky, 2012. "Marketing and politics: Models, behavior, and policy implications," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 391-403, June.
    4. Panova, Elena, 2015. "A passion for voting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 44-65.
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    7. Li, Xiaolin & Rao, Raghunath Singh & Narasimhan, Om & Gao, Xing, 2022. "Stay positive or go negative? Memory imperfections and messaging strategy," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1127-1149.
    8. Mitchell J. Lovett, 2019. "Empirical Research on Political Marketing: a Selected Review," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 6(3), pages 49-56, December.
    9. Beth L. Fossen & David A. Schweidel & Michael Lewis, 2019. "Examining Brand Strength of Political Candidates: a Performance Premium Approach," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 6(3), pages 63-75, December.
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    11. Wilson Law, 2021. "Decomposing political advertising effects on vote choices," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 525-547, September.
    12. Naoki Aizawa & You Suk Kim, 2015. "Advertising and Risk Selection in Health Insurance Markets," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-101, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    13. Brett R. Gordon & Wesley R. Hartmann, 2016. "Advertising competition in presidential elections," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 1-40, March.
    14. Yajie Chen & Qinlin Zhong & Fuxiu Jiang, 2020. "The capital market spillover effect of product market advertising: Evidence from stock price synchronicity," Frontiers of Business Research in China, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 1-21, December.
    15. Stephan Seiler & Song Yao & Wenbo Wang, 2017. "Does Online Word of Mouth Increase Demand? (And How?) Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(6), pages 838-861, November.
    16. Sarah Moshary, 2020. "Price discrimination in political advertising: Evidence from the 2012 presidential election," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(3), pages 615-649, September.
    17. Eric Dunaway & Felix Munoz-Garcia, 2020. "Campaign contributions and policy convergence: asymmetric agents and donations constraints," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 429-461, September.
    18. Brett R. Gordon & Mitchell J. Lovett & Bowen Luo & James C. Reeder, 2023. "Disentangling the Effects of Ad Tone on Voter Turnout and Candidate Choice in Presidential Elections," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 220-243, January.
    19. Maria Petrova & Ananya Sen & Pinar Yildirim, 2021. "Social Media and Political Contributions: The Impact of New Technology on Political Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 2997-3021, May.
    20. Doug J. Chung, 2013. "The Dynamic Advertising Effect of Collegiate Athletics," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(5), pages 679-698, September.
    21. Michael Sinkinson & Amanda Starc, 2015. "Ask Your Doctor? Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Pharmaceuticals," NBER Working Papers 21045, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    23. Wang, Ao, 2021. "A BLP Demand Model of Product-Level Market Shares with Complementarity," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1351, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    24. Avidit Acharya & Takuo Sugaya & Eray Turkel, 2022. "Electoral Campaigns as Dynamic Contests," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0293, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    25. Tamgid Ahmed Chowdhury & Shahneela Naheed, 2019. "Factors Affecting Political Marketing in Rural and Urban Bangladesh: A Multi-Dimensional Approach," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 18(1), pages 97-119, June.

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