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Targeting Political Advertising on Television

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  • Lovett, Mitchell
  • Peress, Michael

Abstract

We study the targeting of political advertising by presidential candidates on television. For targeted advertising to have value, the audiences for television programs must differ in meaningful ways and advertising must be effective. We estimate a model of targeted advertising. Our results suggest the function of television advertising is primarily to persuade. Moreover, we find that there is sufficient variation in viewer characteristics across television programs to allow for effective targeting. The most effective targeting strategies therefore involve both parties adopting similar strategies of advertising primarily on programs with audiences containing many swing voters. Actual candidate behavior is largely consistent with this strategy indicating that candidates seem to accurately believe that the function of television advertising is to persuade voters. Nonetheless, we are able to uncover specific ways in which candidates could improve their advertising by identifying particularly effective shows and by quantifying the tradeoff between cost and effectiveness.

Suggested Citation

  • Lovett, Mitchell & Peress, Michael, 2015. "Targeting Political Advertising on Television," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 10(3), pages 391-432, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00014107
    DOI: 10.1561/100.00014107
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Taewoo Kang, 2024. "Political Campaigns’ Use of E-mail vs. Television Advertising," Studies in Media and Communication, Redfame publishing, vol. 12(2), pages 337-345, June.
    4. 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.
    5. Lingling Zhang & Doug J. Chung, 2020. "The Air War vs. the Ground Game: An Analysis of Multichannel Marketing in U.S. Presidential Elections," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(5), pages 872-892, September.
    6. Avidit Acharya & Takuo Sugaya & Eray Turkel, 2022. "Electoral Campaigns as Dynamic Contests," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0293, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    7. Wilson Law, 2021. "Decomposing political advertising effects on vote choices," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 525-547, September.

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