The Political Message: A Look at Past, Present & Future Campaigns

THE POLITICAL MESSAGE: A LOOK AT PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE CAMPAIGNS

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of Communication Design Kutztown University of Pennsylvania Kutztown, Pennsylvania

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts

By Melissa A. Seling August 2019

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Approved:

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_____________________________________________ (Advisor)

_____________________________________________ (Chair, Department of Media Studies)

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(Date)

(Dean, Graduate Studies)

3 Table of Contents

Introduction .............................................................................................................................6 What makes a great campaign? Storytelling. ........................................................................6 History of Political Advertising ..............................................................................................7 Messaging ..............................................................................................................................9 Spreading the Message ........................................................................................................11 Radio....................................................................................................................................11 Newsreels and Film .............................................................................................................13 Television ............................................................................................................................14 Newspapers..........................................................................................................................15 A Modern Campaign: A Case Study of Kennedy 1960......................................................18 Introduction .........................................................................................................................18 The Message ........................................................................................................................19 The Image ............................................................................................................................24 The Narrative .......................................................................................................................26 Reflections ...........................................................................................................................29 The Strategy Behind Political Advertising ..........................................................................30 Developing the Message......................................................................................................30 The Strategy.........................................................................................................................33 Telling the Story ..................................................................................................................34

4 Going Emotional .................................................................................................................35 Truth in Advertising ............................................................................................................36 The Message Goes Viral .....................................................................................................37 A Campaign for Change: A Case Study of Obama 2008 ...................................................39 Introduction .........................................................................................................................39 Controlling the Message ......................................................................................................40 Strategy for Messaging ........................................................................................................41 The Narrative .......................................................................................................................42 The Visual Narrative ...........................................................................................................44 Reflection ............................................................................................................................48 A New Era in Political Advertising ......................................................................................49 Message Targeting...............................................................................................................49 Message Framing.................................................................................................................51 Campaign Ethics ..................................................................................................................52 The Future of Political Advertising .....................................................................................55 Bibliography ...........................................................................................................................57

5 Abstract How has creative messaging evolved in Political Advertising as the development of new technology has challenged the format of Campaigns?

In this paper, I identify campaigns of the past and how they have evolved over the years. I search for answers to current problems that the general population face during electoral campaigns, such as negative messaging. Reexamining campaign ethics could lead to better campaigns that focus on the candidate instead of the party, with the hope of creating a brighter political future. By shifting their message and strategy to take into account the "realtime" needs of the people, a better campaign platform can be delivered.

The strategy behind building a campaign starts with analyzing data regarding voter behaviors and needs. This leads to a strategy and message that is based on facts but gives no insight into the "real-time" discussion of the voters' needs and the problems they face in their communities. Politics has, over time, grown into a frustrating whirlwind of disagreements and negative campaigning, causing the decline of political participation and an overall feeling of distaste and distrust of our political system.

To build a better political future, political advertising needs to evolve with the demands of a new generation. Using new technology to engage with the public in real-time is an opportunity to create an improved iteration of the campaign model. Shifting our model and focusing our efforts on building a better political future is the next wave in political advertising. Effective political advertising and the evolution of political design has created a fresh experience that will draw in new voters and create a deeper connection with current voters. Politicians are now communicating with voters in real-time via social media, creating a connection that has altered the nature of interactions between politicians and the people.

6 Implementing these tools to re-strategize and redesign the campaign experience will pave the way to future campaign messaging and the people who can confidently support candidates with whom they can relate.

Introduction What makes a great campaign? Storytelling.

“Why do some politicians win election after election while rivals fade into historical obscurity?” (Rogers, 1). A story worth telling is a story worth listening to. John Quincey Adams’ handbills made ingenious use of negative political messaging. John F. Kennedy's campaign image revolutionized political advertising. Obama's hope for change was unparalleled in its adept use of technology. These campaigns were stories worth telling, and these campaigns shook the world with their messaging and design. Examining the history and evolution of political advertising will tell the story of our Nation and the men and women who have led us through time. How did we elect these men and women? How did they tell us their stories? How did they use advertising to create those stories and lead us to believe that they could bring us into a prosperous future? All of these questions are considered while taking a closer look at the message delivered by the advertising of these political figures through time.

With the invention of national radio, television, social media, and a changing voter pool, the need for better strategy and new messaging throughout presidential campaigns has grown in necessity. Taking a look at past campaigns and analyzing their successes and failures could lead to better advertising campaigns. Better campaigns address the needs of voters and the change that is needed in the political arena. In the end, we need a story that is as strong as the candidate it strives to represent.

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History of Political Advertising A campaign is meant to work in an organized way toward a particular goal, typically a political or social one. The history of campaigns, or political advertising, can be traced back to before the 1800s. The first major campaign in history that ushered in the two major political parties was the work of Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams in 1828. Jackson's portrayal as "Old Hickory,” "War Hero", "The Farmer of Tennessee", "The Second Washington" and "The Hero of Two Wars" as seen in Figure 1, was just the beginning of creating a political image.

Figure 1 Source: “Andrew Jackson Gains His Nicknames” Courtesy Library of Congress, LC-DIG-pga-00295

8 By contrast, Adams was portrayed by one of Jackson's handbills as "driving off with a horsewhip and a crippled old soldier who dared to speak to him to ask an alms,” (Jamieson, 1984). The handbill was considered a significant format of advertising in the 1800s. In this case, it was a small printed notice or advertisement. They were nailed to gateposts, doors of houses and other posts. They were designed to counterattack the opponent and to shed a negative light on his character, as demonstrated by the handbills for Jackson, as seen in Figure 2.

Adams created a similar set of handbills titled "The Coffin Handbill" that cast Jackson as a tyrant and someone who murders soldiers who do not follow his lead.

Figure 2 Source: Onion, Rebecca. "The "Coffin Handbill" Andrew Jackson's Enemies Used to Circulate Word of His "Bloody Deeds".

9 With the election of Jackson came the permanent place of the Republican and Democratic parties in the electoral arena. “The existence of a party label not only helped voters to identify candidates, but also ensured that certain functions would be performed including nominating candidates and campaigning in the electoral arena and readiness to undertake management or the general conduct of business in the governmental arena,” (Jamieson, 8).

Messaging In 1840, William Harrison's campaign produced a series of firsts in the history of political advertising, including the first systematic and widespread use of what today would be called image advertising. Prior to the 1840, campaign artwork had evoked the story of the nation in the form of the Constitution, Lady Liberty, the Ship of State and the eagle. As time progressed these glorifications of the country gave way to highly personalized symbols associated with a particular candidate not unlike the hickory poles that were used to symbolize Jackson. In the case of Harrison's campaign, as seen in Figure 3, the temple of Liberty was replaced by the cabin of unhewn logs; the military uniform of the general became a common work shirt of a laboring farmer; the eagle taking flight was replaced by a cider barrel; and the long-established emblem of the shop has given way to the plow.

Figure 3 Source: NCC Staff. " Remembering William Henry Harrison: The Most Obscure President?".

10 These symbols transformed Harrison from a wealthy son of a governor into a farmer and backwoodsman. “Its modern-day equivalent would be the 30-second TV commercial, which ignores issues, ignores party label and concentrates on some aspect of the candidate's personality, usually one that links him closely with the ordinary voter," (Jamieson, 12). In those spots, the modern-day interpretation would be candidates reading to their children, fishing in a rushing stream, or pausing to inspect peanuts in a warehouse. As Jamieson sums up in her Packaging the Presidency, 1980, Harrison in farmer’s overalls is Jimmy Carter in a work shirt and jeans addressing voters from his home in the Plains as seen in Figure 4, or Ronald Reagan splitting firewood and riding horseback on his ranch. By 1860, image advertising became a staple of political campaigns. It reappeared in such forms as teddy bears of Theodore Roosevelt’s campaigns and the “hole in the shoe” in Stevenson’s 1952 campaign.

Figure 4 Source: Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. " 1976 Presidential Campaign Flyer”.

11 Spreading the Message Harrison also brought about campaign tours, which were better known in their time as stump oratories, where a candidate would travel around to different towns to give speeches on their party's views. In 1896, William Jennings Bryan won his nomination with his passionate ‘Cross of Gold' speech and pioneered the modern campaign of what the new future of stump oratory would look like. Because he had viewed newspaper readers as his primary audience, Bryan would speak to the audience as if reading from a book, and the result had been an emotionless speech. Learning from that, the next time he spoke to the audience and tailored his speech to produce an emotional response, thus marking the end of torchlit parades and campaign songs. He took the eloquence that enthralled the people on the stump on behalf of the political cause and overshadowed message carriers such as banner and song. By 1912, the presidential candidate was accepted as an active campaigner and advocate of his cause.

Woodrow Wilson followed in Bryan’s footsteps, but he was much more successful, winning the nomination for President. Once mass communications technology was available, it was possible for candidates to speak directly to the voting population.

Radio In 1924, radio availability was at 3 million devices and by 1935, that number had increased tenfold. Radio bridged the separation between the people and their leaders: it carried the dominant verbal form of the campaign—the campaign speech—to a broader audience.

"Over the course of 100 days in his campaign, William Jennings Bryan, by his own account, had delivered 600 speeches in 27 states and had traveled over 18,000 miles to reach 5,000,000 people. In a single fireside chat delivered while seated in the parlor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt reached twelve times that number," (Jamieson, 20).

12 Radio also transformed the content, audience, and delivery of political messages. As the New York Times observed in 1920, "Radio ‘hook-up' has destroyed the old-time politicians' game of promising in each locality the things which that locality wishes. They can no longer guarantee the Western farmer higher prices for wheat without arousing the Eastern factory population against higher bread prices. With the changing times, candidates had to be more uniquely skilled in this type of messaging such as FDR and Nixon, for this medium has stylistic requirements and communicative facilities. “During FDR’s presidency, a talent for the intimate communication, temperament, the times and the technology of radio fused to provide calming reassurance to a country traumatized by depression. Stump Oratory, wellsuited to the delivery of impassioned appeals, is ill-suited to conveying quiet reassurance,” (Jamieson, 21).

Times were changing, and thus, campaign messaging was evolving. By 1928, CBS and NBC had taken their place alongside the Radio Corporation of America, making national radio broadcasts about politics a fact of life. The New York Times summarized the importance of radio in the 1928 presidential campaign in a headline that read: "The New Instrument of Democracy Has Brought the Candidates into the Home, Enabled Them to Reach All of the People, and Radically Changed the Traditional Form of Political Appeal," (Duffus, 1928).

"The influence of the radio in determining the outcome of the 1936 election can hardly be overestimated. Radio enabled Roosevelt to overcome the false impression created by the tons of written propaganda put out by foes of the New Deal. No matter what was written or what was charged, the harmful effect was largely washed away as soon as the reassuring voice of the President of the United States started coming through the ether into the family living room," (Jamieson, 26).

13 Newsreels and Film Alongside radio, newsreels were gaining advertising ground. These became more popular as time progressed and ran their course from 1927–1967, evolving more and more through time. Partisan films distributed through newsreel’s channels and newsreels about political figures forecasted televised political advertising. In April of 1935, a "March of Time" newsreel made in cooperation with Louisiana Senator Huey Long demonstrated how a candidate and his supporters could ruin themselves and their cause. The creation of this newsreel foreshadowed attack ads as we know them now, reminding audiences of the opposition's selfdamaging statements or actions. "These ads include reminders of unfulfilled promises such as the NCPAC's 1980 replaying of the footage from the Ford-Carter debates of ‘76 in which Carter promised lower inflation, lower unemployment, a lower deficit, and a balanced budget; McGovern’s reminders in ‘72 that Nixon had promised in ‘68 to end the war in Vietnam; and Kefauver’s elicitations in ‘56 of the televised promise Ike made about lowering inflation when ‘Answering America’ in ‘52,” (Jamieson, 30). Differing from the Long reel "March of Time," none of the indicted gave cooperation in making the damning ads. By the time Long realized how damning this reel was to his once politically powerful career it was released, ushering his response to censorship of movies and newsreels.

Political documentary films followed to which the marginal win of Harry Truman in the 1948 elections has been attributed. Documentary films were created to give the voter a chance to learn about the history and growth of the candidate for whom they are voting.

These films encompass the image advertising as previously discussed, career development, vital speeches, symbolism, and a few guest appearances of big names in the political arena.

14 Both Truman and Dewey created these films differing mainly in campaign messaging: Truman's film stressed his stands on issues while Dewey's stressed his personality. In the nation's 20,000 theaters, 65,000,000 people paid to view a political ad produced and distributed by the film industry. In this way, the importance of the film industry to political advertising exceeded that of television in 1948.

Television In 1939, at the World’s Fair in New York, FDR became the first incumbent president to deliver an address to a television audience. In 1940, television covered its first political conventions. By 1948, politicians were factoring television coverage into their political strategy. The 1948 election was the first in which presidential candidates purchased television time in order to influence voters. The first paid television appearance by a presidential candidate occurred on October 5, 1948, when Truman delivered a televised speech. In September 1951, Truman's address before the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco inaugurated the new transcontinental microwave video network. "Once radio and television made mass audiences available, it was only a matter of time before a new political powerbroker emerged, the person who would ultimately come to create the candidates' broadcast and print advertising and shape the strategy of the campaign as well," (Jamieson, 35). In 1964, those responsible for political advertising such as the advertising agency hired to create their messaging began to speak for themselves and the candidate in the intimacy of the royal "we", e.g.

"What we were saying is…" "What we stood for was…" "We won a close election," etc., and a new era of election campaigning was upon us again. In 1972, Nixon asked Carroll Newton to form an ad hoc agency, one that would come together solely for the duration of the cam-

15 paign. This gave rise to Nixon's November Group in '72, which was imitated shortly thereafter with Reagan's "Campaign 80" in 1980. Through the use of print, radio, television, and newspapers, the agencies were taking over the messaging of their campaigns and forming advertising strategies to get their candidates elected.

Newspapers Newspapers used to be associated with specific causes and politicians. In 1850, a mere 5% of newspapers were politically independent. Over time, newspapers gradually shifted from partisan propagandizing to unbiased reporting of the messages and moves of both sides. At one time, political cartoons were as familiar as today's television advertisements. "Peaking in the 1960s, these unique examples of paid campaign communication reveal much about state politics' personalities and practices at mid-century," (Parry, 208).

Concentrating on Arkansas, one of the most highly saturated states in campaign cartoon advertising, we find that one of the more attractive qualities of the state's campaign cartoon ads is that they were not signed by the artists. According to Janine Parry in Arkansas's Cartoon Campaign Advertisement,1942-1970, most of the cartoons can be attributed to the two best-known Arkansas editorial cartoonists of the twentieth century, Jon Kennedy and George Fisher. These artists worked both sides of the campaign. They avoided direct communication with the candidates and made all of their direct correspondences concerning the ads through professional advertising agencies. Development of these cartoons came from the agencies and/or from the candidates' campaigns and party organizations. "As a consequence of these arrangements, Kennedy, at least, often drew for candidates he did not personally support. Some of the ads he drew, Kennedy said, would ‘turn my stomach.' Still, he said he never refused to draw an ad because it differed from his own views. For Kennedy, campaign

16 cartoons were strictly commercial jobs," (Parry, 211). From the 1940s through the 1960s, both Kennedy and Fisher moonlighted for specific parties and candidates using the same single-panel cartoon medium at the newspapers in which they worked. Kennedy observed, "I wore two hats: one as an editorial cartoonist and the other as a commercial artist. I always tried never to let my commercial or political work influence my editorial cartoons," (Parry, 213).

There was also evidence that this form of campaign communication was also taking place in other states and in subsequent national campaigns, including cartoons on presidential candidates Herbert Hoover and Harry Truman, as seen in Figure 5. Although it seems that the practice remained decades longer in Arkansas than anywhere else, there is no question that this medium of advertising did much to shape presidential candidates’ images over the years. “The campaign ad phenomenon experienced a brief resurgence in 2002 with the Democratic Party of Arkansas’s release of Cartoons from a Fabled Land Someone Once Called a Banana Republic. The small booklet, aimed at defeating Republican incumbent Mike Huckabee and containing thirty-four of Fisher’s contemporary single-frame works, opens with the reminder that Arkansas has a political tradition of using editorial cartoons in elections to inform voters,” (Parry, 213).

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Figure 5 Source: "US. 46 President Hoover and the Great Depression."

Figure 6 Source: Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. " 1976 Presidential Campaign Flyer”.

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A Modern Campaign: A Case Study of Kennedy 1960 Introduction As time passed and new mediums of communication developed, the idea of the campaign message evolved into a campaign image. The message remains the heart of the campaign, but the image of the candidate came a long way to replace campaign issues. This campaign would become the basis of building strategy and messaging for future campaigns. By 1960, the modern presidential election campaign was formed. Candidates now had the ability to campaign on television, travel on airplanes to speaking engagements, and engage in long, drawn-out primary campaigns. The campaign between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy changed the American campaign process. "The most obvious distinction of the 1960 campaign was the role that image played in the outcome; for the first time in American history, a candidate's image was a deciding factor in an election," (Donaldson, viii). This campaign was the first to be covered extensively by television. Kennedy made considerable use of television to put his face into America’s living rooms. He was portrayed as a war hero; he presented an image of vigor, youth, and activism that gave legs to his slogan of getting the nation "moving again". He was handsome and had a family of equal attractiveness, and the people became charmed with the whole Kennedy package.

Journalist Theodore White, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Making of the President, 1960, was also caught up in the mystique of Kennedy's image. He was often criticized for being a shaper of the Kennedy image with his "biased" political coverage of the 1960 campaign. The question remains: was he a shaper of the image, or was he shaped by the Kennedy image, much in the same way the nation was? "Image is just a part of the story of the 1960 campaign, but because of an image, as it was played that year, American elections

19 would never be quite the same again. Growing directly out of this election would be the manufactured candidate, someone who could look good for the cameras, whose image could be manipulated for the American voters, a candidate who could be made to appear to be something he was not. Under the obvious assumption that a strong image does not necessarily translate into strong leadership, it must be assumed that the introduction of an image as a primary factor into the American electoral process is detrimental to that process. The 1960 campaign, the first modern campaign, opened those floodgates," (Donaldson, ix).

The Message Kennedy had a lot working against him at the beginning of the 1960 campaign. He was following Eisenhower's two-term success that could be characterized as generally peaceful and prosperous. However, despite Eisenhower’s popularity with the voting population, the public seemed to have been more enamored with Eisenhower himself than the Republican Party. The Republicans would still need a strong candidate to maintain their hold on the presidential seat.

On the other hand, Democrats were not convinced that Kennedy would be a strong candidate either. One of Kennedy's most significant problems when heading into the primaries was an almost desperate need to win over the liberals in his party. "Liberals did not make up even a large minority of voting Democrats, but they were one of the most important wings of the party, the most vocal, the intellectuals, the writers, the people who had great influence on the nation. Kennedy would have trouble moving his candidacy forward without them," (Donaldson, 37). Kennedy took his first movements towards identifying himself as a liberal in 1958 on the Sunday morning talk show Face the Nation and again in 1959 at the Alfred E.

20 Smith Memorial Dinner in New York. Kennedy first ran into roadblocks with Eleanor Roosevelt, the "doyenne of the liberal party elite, who felt Kennedy's father was paving his way to the presidency with money. She also associated his Catholicism directly with McCarthyism.

This term is defined as the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence according to Wikipedia; it refers to U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s actions in association with the Second Red Scare lasting from the ‘40s through the ‘50s.

In conjunction with Roosevelt's distrust, complaints came from Reinhold Niebuhr, the era's leading theologian of American Protestantism, chief political thinker of the liberal left and the founder of the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). He followed Roosevelt's letters to the editor with one of his own stating "Kennedy is spending too much money" and "hasn't given any vivid proof of possessing the fortitude which he so eloquently extolled in his book, Profiles in Courage.

Kennedy would need to win over these political dignitaries in order to gain the confidence of the liberals and move forward with his nomination for the presidency. After filing a competing petition of endorsement against fellow liberal Adlai Stevenson who had the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, Reinhold Niebuhr, and many others, it came down to Kennedy being too strong for Stevenson's people to overcome and it resulted in lukewarm support for Kennedy.

Throughout his nomination, Kennedy never backed down from his position as a strong contender and responded to every accusation with continuity in his messaging, asserting that his family money would not buy him the presidency and that his Catholicism did not dictate his political views. This messaging aided the popularity of his image as the campaign continued.

21 Kennedy's television exposure in the primaries was particularly crucial in publicizing his image to the voting nation; it was even better for his campaign than paid advertising.

"With television to promote and project an image to the American people, or even to change an image, the campaign process changed. Attractive, appealing candidates gained an immediate edge, while the grizzled, elder statesman seemed to lose something in the face of the new medium. For the first time, a candidate's physical appearance was a significant factor in a campaign. All this became obvious with Kennedy's 1960 campaign. He seemed to chew up the camera, and America quickly fell in love with him and his family," (Donaldson, 46). Discussing this 1958 depiction of the “Democratic Hopefuls” in Figure 7, it was noted that, “His young and handsome appearance may be an inevitable aspect of any representation, but it is quite deliberate and meaningful to place him front and center as well. Just as this cover implies, for a large number of viewers from the general public, JFK was not only the first person the reader's eye landed on, but also the one that it wanted to linger on the longest. His popular appeal ended up being a great asset throughout the campaign,” (JFK and the Public View).

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Figure 7 Source: “JFK and the Public View”

His campaign seemed to have orchestrated a symphony of victory and had gained 56% of the vote. But was this enough? Would he be a vote-getter on a national scale? Kennedy’s religion was highlighted as an issue in voter turnout. He would need to win a state that was not Catholic. To the credit of his campaign managers, they rallied to compete against Hubert Humphrey, a known Protestant, in a Protestant state, demonstrating that Kennedy was, in fact, a strong vote-getter and a winner of more than just Catholic votes. So, Kennedy jumped into West Virginia, trying to show that he could win votes in a state that was not Catholic. The Kennedys flooded the state with money, people, and the Kennedy family vigor.

Mrs. Kennedy may have done the most good at a grassroots level by ringing doorbells, mak-

23 ing phone calls and appearing on television with persuasive speeches. The grassroots campaign and backing by FDR Jr. had put Kennedy in a great position entering the debate with Humphrey, but he still needed to face the "religion issue" head-on. Kennedy found that it was not a hatred of Catholics he was facing but rather the idea that a Catholic president may somehow threaten the nation’s independence and freedom. He responded by looking the state straight in the eye and confronting the issue as openly as possible. "Kennedy responded to a question about the "Catholic Issue," by saying ‘I am a Catholic, but the fact that I was born a Catholic does not mean that I can't be the President of the United States. I'm able to serve in Congress, and my brother was able to give his life, but we can’t be president?’ The crowd reacted positively, and from then on, he brought up the issue first, confronting it at every tum.

‘Is anyone going to tell me that I lost this primary forty-two years ago when I was baptized?’ he asked a crowd in Fairmont. Over and over, he told the crowds, ‘I will not allow any pope or church to dictate to the president of the United States. There is no conflict between my religion and the obligations of the office... I refuse to believe that the people of this state are bigots, guided in this most important choice by prejudice,’” (Donaldson, 58).

He appeared over and over again as the handsome, open-faced candidate on the TV screen, showing himself, proving that a Catholic wears no horns. Using television to aid his message once again, Kennedy successfully made his image stronger and appeared to have neutralized a significant issue that could have severely affected the voter turnout in the 1960 election. The primaries placed the candidate before the nation, giving him much needed exposure, so when the campaign against Nixon began, the nation knew quite well who Kennedy was.

24 The Image “Most post-convention polls showed Nixon with about a six-point lead over Kennedy.

The polls also showed that despite Kennedy's exposure in the primary elections, Nixon was still much better known and generally considered to be the more experienced candidate,” (Donaldson, 93). Kennedy decided early on that he would not be his own campaign manager.

He left that to his brother, Bobby, his brother-in-law Stephen Smith, and the other "Kennedy men" who scheduled events, raised money, organized and planned. The campaign focused on television appearances, getting his ideas across to the American people, and creating a public image for himself. Kennedy's broad message was simple: "The age of Eisenhower had been devoid of new ideas; the nation had stagnated, and the administration had done little more than maintaining the status quo and govern through crisis management. Kennedy's team developed from that the catchphrase "let's get America moving again" and continued to push his image of vigor and activity. This hurt Nixon's image as he was being associated as a representative of the past and Kennedy was personified as the nation's future as seen in Figure 8 of the collection of John F. Kennedy Presidential Campaign Posters.

25 Figure 8 Source: “John F. Kennedy Presidential Campaign Posters”

“Kennedy's basic campaign strategy was simple. Perhaps in response to Nixon's campaign promise to visit every state, Kennedy set out to visit as many states as was humanly possible—forty-five out of fifty, as it turned out. He focused on twenty-four swing states, but then focused even further near the end of the campaign on the seven largest states,” (Donaldson, 95). Nixon's organization differed in the fact that his campaign centered around the candidate and Nixon micromanaged every detail of his campaign, he had all the right people around him, but his nature was to trust no one and consult no one, and he generally kept his own decisions with no one at his ear. Nixon's nature was to work alone. The campaign strategies of both candidates were very different. Where Kennedy's staff planned their candidate's campaign to take up every minute of his free time, Nixon believed in the ebb and flow of a campaign and kept his options open. Theodore White would say Nixon's campaign was "flexibility." "Another part of Nixon's flexible plan was a sort of Jekyll and Hyde approach.

He would begin the campaign as "the New Nixon," the Eisenhower moderate, to "erase the Herblock image first," he said. (Herblock was the pen name of Washington Post political cartoonist Herbert Block who drew an unflattering, pugnacious Nixon with a heavy beard, ski nose, and sagging jowls.),” (Donaldson, 96) as seen in Figure 9.

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Figure 9 Source: Kjell Knudde. "Herbert Block."

Once it had come down to the last two or three weeks of his campaign, the Old Nixon would emerge and explode with a barrage of attacks against Kennedy in a series of television ads and presentations. While Kennedy pulled his party together and found his voice, Nixon nearly worked himself to death in the campaign of all 50 states.

The Narrative While Nixon was falling into exhaustion and was inhibited by an unforeseen injury that slowed his progression to visit all 50 states, he sat in a hospital while Kennedy drew crowds in just about every corner of the country. If that wasn't bad enough for the Nixon campaign, “Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the nation’s most prominent Protestant minister of

27 the time and head of the National Conference of Citizens for Religious Freedom, signed a statement questioning whether a Catholic president could effectively disassociate himself from the power of his church and thus be under great pressure ‘to bring American foreign policy into line with Vatican objectives,'" (Donaldson, 107). This put Nixon at a severe disadvantage, for Kennedy would come out fighting as he had in the West Virginia primaries against Humphrey.

As Peale's statement hit the newspapers, Kennedy was invited by a group of Protestant ministers in Houston to defend the right of a Catholic to be president. In a televised appearance that many would describe later as the best speech Kennedy ever delivered in his lifetime, he once again deflected the religious issue and made it work to his benefit.

Kennedy handled each question calmly and coolly with an excellent sense of himself as he had a thousand times before. Robert Strauss, the Kennedy advance man for the event, said later that he picked the "meanest, nastiest-looking" ministers that he could find in the room to put in the front row where the television cameras would direct their coverage. Kennedy used this platform not only to dispel the argument that the Vatican could dictate his presidential future but also to bring to light the fact that these accusations were taking away from the real political issues that the country was facing. "While acknowledging the need to address this issue, Kennedy then signaled his concern for the nation's major political constituencies— young and old, urban and rural—in a way that reminded them of the solutions he had offered elsewhere—a higher minimum wage, medical care for the aged, federal aid for education. At the same time, he undercut the perceived Republican strength in foreign affairs by recalling the Communist influence in Cuba and our loss to the Russians in the space race. All of this in a single paragraph that affirmed that “we have far more critical issues in the 1960 election:

28 the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers only ninety miles off the coast of Florida—the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice-President by those who no longer respect our power—the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor’s bills, the families forced to give up their farms—an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space. But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured—perhaps deliberately in some quarters less responsible than this,’” (Jamieson, 130-131).

Kennedy finished the question-and-answer session stating "If this election is decided on the basis that 40,000,000 Americans lost their chance of being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser in the eyes of the Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people," Kennedy then proceeded with a rehearsal of the presidential oath, for if Kennedy is bound by his God, then he will not profane that relationship by swearing falsely that he will "faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will do the best of my ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, so help me God." Playing a trump card, Kennedy states: "without reservation, I can, and I quote ‘solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute….' " "The candidate who was invited to state his views to a hostile audience has, before them, concluded with an act that none take lightly—swearing before god. In the process, he has tried on the presidency before their eyes and before the eyes of millions in the states in which the speech and subsequent question-and-answer period aired. And the fit was good,” (Jamieson, 133).

29 The debate between Nixon and Kennedy would be the first time millions of Americans could see their candidates, together, debating the issues before them. It would usher in a new era in politics and change the face of the American presidential campaign. As the campaigns continued, Nixon's health was waning, and by the time they met in Chicago for their first debate, Nixon looked awful. "It was the four televised debates, and the first debate, in particular, that became the decisive events in the 1960 campaign, perhaps one of the most significant political events of the twentieth century," (Donaldson, 110). Theodore White called the debates a revolution in American politics. "As many as 70 million Americans watched the first debate—nearly two-thirds of the nation's adult population, the largest audience for any political event in history. The debates led to increased interest in the presidential campaign and a record turnout at the polls. They also led to Kennedy's victory in November," (Donaldson, 110).

Reflections Television made an enormous impact that changed American politics. Television had been covering politics and political events since about 1948 when both networks would broadcast the political conventions. It was clear that they would be covering national politics as well. At the time of the Nixon-Kennedy debates, the number of American families that owned televisions had jumped to 88 percent. "Image, physical appearance, and presence before the camera became as important as issues, endorsements, and political events," (Donaldson, 112). In the first debate, Nixon's pale complexion, the byproduct of a recent illness and inadequate makeup and lighting, his dark beard, and the sweat that trickled over his face suggested a desperate person crumbling under the stress of the debate with Kennedy as seen in Figure 10.

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Figure 10 Source: Richard M. Nixon. "Richard M. Nixon Timeline."

By replaying one and five-minute excerpts of the first debate, the Democrats pointed out to viewers that Kennedy seemed as experienced and knowledgeable as Nixon. At the same time, the ads reminded viewers of the gutter-dwelling Nixon of Herblock’s cartoons that had conveniently been given flesh with the sweating, bearded, shifty-eyed Nixon of the first debate. With the Houston conference being used as mini commercial spots and the replays of the debates, television provided an opportunity to compare the two candidates side by side. Nixon’s image fell short, leaving Kennedy to find his win in the 1960 election. Image is everything.

The Strategy Behind Political Advertising Developing the Message "A campaign without a plan is a journey without a map." – William R. Sweeney.

31 What is a campaign? As a verb, it is defined as work in an organized and active way toward a particular goal, typically a political or social one. All designers, strategists, campaign organizers, and candidates need to formulate a strategy to achieve the desired outcome.

A campaign strategy must answer the question of who will vote and why. “The ability to think strategically, to be able to analyze environments and the current and likely behaviors of others, to think creatively and systemically, to shift between observing the big picture and giving attention to detail, to gather and interpret feedback accurately, is an essential prerequisite of creating and managing a plan,” (Barnard, 201).

Research is critical for identifying who your target voters are, which entails speaking with them one-on-one. Building a rapport allows designers to empathize with the problems they face and what they need in order to solve their problems. Getting to know the public and understanding their resident locations gives the human-centric information required to create your strategy and messaging to build a better campaign. The electorate can be divided into three groups: the supporters, the opponent's supporters, and the generally uninterested. Research can be gathered in specific geographic locations to sort the voters into those groups.

Once this has been done, the campaign organizers can consider the nature of politics in the area, the political behavior of the jurisdiction and the image of each candidate, all from the voter’s perspective. After all of that information has been processed, the strategy can be completed, and the communication plan can be developed. By creating this strategy, the people have now been put in the center of the equation—who are the people most affected by the problem? What is the problem, really? How does it impact the people it affects? And how can we try to solve it?—This becomes the basis for the campaign and messaging.

32 A campaign must have one message and only one message to communicate to voters, a campaign message that is the rationale for the candidate’s election and their opponent’s defeat. The message is the single, central idea that the campaign communicates to the voters to summarize the connection the candidate has with the voters, the solutions to the problems that he/she is proposing, and the contrast between the candidate and his/her opponents. A good campaign message will be clear, concise, connected, compelling, contrasting, credible, and consistent. When developing the message, campaign organizers can take what was learned in the strategy phase and apply that knowledge to the development of the message.

An excellent example of the connection between message and image can be found in the 1996 presidential campaign. "President Bill Clinton used a message that combined his effectiveness and experience to connect with the voters' sense that things were improving but that there was much more to do," (Thurber, 53). Clinton's message of moving into a more technological future versus Dole's message of returning to tradition allowed Clinton to win the election, but beyond that, it marked a historic step towards the future that would change election campaigns forever. As part of his campaign, the Clinton team launched the first presidential campaign website, as seen in Figure 11. This matched the theme of Clinton's campaign, which was best personified in his campaign slogan, "Building a bridge to the twenty-first century." The focus on the future was a powerful message for Clinton because of the connection to the voters’ sentiments in 1996.

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Figure 11 Source: Stromer-Galley, Jennifer, John Austin, Renato Mariotti, Stanley McChrystal, and David Eichenbaum. "This Is What Campaign Websites Looked Like in 1996."

The Strategy Developing a good strategy is about storytelling. Pulling together what the voters’ needs are and putting the story together to tell through every medium available, such as television, newspaper, and the internet. There are five functions of political communication: name identification, candidate image (what kind of person are they), issues, attacks (truth & relevance), and defense (counter-attack). In devising the strategy, candidates and their strategists understand that most undecided and swing voters make up their minds based on televised impression, symbols, and cues. Political campaigns shape their candidates’ image to reflect our personal dreams and national myths as seen in earlier campaigns dating back to the 1800s. The message starts with a connection to the voters’ emotions. Great campaigns provide a complete motive for motion. If we are to influence others, we have to understand how to motivate them, hence the need for audience analysis and an understanding of motivational traits,” (Barnard, 197).

34 Telling the Story “The campaign narrative told through a range of integrated activities has to change the question mark of doubt, disagreement or ignorance into an exclamation mark of approval and commitment,” (Barnard, 197). Thus, a system of message delivery must be created in order to achieve the desired results, i.e., the exclamation of approval. Political campaigns involve various kinds of advertisements. Name ID ads are used for identity in the early stages of the campaign, argument ads that represent ideology are used later, attack ads used to insult are used later still, and in the end, positive visionary ads for the candidate’s image are shown.

The types of "issue" ads that are presented during the "argument spots" include platform ads that are full of generalities, slogan ads that contain some slogan relating to the candidates' promises to take or give an important insight into the character of the candidate. For example, in 1952 Dwight Eisenhower used "I will go to Korea," and in 1998 Gary Davis (Governor for California) used "Experience money can't buy." “Political messages come in many shades and tones. Some of them are positive and uplifting, where candidates recount the struggles and triumphs of their lives. Many evoke feelings of enthusiasm, hope, or joy, cued with a crescendo of uplifting music. Some show the American flag waving. Others depict the candidate eagerly talking with everyday Americans about economic or moral issues. Some ads, by contrast, are negative and nasty, attacking an opponent’s policy ideas or personal character. Many of these messages try to scare or anger us, using ominous music or unflattering black-and-white photos of a political opponent. The point of these ads is crystal clear: your future depends on my election to office,” (Ridou, 1).

35 Going Emotional How do negativity and emotional appeal in ads matter? Political ads principally prey on our emotions: attack ads on our fears, positive ads on our hopes. "Negative campaigning has been part of the American political landscape since the beginning of the Republic. The medium for delivering the message has changed with technological innovations, from the handbills accusing George Washington of being a philanderer and Andrew Jackson of marrying a prostitute to infamous television advertisements such as Lyndon Johnson’s ‘Daisy’ spot as seen in Figure 12, and the ‘Willie Horton’ advertisements broadcast during the 1988 presidential campaign, candidates have attacked their opponents in election after election,” (King, 1).

Figure 12 Hart, Alexandra, and David Brown. "When LBJ's Infamous 'Daisy' Ad Changed Politics Forever."

While most advertisements are effective at first, all of them reach a threshold across which ‘‘going negative’’ stops benefiting and begins hindering the sponsor due to the general

36 distaste for negative advertising in political campaigns among voters. “Negative political advertising may achieve its intended effects, but it may also produce boomerang effects. A strong attack on a candidate, if perceived by the audience as untruthful, undocumented, or in any way unjustified may create more negative feelings toward the sponsor, rather than the target. Similarly, an attack perceived as unjustified may generate more positive feelings toward the target,” (King, 3). “When the ’92 election was polled on voter turnout compared to total advertising reach the results seem to suggest that the more political advertising there is in a county, the greater the turnout,” (Jamieson, 102). However, some commentators see a relationship between plummeting voter participation and the increasing prominence of “negative” political advertising. Candidates and their campaign managers should learn to recognize when they have reached the threshold for negative advertising and counterattacks and refocus on the more positive aspects of their campaign and the promises they have made to the people. Keeping the people at the center of your message creates an opportunity to turn the debate into a dialogue for a better understanding of how to solve the problems instead of using them as “fear factor” advertising.

Truth in Advertising The incessant negative advertising that occurs in political campaigns calls to question the believability and authenticity of all campaign advertisements. “In 1992, 14% of the general-election presidential ads run by the Democrats and Republicans contained at least one misleading claim; in 1996, 52% were vulnerable to this charge,” (Jamieson, 92). Recent studies show that campaigns do matter even if they don't have direct persuasive effects on voters.

Agenda setting and priming show that candidate's choices to highlight specific issues and avoid others can shape the weights voters place on these issues and their vote decisions.

37 Campaign tone, advertising volume, and emotional advertising also have an influence on voter's interest in politics, their attitudes toward candidates, and their decisions to turn out on election day.

Research shows that there is a contrast between candidates’ appeals in advertising and their in-office decision making. It is argued that the imagery used should create a relationship to their behavior in office; otherwise, voters are just voting for an image formed on television rather than the person and policies that will be shaping the future of their country. However, it has been speculated that the emotional connections used in political advertising are not a direct reflection on policy intentions. “In short, there is a lot in political advertising that could make one distrust the government and politicians and be cynical about their motives. And yet there are also reasons to doubt that exposure to political ads has this effect,” (Ridout, 172).

Each voter has the responsibility to discern the truth from advertising and do their due diligence to dig further for answers, and we as advertisers also have a responsibility to create accurate advertising based on real solutions to the problems that the country faces. Marrying the message to an actual outcome is only going to benefit our future. “To run a complex campaign well over an extended period of time is hard work. To share a narrative, messages, and key themes through a deliberate sequence of well-planned, layered, and detailed activities requires willpower, not just skill,” (Barnard, 195). And it requires truth in messaging across all mediums, especially with the changing media landscape.

The Message Goes Viral As campaign advertising moves to the digital platform, a problem arises of how the campaign message is to be harnessed. “When William Shakespeare wrote in Othello, ‘Tis true, there's magic in the web,' it is a pretty safe bet that he was not thinking about any form

38 of technology. For us, though, the world wide web has changed the world. Or, at least, our ability to access information, make purchases, entertain ourselves and communicate with others,” (Barnard, 205). The internet has had an undeniable impact on how the public engages with politics. Interestingly, recent studies (e.g., Vaccari, 2013) show that online political campaigns have also become more efficient at improving reception and acceptance of political messages. “Digital tools themselves can be used to create or contribute to a public conversation among voters, and even though such actions do not necessarily qualify as political conversations, the increasing newsworthiness of viral posts (such as the photo of Barack and Michelle Obama hugging at a campaign rally, which was posted after the 2012 election was called and became the most tweeted photo to date) is a reminder that user responses to social media content have become a distinct cultural phenomenon in their own right,” (Gerodimas & Justinussen, 117).

Figure 13 Source: Shell, Callie. "Barack and Michelle Obama: Love Story, Marriage in Photos."

39 The ability to communicate in real-time and to promote dialogue in Q&A seminars through Twitter have become a significant consideration in developing a campaign strategy and messaging. Social media has brought about a new advertising medium that can mobilize and coordinate supporters for electoral ends by using strategic communications with the general public, journalists, undecided voters, and supporters. The 2008 Obama campaign notably pioneered the use of social media platforms for political organizing, particularly by leveraging Facebook.

A Campaign for Change: A Case Study of Obama 2008 Introduction Barack Obama’s first drive for president was not only a brilliant modern political campaign; it created a change in the way all great campaigns—political or not—were subsequently run around the world. It is especially notable for the groundbreaking use of digital technology and for its clear strategy, discipline, and authenticity of vision. Twenty-two months before election day, Barack Obama decided to run. He was young for the times and inexperienced given only two years in the Senate and did not have the typical religious background found among the Catholic and Protestant presidents of the past. He was also up against fierce competitors such as his powerfully funded Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and the strong Republican candidate, Senator John McCain. Obama's run at the presidency was motivated by idealism to an unusual degree and looked to young, ethnic minorities who had antecedently been disillusioned by politics for his inevitable win. ‘Organizing for America’, set up by team Obama, became a 13-million-strong group of supporters who continued to campaign in

40 everyday political and civic life. The campaign set fundraising records by raising money online in small amounts. This changed the expectations for future presidential elections.

Controlling the Message With the emergence of digital technology within the corporate and entertainment worlds in the 2000s, political advertising campaigns had fallen behind. Obama for America was the world’s first truly digital general election campaign. Obama and his communication team, with the help of Google’s Eric Schmidt and other advisers, created the first internet-led campaign. Obama’s combination of technology and social media mobilization with ‘oldschool' political techniques—such as door-to-door campaigning, bussing to a vast array of events, and brilliant oratory performances—paved his way to the presidency.

In 2006, two years before the election, the congressional elections were disastrous for the Republicans, signifying a shift in the US public attitudes and prompting talk of a ‘time for change'. The war in Iraq had led to the unpopularity of George W. Bush and of the United States as a whole throughout the world. The national economy was sluggish, and the Washington political machine was divided by infighting and scandal. The Democratic party controlled the House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years, and for only the second time ever, it controlled the Senate. By 2007, everyone was focused on the next presidential election in November 2008. Democratic contenders for president, Joe Biden and John Edwards had already spent two years building support, and the front-runner for candidacy was Hillary Clinton who had been growing her political equity for nearly two decades. The young, black Senator from Illinois had his work cut out for him.

41 Strategy for Messaging For Barack Obama to be the 44th president of the United States, he first had to win the primaries to be the Democratic nominee. "Using the slogan ‘Change we can believe in'—a classic challenger brand positioning built on messages of ‘hope’ and ‘aspiration’—the strategy was to construct unstoppable political momentum for such change through committed grassroots support and funding in small amounts (summed up by the memorable chant ‘Yes we Can!’)," (Rogers, 160). In 2003, Obama had won his seat in the Senate not by making 30-second ads and clever sound-bites, but by building a grassroots campaign throughout Illinois. Thus, he wanted to use the same strategy to win his seat in the Oval Office. By employing David Axelrod and Plouffe, business partners at political consulting firm AKPD Message and Media, Obama began to execute his lucid vision of how he would win the Presidency. "The country needed deep, fundamental change; Washington wasn't thinking long-term, and we had big challenges like energy and health care that had languished for decades; the special interests and lobbyists had too much power, and the American people needed to trust once again and engage their democracy; the country was too divided; and especially the middle class and their children ran the risk of having less opportunity than generations before,” (Rogers, 161).

Axelrod and Plouffe had recognized from their experience in recent political campaigns that the internet and digital technologies could mobilize grassroots support and communicate messages during a time at which traditional media sources were failing. Positioned as the ‘challenger-brand' against Hillary Clinton, Obama's team set out to attract new supporters and new voters, including young people and African-Americans. He planned to do so by hitting the first 6 states hard, theorizing that this approach would throw off Clinton early in the primaries. Believing passionately in the grassroots approach and real political change,

42 the Obama team "turned this into an innovative campaign strategy: they would mobilize a large number of volunteers to attract funding in small amounts; these volunteers would, in turn, mobilize their communities to vote; and this whole movement would deliver the Obama message on a peer-to-peer basis, engendering greater trust than by traditional media relations.

Plouffe captures it eloquently in his book The Audacity to Win: ‘We would bring a ragtag militia to compete against [Clinton's] regular army,'" (Rogers, 162).

The Narrative A website, www.BarackObama.com, was built as a priority as most young potential supporters would be tech-savvy. Its purpose was to enable new supporters to assemble likeminded voters to raise campaign funds. Social media was then engaged to propagate the campaign through their own social networking operation. Instead of advertising to individuals with targeted messaging like Clinton did with soccer moms, Obama's group had one big message: ‘Change.' The announcement of Obama's run for the presidency was made on February 10, 2007, at the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois. "It was chosen because of Obama's strong links with the town and the state, because it was where President Lincoln had delivered his famous ‘House Divided' speech, and because it represented the campaign's ‘mid-western' values versus Washington DC values message," (Rogers, 163). In addition to the live speech, his communication team created a video that was distributed on YouTube consolidating all of his core campaign messages.

As Obama bussed to several events across the Nation, the team adopted a new culture of fundraising by lowering ticket prices and inviting ‘regular folk’ to what was usually ‘wealthy only’ events. These events generated positive local press, and the vast majority of attendees became ‘Obama for America’ volunteers and were mostly under the age of 25

43 years old, a demographic once disillusioned by politics, who had been unmotivated to go out and vote. Most of the footage of the events from the local press coverage was uploaded to Obama's website and spread on social media to show a groundswell of passionate young voters behind his campaign. In the summer of 2007, Obama had released his campaign slogan ‘Change we can believe in,’ which would become one of the signatures of his campaign alongside ‘Yes we can.' Much like in Kennedy's campaign where Jackie Kennedy was essential to his campaign, Michelle Obama was a road warrior too, lighting up the campaign around the state. The couple was seen dancing from fundraisers to conventions and together on Oprah.

By February 2008, Obama's political run had transcended mere politics: it was now a movement. "On June 3, the last day of the primary voting in Montana, Obama finally sealed the victory. Less than 150 years since slavery had ended, a black man had become the Democrats' nominee for president," (Rogers, 166). By June, Obama's team had put together an ambitious goal of raising $475 million privately and planned a ‘world trip' including Iraq, Israel, Britain, and Germany ending with a significant public event in Berlin designed to position Obama as a new friend to Europe. Obama's speech in Berlin demonstrated a hunger for a unique style of American leadership, and thanks to social media, it was able to be streamed by supporters around the world.

Once home, Obama chose his Vice President in Joe Biden, senator of Delaware, who had a wealth of foreign policy experience and blue-collar appeal that challenged that of John McCain. In a stroke of genius, the Obama team used this as an opportunity to gain more mobile phone numbers in a “be-the-first-to-know” drive by spreading the word of his VP announcement through text. This further motivated Obama's grassroots army in the months

44 leading up to the presidential election. Obama strategically positioned himself as an expert on the global financial crisis while taking a mature approach to the McCain debates as time pressed on during the race. Plouffe recounted the final weeks leading up to the election: “Through emailed talking points, postings on the website and conversations with local field organizers, our volunteers were stressing the same arguments, Obama, Biden, Axelrod, and Gibbs were delivering on any given day. You couldn’t put a price on it – regular people bringing Obama’s message to their neighbors, serving as our ambassadors block by block through the battleground states”. Finally, at 11 pm on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama was declared the 44th president of the United States, breaking up a three-decade sequence of presidents from the Bush and Clinton dynasties to become the first African-American to take a seat in the Oval Office.

The Visual Narrative In the past decade, there has been a significant reduction in print materials concerning political marketing campaigns. This trend has been reversed with the Obama campaign. Visuals were crucial not only to campaign posters and stickers but also to the website, television advertisements, and T-shirts. This created unity in his messaging. Another revolutionary step in political advertising was the creation of the logo. In early 2007, the Obama campaign management team commissioned a team of designers to develop a distinctive logo that elicited the same message of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ that made up the essence of the campaign.

Obama was marketed like a high-end consumer brand. In What Obama Can Teach You About Millennial Marketing, Peter Feld observes that Obama’s rising-sun logo echoes the one-world iconography of Pepsi and Apple. It captured the essence of the Obama campaign symbolically as seen in Figure 14.

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Figure 14 Source: Coles, Stephen. "Obama '08 Campaign Branding."

“A design team led by Sol Sender developed the logo, after being asked to come up with ‘something different’ that embodied the campaign’s themes of ‘hope’ and ‘change you can believe in’; additionally, patriotism was considered important, and this was manifest in the design,” (Sender, 2008). The team’s final logo design was distinctive and intended to strike an emotional chord with viewers. The blue ‘O’ stands for the candidate, and the redand-white stripes symbolize flag and country. The stripes further represent farmland, identifying the Illinois senator with the ‘heartland’ of America. The white center of the ‘O,’ rising over the horizon of the stripes, appears to be a sunrise, denoting ‘a better tomorrow’ politically,” (Goa, 6).

46 The supplemental posters and stickers designed by independent artists helped generate excitement for the candidate and supported the unique brand positioning of positivity that the marketing team had devised, seen in Figures 15 & 16. Words like hope and change gave voters a feeling that they were voting for something or someone they can believe in. “People vote for the candidate who elicits the right feelings, not the candidate who presents the best arguments,” (Westen, 125).

Figure 15 Source: Coles, Stephen. "Obama '08 Campaign Branding."

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Figure 16 Source: Gao, Tian, and Bruce Gurd. “Hospital Size.”

Artist: Shepard Fairey, Hope (2008)

This imagery evoked a feeling of positive direction for the nation. It wasn’t just voters who were moved by the message of this campaign. Artist Shepard Fairey designed a poster series using the influence of Soviet Constructivist posters and Alberto Korda’s photograph of Che Cuevara, “Guerrillero Heroico." The posters were simplified portraits of the candidate using soft patriotic colors. The three posters sloganed "Hope," "Progress," and "Change" were the most influential and iconic of the hundreds created in support of Obama. "Fairey, a street artist who had been frequently arrested for tagging private and public property with graffiti

48 without obtaining permission, took a news photograph and transformed it into a stenciled portrait and sticker, accompanied by the “Hope” slogan, which also appeared virally on countless car bumpers, coffee mugs, T-shirts, and web sites, with more than 300,000 copies of the poster sold,” (Goa, 15). This was the one image in 2008 that captured the essence of the Obama campaign with its revolutionary and patriotic design.

The tone set by artists and designers working for and outside the campaign was mainly positive and inspirational, with the candidate portrayed as unifying, patriotic, moderate, fresh, and charismatic, promising "change" in the government and this single message connected to a majority of the voters who were seeking that very "change". The innovative use of images in both new and old technologies as a part of his political advertising campaign undoubtedly aided Barack Obama in winning the seat of President of the United States in 2008.

Reflection There was a strong, loyal team fixed in place with a clear chain of command, as well as a fixed strategy understood by everyone, including Obama himself all the way down to the junior campaign executive. "The value of this, as in any organization, is that day-to-day decision-making becomes relatively uneventful. The staff feels empowered, and the organization becomes single-minded, creative, and effective," (Rogers, 171). Obama also had the most powerful message during the 2008 campaign. His message of change was authentic and felt more like a movement than a political message. His grassroots movement believed in its own ability to affect change. It developed strategic relationships with volunteers and fundraisers that were critical to the success of the campaign. But what made the campaign so unique was the groundbreaking implementation of new technologies and media to communicate with and

49 mobilize support. "Mark Penn's work for Bill Clinton in the 90s had highlighted the power of data and demographic profiling, but Axelrod, Plouffe, and Rospars took this to a whole new level. They used mobile phone text messaging and internet campaigning to build up their support, with millions registering on the website, giving their ZIP codes, being invited to events and being texted,” (Rogers, 172). And the genius was that these same people subsequently went out to voters in their community and articulated the Obama message. Team Obama had turned one man's vision into a campaign but then transformed it into ‘a movement' of tens of millions of people.

Obama's messages of ‘hope' and ‘change' were lived out through his years as president, from 2009 to 2011. Obama could claim to have stabilized the US economy, passed his healthcare reform, ended America's longest-running wars and overseen the death of Osama Bin Laden. With inevitable resistance to come from the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, his policy of change came to a halt, but all of those involved in his campaign strongly believe it was all worthwhile. At the heart of Obama’s campaign was a process that depended on researching the people he wanted to reach and developing a strategy based on creating change to satisfy their needs. From the usage of newly evolved technology to the targeted demographic for his messaging platform, it was the underlying message of change that made for effective advertising and a great campaign.

A New Era in Political Advertising Message Targeting Obama cemented the use of social media advertising with his 2008 campaign, focusing on avenues such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to post videos, advertisements and

50 to directly communicate with the community about the “change” he was producing. Of the big three social media platforms, Twitter is the newcomer both to the political campaign toolkit and to the social media scene in general. Twitter has had success among critical audiences like journalists, celebrities, and technology elites, establishing it as an expedient resource for campaigns to communicate breaking news and to control campaign narratives and messaging. There are different strategies that campaign advertisers can use to take control of their message and make sure it reaches their target audiences. Paid online media, banner ads, pre-roll ads, search advertising, and programmatic advertising are just some of the avenues political ads could take. This raises the question of whether the public is getting all of the information. Vlatkovic argues that the custom-made environment of information which reaches the user serves to diminish the chances for a more comprehensive understanding. "The collected data about users and their behavior on the internet has a direct impact on the filtering of information which will reach each user on social media. Therefore, users almost unreservedly and without examination, accept social-media information about the world around them.

This has opened up a transparent yet manipulative space for political actors, who have included social media in their communication strategies," (Vlatkovic, 124).

Looking at political campaigns over the years, it is clear that the technological potential of certain communication channels have been used to their advantage. For example, the emergence of television as a medium led to the development of a new form of political representation and brought about the Kennedy victory over Nixon in 1960. Following suit, Obama made a very well designed presence on internet-mediated media channels, especially on Facebook, to help him achieve victory over McCain in 2008. By choosing to use Twitter as the

51 main social platform for his campaign, Donald Trump accelerated his messaging in a shortened capacity with more frequent interaction in the digital space, which gave way to his political supremacy in 2016. What Trump lacked in policy, he gained through authenticity toward the voting population. Twitter allows political parties and individual politicians to bypass the press and speak directly with voters. The way in which Twitter shapes and engages with the political sphere of American society is one of the most noteworthy features of this social media platform. Of the 17 candidates in the 2016 election, Donald Trump had 30 million followers, and Hillary Clinton had 15 million. Having so many followers gave them the ability to communicate with people under minimal regulation. In this way, politicians on Twitter are in a felicitous position to influence the way the public perceives them.

Message Framing Trump distinguished himself on Twitter through controversy, which inadvertently created a two-billion-dollar unpaid media presence (‘earned media’). This avenue was also important to how the Trump team connected with the public, opponents, and journalists in real-time. This gave way to an impact on news coverage, which as confirmed by the New York Times, found Twitter to be the number one source of breaking news on Election Day 2016. He used controversy and scandal as a way to get people talking about the topics important to him in order to gain public attention. "Scandals that he created by posting on Twitter such as proposing mass deportation of Mexican immigrants, calling for banning Muslims from entering the U.S. and saying that Hillary Clinton ‘got schlonged’ by President Obama in 2008, Donald Trump had emerged the most controversial candidate in the 2016 presidential race. Yet, for all the predictions of his fall from grace, according to all the major polls,

52 Trump was leading the presidential race by a large margin,” (Vlatkovic, 128). The use of this type of propaganda enlarged the number of followers on his Twitter account to an unprecedented number setting him apart from other candidates and giving him more ‘air’ time among media outlets and viewers. “Having the attention of over 30 million viewers, Trump was able to frame his messaging and counterattacks using terms like “fake news” to delegitimize the press and carried out a pattern of attacks on news organizations and individual reporters. This gave him a way to circumvent the press and speak directly to his supporters while simultaneously aiming to discredit legitimate reporting. On Twitter, the news is framed with an emphasis on conflicts and economic impact, because users show the most interest in tracking disasters and economic and political events. Capturing information in 140 characters per post has enabled quick and effective communication, as well as the interaction of users with content posted specifically to them,” (Nielson, 2016). Donald Trump used all these characteristics of Twitter to his advantage in his election campaign, as well as in his first months as president of the United States, and he serves as a well-established and well-publicized Twitter presence and could provide evidence of politicians directly influencing their media coverage, for better or for worse.

Campaign Ethics “‘There is a crisis in the culture of knowledge, and it's not just journalism,’ Boczkowski says, noting that the dismissal of facts has extended to science and education as well. And it's hard to undo: Boczkowski notes that a million people saw a phony story that the pope had endorsed Trump, but just a fraction clicked on the story debunking it,” (Milligan, 2016). The increasing public distrust of politics and politicians is creating a perception that campaigns

53 are being conducted in an unethical manner using references like fake news and phony postings on social media. Although there is really no evidence as to what extent the impact is on voter turnout, it is still an important topic to discuss. With the advent of real-time political broadcasting through both television and the internet, campaign ethics should be revisited. A good presidential candidate should be of exceptional moral character, and their campaign strategy should be driven by the pursuit of the greater good of the people rather than by how severely they can slander their opponents.

There really is no governing policy regarding political ethics. However, general categories of unethical use of information should be mentioned here. One category is the use of false information to make something sound better or the use of negative personal information presented in a way that alludes to a candidate being unfit to serve. Another example of blurred ethical boundaries is the use of information to create a false impression, the most common of which is to use this information to appeal to base human instincts. For example, while not openly declaring racist behavior, the aforementioned approach encourages individuals who have racially based fears to respond in a discriminatory manner. There are arguments among political professionals on the right and wrong of this type of communication, mostly living in the ire of intent. Unfortunately, intent is hard to prove, and the discretion will lie solely in the hands of the audience.

Campaign advertising has walked the line of civility and ethical righteousness since the days of George Washington. “It has always been a rough-and-tumble business, and many practitioners believe it can be nothing else under our particular form of democracy,” (Thurber, 198). There were handbills created in the 1800s to discredit war hero Andrew Jackson,

54 making him out to be a murderer, dreadful cartoons created to make Nixon look like an unkempt, overbearing politician who would lead the country into political ruin if he were elected, and unethical ads such as the Daisy ad by Lyndon Johnson in the ‘90s, which intimated that if Barry Goldwater were elected, he would have led the country into nuclear war.

Nevertheless, it seems that the public of today believes that the new age campaigns of this era are so much worse than those of the past. Could this be because of modern communication? Today, government business is conducted in the full and immediate view of the public. Journalists are considered purveyors of information and guardians of public morality. Unfortunately, they only seem to see the immorality and tend to relay this judgment to the people. "We all accept that negative stories are more newsworthy, and that the media seeks news that sells. But they are doing a disservice to the people of this country when they focus exclusively on the negative stories and reinforce the negative assumptions about politicians and politics. The media knows they shape public opinion, and there are many politicians in many parties who have high principles, are excellent role models, and have the best interest of the people at heart. The media needs to acknowledge this and them," (Thurber, 200). These days, our elected representatives, candidates and political consultants are perceived as negatively as lawyers and used car salesman. Maybe it’s time to take concerted action to regain the public trust. “Campaign conduct in general and the public perception of politics were changed over the long run only through joint action by the candidates, the political professionals, the media and public,” (Thurber, 201).

55

The Future of Political Advertising Technology has brought about a whole new world of campaign advertising, but it seems to have turned out to be no more than another platform for the time-honored political actor. Nonetheless, the introduction of the internet and social media to political advertising has allowed the "everyday Americans"—the working poor, the disabled, the undernourished, antiwar advocates, day laborers, and immigrants—to have a direct line to candidates in realtime, which has led to a higher level of engagement than ever before. These levels continue to grow thanks to the addition of web-based and televised targeted messaging, sending a call for audiences to seek more information online and start engaging in open forums such as Twitter and Facebook. There is some speculation about the impact of targeted messaging. An upside is that a candidate can shape a message that aligns with the concerns of a particular household in accordance with their age and lifestyle. The speculation on this is that ultimately voters will vote on the candidate before they vote based on his or her stance on the issues. A downside is that a campaign is only as strong as its unified message, so if the message is different among the groups, how are they going to keep this message unified? Another concern is accountability; this brings to question whether a candidate can send conflicting promises to two different groups in order to better position themselves with these different voters. Message targeting is still relatively new and relies heavily on high-quality, detailed information about the voters and all of their complexities and campaigns presently are built on the perception of the voters more so than individual profiles. Message targeting will be of interest moving forward and will continue to grow in its importance in the overall campaign advertising strategy.

56 Questions will always be raised concerning the ethics of ad persuasion and message targeting. Advertisers will need to keep in mind that voters are often smarter than scholars give them credit for: campaigns rarely get away with bald-faced lies and character mudslinging, so those tactics should be removed from practice entirely. Political advertising is a billion-dollar industry in the United States, and it represents the most significant expense for most campaigns since the advent of television. The one thing that remains true to this day is that the role of political advertising will be solidified in our culture simply because it is an essential part of the entertaining spectacle that is the American political campaign.

57

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