The most effective election ads find emotive and surprising ways to remind voters of what they already think. Attempting to seed a new political idea in the format of a TV ad or a paid social media post is a waste of resources at best and, at worst, it can backfire.
David Cowan and Chris Powell (Letters, January 30) are right to highlight “fear of chaos and undemocratic action” as the topics to use to enthuse wavering independents or Trump-sceptic Republicans to turn out to vote. These are beliefs that people who would consider voting for the Democrats in the presidential election already have.
The difficulty that Democratic ad men and women will face is that, by polling day in November, voters will have seen and heard a lot about Donald Trump’s attempt to pervert democracy.
The significant creative challenge will then be to find ways to deliver this pro-democracy message so that it feels fresh and urgent enough to encourage the level of electoral participation from anti-Trump voters we saw in 2020.
Benedict Pringle
Blogger, politicaladvertising.co.uk,
London W13, UK
