POLITICAL ADVERTISING ON ELECTORATES IN THE 2015 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
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POLITICAL ADVERTISING ON ELECTORATES IN THE 2015 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Chapter one
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study.
Advertising practices have a lengthy history. Frank (2000, p. 31) traced this history back to the creation of man and his time in the Biblical Garden of Eden. Eve was thought to have effectively advertised the forbidden fruit to Adam.
However, modern advertising may be traced back to the operations of media brokers, who functioned as agents for marketers in procuring media space for the dissemination of sales messages.
Media brokers later took on the job of producing sales messages for their clients and designing them in ways that would better attract and persuade consumers.
The process of developing sales messages in a new and compelling way that may compel the attention and desired response from consumers has remained the job and difficulty of advertising practice over the years.
The functions of advertising are typically classified as
(i) creative and strategy development,
(ii) media planning, buying, and monitoring,
(iii) media exposure and compliance, and
(iv) marketing and brand management.
Even now, producers and distributors rely on advertising to market their products. Buyers would not be aware of and remember items and services if they were not advertised. As a result, the modern industrialised world may collapse (Jefkin, 2006).
Advertising must be employed in the appropriate proportion to maintain profitable manufacturing output, understand and internalise political statements, and interpret economic policies.
According to Jefkin (2007.p.47), “mass production requires mass consumption, which in turn requires advertising to the mass market through the mass media”. Aside from things, ideas and services must be promoted for acceptability.
These concepts could be economic or political. As a result, candidates for elections to various jobs at various levels in all countries throughout the world spend a lot trying to sell themselves to the voters.
Various academicians and communication specialists agree that the mainstream media pervades our daily lives, particularly through advertising. In politics, campaigning have become an important instrument for candidates running for various posts to urge people to vote for them.
During campaigns, advertising and public relations play a major role in promoting political candidates and parties running for various posts. In recent decades, political advertising has seen considerable changes.
According to Iyenga (2000), political advertising is becoming the primary component of political campaigns, making party machinery and grass-roots groups less significant than they were previously.
Diamond and Bates (1992, p. 51) argued that, unlike previous political campaigns, developments in media technology have shortened the process, allowing candidates greater alternatives to reach larger groups of constituents with minimal effort.
According to boundless.com (2015), the expansion of political advertising, particularly in the United States, can be linked to cable television networks and the internet. According to the website boundless.com, the expansion of cable television networks had a significant impact on political advertising in the 1992 election between incumbent President George H.W. Bush and Governor Bill Clinton, notably in reaching out to new target demographics such as women and young voters.
The 2004 election saw yet another, and possibly the most significant, revolution in political advertising: the expansion of the Internet. Both incumbent President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry’s campaigns made extensive use of web-based advertising, and both employed corporations specialising in the collection of personal data.
This resulted in commercials that were customised to specific audiences for the first time (known as narrowcasting). In Nigeria, political advertising has expanded dramatically during the last two decades.
This is most likely due to political parties and their candidates becoming more conscious of the value of advertising in educating voters about a candidate as a ‘better brand’ and communicating their offerings to voters in the form of manifestos.
According to Olujide (2010), advertising has become the most widely employed tool for projecting a positive image of the candidate and a negative image of the opponent.
Previously, political parties and politicians focused the majority of their resources on political rallies, speeches, and direct contact to garner voter support, as mentioned by (Opeibi, 2004).
Between the 2007 and 2011 elections in Nigeria, and most recently the 2015 elections, the use of political ad campaigns has expanded in terms of mode of delivery, language employed, and medium used to express these messages.
The 2007 presidential election saw an overflow of both traditional and new media, with media campaigns for the two leading candidates, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan of the People Democratic Party (PDP) and General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress (APC).
Because of the popularity of these three candidates among voters, campaigns became extremely competitive. Each candidate attempted to outdo the other with political ad campaigns. They created jingles like ‘everyone likes Jimi Agbaje’ and slogans like ‘Ekoonibaje o’.
According to Nworah (2011), the 2015 presidential election between former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan of the PDP and General Muhammadu Buhari of the CPC was notable.
Because Goodluck Jonathan was elected president during his first term, he was tasked with convincing the public that he was a superior choice than his main rival. He accomplished this by investing heavily on media campaigns involving both traditional and digital media.
Although some researchers agree that political advertising is essential to every election campaign, several political consultants disagree on the extent to which it influences voting behaviour.
Previously, political campaign scholars such as Iyenga acknowledged that political media campaigns had a significant impact on voting behaviour.
However, new research has revealed a greater knowledge of the efficacy of political advertising communication in elections. Holbrook (1996) stated that “variations in candidate support during the campaign season are largely due to the occurrence of campaign events.” According to Iyenga, political advertising is persuasive rather than manipulative, and its contents inform voters about the candidates’ positions while also allowing voters to build differentiated opinions of the politicians.
Interestingly, Nigerian voters are getting increasingly exposed to political advertising, far more so than in the past, raising awareness about political decisions before they are made.
Voters are becoming more aware of political information, including as candidates’ manifestos, party programs, and election guidelines, as a result of the ongoing use of political advertising in Nigerian election campaigns.
1.2 Statement of Problem
The 2015 presidential election in Nigeria represents a circumstance in which many political parties competing for political power make heavy use of advertising to promote their respective political parties and candidates to the electorate.
The implication of the preceding statement is that political parties may have improved their chances of winning votes by using advertising messages to persuade voters to vote for them, or they may have failed to achieve their aim because they neglected this or did not do it well. However, the procedure of delivering this message is difficult.
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