How does a politics major from Drake University end up in advertising? I believed in the invisible hand of a free market society. Most people with a politics degree use it as a pathway to law or into political campaigning. Both crossed my mind and I did take a practice LSAT, but neither screamed for me to follow them. Instead, I pursued advertising.

Politics is inevitable. Advertising, both corporate and political, is inevitable. Political advertising interfering with corporate advertising every two years is inevitable. But corporate America advertising never tries to understand political advertising and how to work through it. They just accept it as an inevitability and destruction to their campaigns for six months. And that’s where I sold my value. I understood the politics, and was quickly able to pick up the real-world corporate advertising. When these two concepts are combined, an amazing force is created.

In terms of advertising, there has been a see-sawing motion between who leads who. Some decades politics took the lead, and others had corporate America. As a guy working corporate America advertising, and heavily researching political advertising, I can say that corporate America is leading. Digital ads are great, an getting a million targeted impressions sounds nifty. Hell, for a few bucks a day, you can run a six times frequency targeted ad at a small audience for months on end. Digital is filled with infinite inventory and countless targeting. But is it working?

Advertising is a beautiful place where anyone can be right. With enough ingenuity and justification, any tactic, budget, target, and timeframe can make sense. But how effective was it? Did it actually move the needle? Was there research behind the plan? Or did some guy just say this is what we need to do because I said so and have won 70% of campaigns I managed?And will be the focus. It’s time research and science take a look at political advertising. No longer should ad campaigns be designed because it worked for candidate Z in the last election. Let’s throw it all on the table and figure out what gets the electorate to vote. And hopefully toss out a few ideas still in use from the 1950’s.