IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormksc/v32y2013i1p19-35.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Advertising Effects in Presidential Elections

Author

Listed:
  • Brett R. Gordon

    (Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027)

  • Wesley R. Hartmann

    (Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305)

Abstract

Presidential elections provide both an important context in which to study advertising and a setting that mitigates the challenges of dynamics and endogeneity. We use the 2000 and 2004 general elections to analyze the effect of market-level advertising on county-level vote shares. The results indicate significant positive effects of advertising exposures. Both instrumental variables and fixed effects alter the ad coefficient. Advertising elasticities are smaller than are typical for branded goods yet significant enough to shift election outcomes. For example, if advertising were set to zero and all other factors held constant, three states' electoral votes would have changed parties in 2000. Given the narrow margin of victory in 2000, this shift would have resulted in a different president.

Suggested Citation

  • Brett R. Gordon & Wesley R. Hartmann, 2013. "Advertising Effects in Presidential Elections," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(1), pages 19-35, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:32:y:2013:i:1:p:19-35
    DOI: 10.1287/mksc.1120.0745
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1120.0745
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mksc.1120.0745?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean‐Pierre Dubé & Jeremy T. Fox & Che‐Lin Su, 2012. "Improving the Numerical Performance of Static and Dynamic Aggregate Discrete Choice Random Coefficients Demand Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(5), pages 2231-2267, September.
    2. Sridhar Narayanan & Puneet Manchanda, 2009. "Heterogeneous Learning and the Targeting of Marketing Communication for New Products," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 424-441, 05-06.
    3. Toker Doganoglu & Daniel Klapper, 2006. "Goodwill and dynamic advertising strategies," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 5-29, March.
    4. Prasad A. Naik & Murali K. Mantrala & Alan G. Sawyer, 1998. "Planning Media Schedules in the Presence of Dynamic Advertising Quality," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(3), pages 214-235.
    5. David Soberman & Loïc Sadoulet, 2007. "Campaign Spending Limits and Political Advertising," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(10), pages 1521-1532, October.
    6. Coate, Stephen & Conlin, Michael & Moro, Andrea, 2008. "The performance of pivotal-voter models in small-scale elections: Evidence from Texas liquor referenda," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 582-596, April.
    7. Thomas Stratmann, 2009. "How prices matter in politics: the returns to campaign advertising," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 357-377, September.
    8. Marie Rekkas, 2007. "The Impact of Campaign Spending on Votes in Multiparty Elections," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(3), pages 573-585, August.
    9. Ansolabehere, Stephen D. & Iyengar, Shanto & Simon, Adam, 1999. "Replicating Experiments Using Aggregate and Survey Data: The Case of Negative Advertising and Turnout," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(4), pages 901-909, December.
    10. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    11. Andrews,Donald W. K. & Stock,James H. (ed.), 2005. "Identification and Inference for Econometric Models," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521844413.
    12. Nelson, Philip, 1974. "Advertising as Information," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(4), pages 729-754, July/Aug..
    13. Gerber, Alan S. & Gimpel, James G. & Green, Donald P. & Shaw, Daron R., 2011. "How Large and Long-lasting Are the Persuasive Effects of Televised Campaign Ads? Results from a Randomized Field Experiment," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(1), pages 135-150, February.
    14. Vinay Kanetkar & Charles B. Weinberg & Doyle L. Weiss, 1992. "Price Sensitivity and Television Advertising Exposures: Some Empirical Findings," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(4), pages 359-371.
    15. Jacobson, Gary C., 1978. "The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(2), pages 469-491, June.
    16. Arianna Degan & Antonio Merlo, 2011. "A Structural Model Of Turnout And Voting In Multiple Elections," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 209-245, April.
    17. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 1997. "On two stage least squares estimation of the average treatment effect in a random coefficient model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 129-133, October.
    18. Wattenberg, Martin P. & Brians, Craig Leonard, 1999. "Negative Campaign Advertising: Demobilizer or Mobilizer?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(4), pages 891-899, December.
    19. Brett Gordon & Mitchell Lovett & Ron Shachar & Kevin Arceneaux & Sridhar Moorthy & Michael Peress & Akshay Rao & Subrata Sen & David Soberman & Oleg Urminsky, 2012. "Marketing and politics: Models, behavior, and policy implications," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 391-403, June.
    20. Randall Lewis & David Reiley, 2011. "Does Retail Advertising Work? Measuring the Effects of Advertising on Sales via a Controlled Experiment on Yahoo!," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2011-09, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    21. Gerber, Alan, 1998. "Estimating the Effect of Campaign Spending on Senate Election Outcomes Using Instrumental Variables," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(2), pages 401-411, June.
    22. Levitt, Steven D, 1994. "Using Repeat Challengers to Estimate the Effect of Campaign Spending on Election Outcomes in the U.S. House," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 777-798, August.
    23. Kadiyali, Vrinda & Vilcassim, Naufel & Chintagunta, Pradeep, 1998. "Product line extensions and competitive market interactions: An empirical analysis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1-2), pages 339-363, November.
    24. Jean-Pierre Dubé & Günter Hitsch & Puneet Manchanda, 2005. "An Empirical Model of Advertising Dynamics," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 107-144, June.
    25. Ashworth, Scott & Clinton, Joshua D., 2007. "Does Advertising Exposure Affect Turnout?," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 2(1), pages 27-41, March.
    26. Paul Freedman & Michael Franz & Kenneth Goldstein, 2004. "Campaign Advertising and Democratic Citizenship," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(4), pages 723-741, October.
    27. Ackerberg, Daniel A, 2001. "Empirically Distinguishing Informative and Prestige Effects of Advertising," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(2), pages 316-333, Summer.
    28. Alan Gerber, 2004. "Does campaign spending work?," Natural Field Experiments 00246, The Field Experiments Website.
    29. Hansen, Christian & Hausman, Jerry & Newey, Whitney, 2008. "Estimation With Many Instrumental Variables," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 398-422.
    30. Steven T. Berry, 1994. "Estimating Discrete-Choice Models of Product Differentiation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 242-262, Summer.
    31. Draganska, Michaela & Klapper, Daniel, 2010. "Choice Set Heterogeneity and the Role of Advertising: An Analysis with Micro and Macro Data," Research Papers 2063, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    32. C. Clark & Ulrich Doraszelski & Michaela Draganska, 2009. "The effect of advertising on brand awareness and perceived quality: An empirical investigation using panel data," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 207-236, June.
    33. Ansolabehere, Stephen & Iyengar, Shanto & Simon, Adam & Valentino, Nicholas, 1994. "Does Attack Advertising Demobilize the Electorate?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(4), pages 829-838, December.
    34. Gregory A. Huber & Kevin Arceneaux, 2007. "Identifying the Persuasive Effects of Presidential Advertising," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(4), pages 957-977, October.
    35. J. Miguel Villas-Boas & Russell S. Winer, 1999. "Endogeneity in Brand Choice Models," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(10), pages 1324-1338, October.
    36. Jean-Pierre Dubé & Puneet Manchanda, 2005. "Differences in Dynamic Brand Competition Across Markets: An Empirical Analysis," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 81-95, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brett Gordon & Mitchell Lovett & Ron Shachar & Kevin Arceneaux & Sridhar Moorthy & Michael Peress & Akshay Rao & Subrata Sen & David Soberman & Oleg Urminsky, 2012. "Marketing and politics: Models, behavior, and policy implications," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 391-403, June.
    2. Chan, Tat Y. & Narasimhan, Chakravarthi & Yoon, Yeujun, 2017. "Advertising and price competition in a manufacturer-retailer channel," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 694-716.
    3. Draganska, Michaela & Klapper, Daniel, 2010. "Choice Set Heterogeneity and the Role of Advertising: An Analysis with Micro and Macro Data," Research Papers 2063, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    4. Wilson Law, 2021. "Decomposing political advertising effects on vote choices," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 525-547, September.
    5. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    6. Abel François & Michael Visser & Lionel Wilner, 2022. "The petit effect of campaign spending on votes: using political financing reforms to measure spending impacts in multiparty elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 29-57, July.
    7. Abel François & Michael Visser & Lionel WILNER, 2016. "Campaign spending and legislative election outcomes: Exploiting the French political financing reforms of the mid-1990s," Working Papers 2016-28, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    8. Simon P. Anderson & Federico Ciliberto & Jura Liaukonyte & Régis Renault, 2016. "Push-me pull-you: comparative advertising in the OTC analgesics industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(4), pages 1029-1056, November.
    9. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    10. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage, 2019. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03393084, HAL.
    11. Cagé, Julia & Bekkouche, Yasmine, 2018. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," CEPR Discussion Papers 12614, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Li, Xiaolin & Singh Rao, Raghunath & Narasimhan, Om & Gao, Xing, 2022. "Stay positive or go negative? Memory imperfections and messaging strategy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113556, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2022. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from Multiparty Systems, 1993-2017," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03389172, HAL.
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/10lirmbd5p8h4ae52oi51b4cka is not listed on IDEAS
    15. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    16. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    17. C. Clark & Ulrich Doraszelski & Michaela Draganska, 2009. "The effect of advertising on brand awareness and perceived quality: An empirical investigation using panel data," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 207-236, June.
    18. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/10lirmbd5p8h4ae52oi51b4cka is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Tang, Meng-Chi & Huang, Ya-Wei, 2022. "The effect of endogenous campaign spending and voter heterogeneity on candidates' vote share: Empirical evidence from Taiwanese local elections," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    20. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03384143, HAL.
    21. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," Sciences Po publications 2021-08, Sciences Po.
    22. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1dp7827s4n8ht8fk3qhmeuvd0o is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Alicia Barroso & Gerard Llobet, 2011. "Advertising and Consumer Awareness of New, Differentiated Products," Working Papers wp2011_1104, CEMFI.
    24. Li, Xiaolin & Rao, Raghunath Singh & Narasimhan, Om & Gao, Xing, 2022. "Stay positive or go negative? Memory imperfections and messaging strategy," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1127-1149.
    25. Brett R. Gordon & Wesley R. Hartmann, 2016. "Advertising competition in presidential elections," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 1-40, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:32:y:2013:i:1:p:19-35. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.