Political Television Commercials: An Experimental Study of Type and Length

Abstract

Considerable controversy has arisen over the use in political campaigns of short, image-oriented television commercials. This study compared the effect of type (image and issue) and length (5 minute and 60 second) of political television commercials in terms of candidate evaluation, recall of commercial content, and likelihood of voting for the candidate. Issue commercials resulted in higher candidate evaluation while image commercials resulted in greater recall of content. Higher evaluation of the candidate was achieved by five-minute commercials, but no significant difference in content recall attributable to length was present. An interaction between type and length of commercials surfaced on the voting variable, and the 60-second issue commercial appeared to be slightly superior to other combinations.