Televised Political Ad Experiments - Dial Tests - Obama and Romney - Spring 2012
Political ad dial tests (graphics below) demonstrate that campaign messages polarize partisan respondents. Democrats rate Romney sponsored ads unfavorably and rate Obama ads favorably, regardless of the message's tone or issue content. Republicans, on the other hand, rate Romney sponsored ads very favorably and Obama ads negatively.
The set of graphics (below) displays ad dial tests for five Romney ads and five Obama ads from a 1,200 person experiment conducted with Shanto Iyengar in late April / early May 2012. Each panel displays results among Republicans (left panel), Democrats (middle) and Independents (right). The figures have seconds on the x-axis and favorability (-100 is very unfavorable, 100 is very favorable) on the y-axis. The faded lines in the background represent individual trajectories, while the thicker trend line represents the mean favorability score. There are two readings per second and the ad titles are listed below the x-axis.
The second figure displays mean ratings for all 10 ads by party. Overall, the ad's sponsor is the strongest driver of favorability. Republicans nearly always rate Romney ads favorably and Obama ads unfavorably. Yet, partisans give the highest ratings to positive ads sponsored by their party's candidate and independents rate positive ads more favorably than negative messages.
Watch the political ads used in this experiment here.
The set of graphics (below) displays ad dial tests for five Romney ads and five Obama ads from a 1,200 person experiment conducted with Shanto Iyengar in late April / early May 2012. Each panel displays results among Republicans (left panel), Democrats (middle) and Independents (right). The figures have seconds on the x-axis and favorability (-100 is very unfavorable, 100 is very favorable) on the y-axis. The faded lines in the background represent individual trajectories, while the thicker trend line represents the mean favorability score. There are two readings per second and the ad titles are listed below the x-axis.
The second figure displays mean ratings for all 10 ads by party. Overall, the ad's sponsor is the strongest driver of favorability. Republicans nearly always rate Romney ads favorably and Obama ads unfavorably. Yet, partisans give the highest ratings to positive ads sponsored by their party's candidate and independents rate positive ads more favorably than negative messages.
Watch the political ads used in this experiment here.