An Assessment Of Political Advertising On Electorates In The 2015 Presidential Election

An Assessment Of Political Advertising On Electorates In The 2015 Presidential Election

Chapter One

Preface

Background of the Study

Advertising practice has a long history. Frank( 2000. p, 31) traced this history to as long ago as the creation of man and the visit in the Biblical theater of Eden. Eve was said to have successfully announced the interdicted fruit to Adam. ultramodern advertising has still been traced to the conditioning of media brokers who acted as agents to advertisers in securing space in the media for the publication of their deals dispatches. Media brokers latterly took on the responsibility of developing the deals dispatches for their guests and designing them in the forms they will more attract and convert consumers. The process of creating deals dispatches in a fresh and poignant manner similar as could impel the attention and asked response from the consumers has remained the part and challenge of advertising practice over the times. The functions of advertising is generally broken into( i) creative and strategy development( ii) media planning, buying and covering( iii) media exposure and compliance and( iv) marketing and brand operation.

Indeed moment, directors and distributors depend on advertising to vend their products. Without announcements, buyers would not know about the actuality of products and services and continue to flash back them. Accordingly, the ultramodern bucolic world may collapse( Jefkin, 2006). still, political dispatches understood and internalized and profitable programs interpreted, advertising must continue to be used in the right proportion, If plant affair is to be maintained profitably. Jefkin( 2007. p, 47) argues that “ mass product requires mass consumption, which in turn requires advertising to the mass request through the mass media ”. piecemeal from products, ideas and services also need to be announced for acceptance. similar ideas could be profitable or political. Hence, campaigners for choices into different positions, at different situations in all countries of the world, spend a fortune to vend themselves to the electorate.

That the mass media pervades our diurnal lives, including through advertising, has been well established by colorful scholars and communication experts. In politics, juggernauts have come an essential tool used by campaigners querying for colorful positions, to convert people to bounce for them. Advertising and public relations enthrall the centre stage of creation of political campaigners and parties fighting for different political positions during juggernauts. In recent decades, political advertising has changed significantly. According to Iyenga( 2000) political advertising is decreasingly the main element in political juggernauts, rendering party machines and lawn- root organisations less important than they were in the history. Diamond and Bates( 1992. p, 51) also posited that unlike political juggernauts in the history, advances in media technology have streamlined the process, giving campaigners more options to reach larger groups of ingredients with little trouble. According toboundless.com( 2015) the growth of political advertising – especially in the United States – can be attributed to string TV networks and the internet. Theboundless.com website states that the growth of string TV networks heavily told political advertising in the 1992 election between peremptory President GeorgeH.W. Bush and Governor Bill Clinton, particularly in reaching new target demographics similar as women and youthful choosers.

The 2004 election saw yet another, and conceivably the biggest, change yet in political advertising – the growth of the Internet. Web- grounded advertising was fluently distributed by both peremptory President GeorgeW. Bush and Senator John Kerry’s juggernauts, and both juggernauts hired enterprises who specialized in the accumulation of particular data. This redounded in announcements which were acclimatized to target specific cult for the first time( a process known as narrowcasting). In Nigeria, political advertising has grown immensely in the once two decades. This is presumably a result of the growing mindfulness by political parties and their campaigners of the utility of advertising to educate the electorate about a seeker as a ‘ better brand ’, and to communicate their immolations in form of manifestos to the electorate. Olujide( 2010) notes that advertising has come the most generally used fashion to produce a favourable image for the seeker and a negative image for the opponent. Before now, political parties and campaigners conducted utmost of their coffers into political rallies, speeches and direct contact to gather the support of electorates, as noted by( Opeibi, 2004). Between the 2007, 2011 and most lately the 2015 choices in Nigeria, the use of political announcement juggernauts has expanded with regard to mode of delivery, type of language used, and forms of media used to communicate these dispatches. The 2007 presidential election saw the overflow of both traditional and new media with media juggernauts of the two strongest contenders, who were Goodluck Ebele Jonathan of the People Democratic Party( PDP) and General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress( APC). Because of the fashionability of these three campaigners amongst the electorate, juggernauts came largely competitive. Each seeker tried to eclipse the other using political announcement juggernauts. They came up with colorful jingles, similar as ‘ everybody loves Jimi Agbaje ’, and taglines similar as ‘ Ekoonibaje o ’. According to Nworah( 2011), the 2015 presidential election between former chairman Goodluck Ebele Jonathan of the PDP and General Muhammadu Buhari of the CPC had its tricks. Because Goodluck Jonathan had been tagged chairman during his first term, he was ladened with the responsibility of persuading the electorate that he was a better choice than his strongest opponent. This he did by investing a lot of finances into media juggernauts, which included traditional media and the new media.

Although some scholars agree that political advertising is important to every election crusade, certain political advisers remain divided on the extent to which political advertising influences advancing geste . In the history, political crusade experimenters similar as Iyenga agreed that political media juggernauts had a great effect on voting geste . still, recent studies have shown a better understanding of the effectiveness of political advertising communication in choices. Holbrook( 1996) concluded that ‘ variations in seeker support during the crusade season are largely attributable to the circumstance of crusade events. ’ Iyenga stated that political advertising is conclusive rather than manipulative, and its dispatches inform choosers about the campaigners ’ positions and allow choosers to develop discerned images of the campaigners.

Interestingly, Nigerian choosers are getting ever more exposed to political advertising – a lot further than in the history, which in turn raises mindfulness about political opinions before they’re taken. Choosers are getting more apprehensive about political information, including information on campaigners and their manifestos, party programs and election guidelines, through the continual use of political advertising in election juggernauts in Nigeria.

Statement of the Problem

The case of the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria exemplifies a situation that different political parties in the race for political power made expansive use of advertising to vend their different political parties and campaigners to the electorate. The recrimination of the below statement is that political parties may have had their chances enhanced through advertising dispatches prevailing the electorate to bounce for their parties or failed in realizing their thing because they ignored this or didn’t do it the right way. still, the process of this communication delivery is a complex bone .