Why Pichay still lost: The importance of political ads

Why Pichay still lost
The importance of political ads
By Rocel Ann G. Junio and Katherine Anne O. Laurio

WITH ITS 95-percent reach among Filipino households (according to a July 2005 Asia Research Organization study), television has become the Filipinos’ most preferred source of news and information. No wonder that in this year’s elections campaign, candidates poured millions of pesos into television advertisements, hoping that their 30-second broadcast billboards would translate to votes.
In an effort to “level the playing field” between the prominent and the lesser-known candidates, the ban on political ads was lifted in 2001, allowing candidates to flood viewers’ screens with their political advertisements.

Selling a candidate
Political advertisements are a special kind of ads. They “sell” a candidate instead of the usual goods. However, according to advertising professor and practitioner Eleanor Agulto, some of the principles of commercial advertising could apply to political advertising, thus the analogy between a political candidate and a brand.
Jay Bautista, executive director of Nielsen Media Research Philippines (NMRP), a television research agency, said that selling an unknown candidate was like selling a new product.
“If there’s a new product not known to anyone, TV or mass media allows you to introduce the product and make people aware of it,” Bautista told Channel News Asia last March 20.  “Similar to a political candidate who is not a national figure, mass media allows him to be seen and heard and make the voters aware that he is running.”
In line with the parallelism between political advertising and commercial advertising, most TV ads use the same devices in product advertisements—jingles, slogans, and testimonies, among other things—to achieve “brand awareness” and “brand identity,” which were identified by Agulto as the major goals of political ads.
“Brand awareness” and “brand identity” were achieved in the 2004 senatorial elections, when relatively unknown candidates like Pilar Juliana “Pia” Cayetano Sebastian and Maria Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal overwhelmingly won in the elections. Four months prior to election day, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) reported that the two were not among the winning 12 candidates. But persistent airing of their political ads eventually proved to be the strategy that worked best for them as they were not only able to introduce themselves to the electorate, but had also successfully solicited votes.
Genuine Opposition spokes-person Adel Tamano, however, looks at political advertisements as an alternative to the usual “political sorties” held by candidates during their campaign. While political ads and political sorties consume a lot of resources, he said that political ads assure wider access to voters and at the same time cost less than a full-blown national sortie.
“For candidates who are unable to or who do not have the ability or resources to go around the country… [they] can do political ads,” Tamano told PJR Reports.
This statement coincides with Agulto’s observation that for a candidate running for a national position, political ads are indeed more “cost-efficient” compared to campaign sorties.

Money matters
Although seen as a better option, political ads are by no means cheap, especially when these ads are placed with the country’s media giants. A study by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) showed that a 30-second ad aired during prime time in GMA-7 and ABS-CBN 2 costs P252,000 and P183,000, respectively. However, candidates were given discounts for bulk ad placements.
The high cost of television advertising, however, has not deterred candidates from spending millions on these. For TV ads alone, an NMRP study disclosed that among the candidates in the 2004 senatorial elections, Manuel “Mar” Roxas III spent the most, shelling out P96.3 million. Madrigal invested P53.31 million while Cayetano spent P42.77 million. In contrast, when he ran in the 2001 senatorial elections, Manuel Villar spent a relatively low P38.57 million in total campaign expenses.
For this year’s elections, the NMRP study (February 13 to May 1) showed that Surigao del Sur Rep. Prospero “Butch” Pichay Jr. spent P127.39 million for campaign ads, followed by Senators Joker Arroyo and Manuel Villar with P117.64 million and P104.35 million, respectively.
The 2004 senatorial elections, however, showed that despite the specific number of minutes that each candidate could be given under the Fair Elections Act, the candidates had unequal access to airtime and ad space.  For despite the supposed equal air time that was available to all, the candidates’ resources were simply not equal.
In 2004, the less-moneyed candidates were either far off the Magic 12 or had a difficult time climbing to a safer spot in the list. For instance, Rodolfo Biazon, a senatorial candidate then, had a “seesaw battle” with Robert Barbers before clinching the 12th spot.
Biazon could only say, “I couldn’t help it. I didn’t have money!”
The fate of the candidates of Ang Kapatiran is thus as easily explained. Campaign director Boy dela Cruz said that although the group had qualified candidates, they could not afford to pay for political ads that would introduce them to the electorate.
“We have good products, ‘di [lang] mai-package nang husto (but we could not package them well),” he said. Because of this, the party turned to endorsements by friends in AM radio stations and columnists. The candidates also grabbed every opportunity to appear on television by attending forums and by commenting on issues.

Media exposure
Although a candidate’s success was often related to the frequency of his or her political ad, Agulto recognizes that media exposure also influences voters’ perceptions of candidates. She said that if this year’s political aspirants were to be examined, those who led in the media quick counts were actually “media stars.”
“Media made them, talked about them, created their… brand image,” she said.
Such candidates are considered “media stars” because they were often seen on television, whether in news programs or entertainment shows, well before the campaign period began. In this instance, political ads merely served to reinforce previous media exposure, Agulto said.
The experiences of former senator John Henry Osmeña and former Manila mayor Alfredo Lim provide interesting examples. Despite being among the top 10 TV ad spenders in 2004, with expenses amounting to P52.01 million, Osmeña lost.
On the other hand, Lim spent only P4.43 million in TV political ads and won.
Newsbreak’s Spin and Sell: How political ads shaped the 2004 elections claimed that Lim’s victory was understandable as he was exposed to the media prior to the campaigns by being the host of a public service TV program and a radio program.

Opposition poster boy
For Agulto, soldier Antonio Trillanes IV’s media exposure before the campaign as the leader of the junior officers who took part in the 2003 Oakwood mutiny could be a reason for his strong showing in this year’s elections. “Trillanes achieved brand awareness and brand identity,” she said.
Tamano, however, views Trillanes’s performance in the context of overwhelming public disapproval  of the incumbent administration.
“We tapped into the anti-GMA (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) sentiments… Because there was really that protest, Trillanes was a perfect fit… He was really the poster child of anti-GMA sentiment,” he said.
Malaya columnist Ellen Tordesillas thinks that Trillanes’s “inclusion in the Genuine Opposition ticket was a major boost to his candidacy but it was still handicapped by his detention, lack of access to media, and lack of money.”
Meanwhile, Michael Defensor attributed his poor vote delivery to his association with the President.
When asked about the case of the candidates of Ang Kapatiran, Agulto explained that their inability to make it to the Senate should not only be blamed on their meager resources but also on their lack of publicity before and during the campaign.
“I’ve listened to them, they have very good platforms, very good intentions… and I think to a certain extent they have been successful despite the meager (political ads)… Nevertheless, the ones who made it to the Magic 12 were those who were already known prior to the election season,” she said.
Mere media exposure, however, does not assure victory for a candidate. Agulto noted that success still depends on the type of media exposure one has. Negative publicity is not likely to make a candidate appear good even if one floods the TV screens with campaign ads. Two cases in point: Teresa Aquino Oreta and Vicente “Tito” Sotto III.
When the media reported on their transfer to the administration-backed Team Unity (TU) despite their known association with former president Joseph Estrada, this apparently did not sit well with voters who perceived their move as having been motivated by political expediency.
This was in contrast to the publicity received by senatorial candidate Francis Joseph “Chiz” Escudero, whose image of a young, aggressive, and charis-matic opposition representative in the House of Representatives boosted his popularity and ensured his position among  the top five senatorial candidates.

Source of information
Despite the power of political advertisements in reaching the electorate, the more crucial question is whether or not these ads are helpful in giving the public sufficient information about the candidates. According to an SWS election survey of 1,200 respondents randomly inter-viewed on March 15 to 18, most voters do regard political ads as helpful in choosing candidates. Twenty-four percent of the population considered political ads to be of “very much help” while 31 percent said these ads were “somewhat (of) much help.”
But these ads were aired within very short periods, so how were they able to deliver crucial information such as platforms and track records?
According to Tamano, candidates would produce “fiesta ads,” which show people singing and dancing, along with catchy jingles and slogans and brightly colored backgrounds.
Agulto also said that viewers should not expect much from political ads since a candidate’s platforms and programs could not be contained in just 30 seconds.
With political ads as a source of financial windfall,  media organizations could not be blamed for airing them. To fill in the information gap, media outfits would present programs that provide information and encourage public discussion of important issues.
One of these programs was GMA-7’s Isang Tanong, where senatorial candidates were made to answer questions from media practitioners and fellow candidates within a time limit. Also, ANC’s Senatorial Forum and Midterm Elections Forum invited senatorial candidates and party-list nominees to express their stand on certain issues.
Such programs, some which incidentally scored high in television ratings, helped in educating voters and sealing the outcome of the elections.
And so it is true that while political ads have the power to help a candidate, these have to be combined with other factors, the most important of which is the candidate himself.
Veteran broadcast journalist Cheche Lazaro agrees.   In an interview with the Inter Press Service News Agency last May 12, she said, “It’s a combination of media exposure and track record, or awareness, perhaps. All of these things come into play.” n

Rocel Ann G. Junio and Katherine Anne O. Laurio are journalism students of the University of the Philippines and University of Santo Tomas, respectively. They served as volunteers in the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility’s monitor of media coverage of the 2007 elections.

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