The world of advertising is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as a way to alleviate deceptive ways within the infrastructure of commerce.
Deceptive – adjective: causing one to believe what is not true or fail to believe what is true (www.dictionary.com).
These regulatory notions should be taken into effect with political advertising. However, they are not. The FTC only regulates advertising within the commercial realm. Presidential elections are not considered commercial; therefore, the details and ideals shared on a candidate’s behalf might not be all they are packaged up to be.
Take into consideration certain status quo of the products we see commercial advertising for on a day to day basis – price, branding, organizational association, expiration date, net weight, the country of origin, not just country of manufacture. Are these all notions that we consider significant in the advertising that we see for the non-commercial items or ideas as well?
Some presidential candidates will pump themselves full of fillers or display awesome packaging based on what they think the consumer will “buy.” It seems to be no different from commercial advertising efforts for other everyday items consumed by the general public. Except! What we listen for or even buy into during the election year effects how we live our daily lives – even if the surgeon general’s warning discourages it.
Some smoke, most pay sales tax, and all of us should vote. Policy-regulated advertising impacts all of is…
I guess that’s why they call it campaigning.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Another sad fact: spam laws don’t apply to political organizations. I somehow got on a radical anti-immigration e-mail list–they wouldn’t take me off, and there’s nothing I can do about it.