The pre-emptive strike - negative campaigning - 24 Winning Ideas

Sometimes Going Negative Early Is Its Own Reward

In a nutshell, I think that starting very early was what made a difference for several key clients this cycle.

In Indiana's U.S. Senate race. the Coats campaign commissioned opposition research long before 1992. We made two important discoveries. First, our opponent, Secretary of State Joe Hogsett, liked to backload his media spending well after the World Series, to use his own point of reference. Second, Hogsett had publicly acknowledged his understanding of the principles of negative advertising and the need to always respond to such attacks. By developing a strategy that would exploit these two characteristics, we felt we could win.

Meanwhile, we wanted to exploit Coats' incumbency advantage in fundraising, something we couldn't do if we let Hogsett limit the campaign to the final four to six weeks. By initiating a long, drawn-out campaign in which our superior resources would pay dividends early on, we would have the strategic advantage.

To draw out Hogsett, we launched an unprecedented radio attack, produced by The Stuart Stevens Group, in late spring and early summer. Using radio earlier than any campaign I've known, we stayed on the airwaves all summer.

Hogsett never responded with paid media, even though our own internal polling showed our attacks were paying dividends by defining him negatively early in the race.

In late summer we began attack television, repeating the themes developed in the spring and summer radio. Soon thereafter Hogsett took the bait and started his paid TV, weeks ahead of his preferred schedule. He started his media buy at parity with Coats but had exhausted his funds after only a month or so.

We also conducted extensive focus groups for Coats more than a year before the election. Using electronic ad testing in several communities across Indiana, we measured reactions of voters to 30 minutes of miscellaneous video featuring Coats.

These tests helped us gauge reaction to Coat's various modes of message delivery and to ascertain reactions to his use of personal anecdotes, humor, and self-deprecation.

These groups were not typical copy tests, per se, as when we test story-boards or finished ads. It was communications testing in its purest form. We simply wanted to see what reactions Coats got when presented in ordinary forums. Was our message clear? Was it well understood? Were we talking about important issues?

From speeches to spots, all facets of the senator's communications were enhanced by learning the answers to these questions before they could become problems.

David B. Hill is director of Hill Research Consultants, a Republican polling firm in Houston, TX.

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