The Ad Game: How To Sway 7% Of The Voters Through Razzmatazz. : Impact: It’s where advertising runs that counts.

Television executives who do lunch and nervously watch the overnights are using some hot new buzzwords this season. Media moguls and industry researchers are heavy into “fragmentation” and “niche programming.” And--for better or worse--political campaigning is dependent on media. So candidates, pundits, voters and reporters had better pay attention, too.

It may be that, in the debate over the use of mass media in election campaigns, critics and reformers have been ignoring a key point. They have concerned themselves with the impact of negative ads and of the high cost of television time needed to air them. But, as one veteran television executive argued, the question of where candidates put their advertising may be as important as how much it costs and what it looks like.

As of last year, half of U. S. households could choose from more than 30 TV channels. With so many selections, the viewing audience has become fragmented, each segment reflecting different characteristics, interests, and lifestyles.

That’s where niche programming comes in. As a recent Times article explained it, “Niche programming works this way: Think small. Spend less. Find your place in television’s universe with very specific programs, for . . . very specific, dedicated viewers.”

Let’s look at what that means, “politics-wise.”

California has seen this year’s gubernatorial campaigns driven by the need for candidates to raise gargantuan amounts of money, largely to advertise on commercial television.

The irony is that, while campaigns continue to be media-driven, the intensity of media’s impact may have lessened. Fragmentation, niche programming and the economics of television news all have worked to reduce the access of campaigns to voters and the access of voters to political information.

Candidates are spending time on the phone, raising money for messages they can control, rather than bouncing around the state, visiting local media outlets. That means less information is available for news feeds.

Tight budgets and little viewer pressure for political news have shrunk television’s campaign coverage. This season, local stations have bumped California political stories in favor of coverage of erupting national and international events.

A proliferation of viewing choices--especially cable, videocassette recorders and remote controls--has expanded viewers’ media options. Californians who never want to see or hear another piece of political information can easily screen it out with the switch of the dial or a touch of the fast-forward button.

What may be politically significant is that mass-media defectors tend to be better-off and better educated--not unlike the profile of the high-propensity voter. If voters are getting less information from the media and not getting it elsewhere, where are they learning their politics?

This election season, the pattern has been that candidates have telescoped their paid media campaigns into a few commercials that air repeatedly during the last month or so of the campaign, when voters tend to focus some attention on political ads.

That is why the spot that propelled Dianne Feinstein ahead of her Democratic primary opponent has been recycled for the general election campaign. The voters, her campaign explained, needed to be re-acquainted with her.

That is why campaign advertising tends to focus on what the National Journal calls hot-button issues--”images, pictures and ideas with the power to appeal to the most voters in the least time.”

In California, that has translated into spots on crime and the death penalty. They send the message that both candidates are tough. And ads that focus on education and crack babies project an image of caring.

Conventional wisdom has it that the news media have more influence on voters than paid media. It is also gospel that most voters get their news from the electronic media.

That’s why, before economics led stations to lift their ban on political advertising during news programming, a so-called “news adjacency” was coveted by the candidates and their media buyers.

That’s why “reality spots,” using actual news clips and headlines to bolster a candidate’s image--or to lend credibility to his or her charges--are prominent in this campaign. That technique was used to blunt Democrat Feinstein’s attack linking her Republican gubernatorial rival, Pete Wilson, to the savings-and-loan crisis. A TV spot by the Wilson campaign highlighted newspaper criticism--including that of The Times--of Feinstein’s charges.

In a recent New York Times article, Feinstein media consultant Hank Morris extolled “docu-commercials,” which he defined as “pieces of actual, real history.” Big deal. Biographical spots have been a staple of campaign politics forever. What makes them so special in this campaign is that they are the major source of information about the candidates.

If there is more “truth” in political advertising now than there has been, as the New York Times article argues, it is because campaigns have to expose voters to more information about their candidates in less time--and because the news media aren’t doing that for them.

What little is known about the accuracy of these ads comes from the “truth boxes” in which major newspapers critique TV spots. But how many voters read them? How much time is left for that “boring political stuff” after catching up with Iraq, Bush, Doonesbury and the Raiders?

The reality is that, for most Californians, print media has become almost superfluous to the campaign process. Candidates spend next to nothing on print ads. And voters choose to get even less political information from print than they do from electronic media.

Stories in the daily newspapers are important more for their impact on potential contributors and TV assignment editors than they are for informing the average citizen.

For politics, the lesson of the media revolution is that candidates and causes will have to target potential voters where they view--whether it is ESPN for sports, MTV for the music-video crowd, or Lifetime for women’s programming.

Proponents of the “Big Green” environmental initiative created a stir with a star-studded 30-minute video aimed at specific cable markets. There will be more of that. Soon, predicted one cable executive, a campaign’s media buyer will be as important as its creative team.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch talks about bundled media as the wave of the future. A package of advertising is put together that utilizes several media to hit a specific audience. That, too, has implications for future political campaigns.

That kind of approach requires retail politics; it will cost more than playing politics wholesale in the mass media. Look for political advertising packages that will use targeted television and radio, voter slates, direct mail and videotapes to supplement--or to replace--both paid and unpaid mass media. Campaign messages will be narrowcast rather than broadcast. As a result, information may be less visible and accessible.

Segmenting political information has other risks. Where is there a place to view a candidate’s grand vision? What happens to the need to establish political priorities and a policy agenda? Will politicians find themselves locked into pandering to narrow special-interest groups? How can one distill the public good from a hundred different messages?

For the average voter, the media revolution means that the window of political information continues to close. Many of us want it that way. But others are victims of the changing demographics of communication.

We are never going to get rid of media. We can’t--and shouldn’t--in this complex global village. In the end, it is the responsibility of voters to demand enough information to make reasoned political decisions. And then to use that information to cast their ballots. That has always been the democratic ideal. It’s just that sometimes we’re too lazy to make the system work.

This season, niche programming may motivate at least one segment of our fragmented voting population. Listen to MTV’s Madonna, in her youth-targeted “Rock the Vote” ad: “If you don’t vote, you’re going to get a spankie.”

Hey, whatever works. Ciao, baby.