Small Ad Run Dwarfs Buzz of Other TV Spots

In the past half year, President Bush, Sen. John F. Kerry and others have spent well over $250 million on campaign commercials that have saturated 100 local television markets. But the advertisement that has grabbed the most buzz was actually a bargain.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth paid $500,000 to run its debut ad 739 times in seven small and mid-sized media markets earlier this month, according to data released Friday from Nielsen Monitor-Plus and the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project.

The 60-second ad, which questioned whether Kerry deserved two of the medals he won as a naval officer in the Vietnam War, has been off the air for two weeks.

Several news media investigations have cast doubt on the credibility of the ad’s claims; military records that have been made public generally support Kerry’s accounts of his action.

Yet voters still are talking about it, Democrats and Republicans are still fighting over it and pollsters are still gauging its impact.

The number of Americans who say they have seen or heard about the ad -- more than half the country, the National Annenberg Election Survey reported last week -- far exceeds the number who might have seen the spot when it aired as a local commercial in Charleston, W.Va.; Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown, Ohio; and Green Bay, Wassau and La Crosse, Wis.

The original purchase of air time, said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of TNSMI/Campaign Media Analysis Group, was “token at best.” The group’s ad-tracking data corroborate the new Nielsen report.

But the spot started a political firestorm.

“One ad that shines through might be worth more than 30,000 mediocre ads,” said Kenneth M. Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin. “That’s the case with everything. Some ads are better than other ads. And then you get something like this, and it’s off the charts.”

The impact of the anti-Kerry spot is reminiscent of past ads that aired briefly but became political lore.

For instance, the so-called “Daisy” ad that President Johnson used to raise fears that Republican presidential candidate Barry S. Goldwater would start a nuclear war aired just once in 1964. But it caused an instant uproar. News media covered it heavily, and the damage was done.

This year, even Democrats who call the anti-Kerry Swift boat ad blatantly false concede it did its job.

“The bottom line here is, this has been driving news media coverage for a couple weeks,” Democratic National Committee media consultant Steve Murphy said. “And in that sense, it’s been overwhelmingly successful.” Murphy contended the ad had captured wide attention because it was released during what he called the “August silly season” between the Democratic and Republican conventions.

Analysts and political professionals agreed that the timing of the ad helped it seize the political stage. They also cited these factors:

* Cable television, which replayed the ad frequently, and talk radio and the Internet, which seized on the controversy and amplified it.

* The ad’s content -- which directly challenged a central plank of Kerry’s candidacy -- and its clarity. “You can agree or disagree,” Goldstein said, “but this is a clear, unambiguous message.”

* The uproar over the ad’s connection to Republican donors who back Bush. That angle has been generating headlines all week. The University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg survey reported Friday that 46% of Americans believed the Bush camp was behind the ad, despite the campaign’s denials.

The Swift boat ad has not been the only one this year to generate bounce. Bush drew criticism -- and plenty of media attention -- in March when one of his first ads used images drawn from ground zero.

He also caused a dust-up with an Internet video that labeled Kerry and other Democratic speakers “The Coalition of the Wild-Eyed.”

Among interest groups that back Kerry, MoveOn.org has scored free publicity with consistency.

In January and February, it generated attention with an ad called “Child’s Pay,” which featured children laboring as dishwashers, factory workers and garbage collectors to pay off the federal budget deficits piling up under Bush.

The 30-second spot, which CBS refused to air during the Super Bowl, got extra exposure through newscasts and online distribution.

Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn’s political action committee, said the anti-Kerry Swift boat ad succeeded because of what he called “scandalous allegations which became the topic of debate.”

Republicans have said much the same about MoveOn’s ads.

But Pariser and independent advertising experts said another key to a successful ad was originality. The Bush and Kerry campaigns, they said, often use formats that are workmanlike, but not especially memorable.

“People pay more attention to new things,” Pariser said. “We try to keep things lively, keep things different. You search for new ways of connecting with people.”