Taking Those Spot Shots

By Ed Magnuson

Carter and Reagan put their money on prime time commercials

Now comes the $16 million question: Can paid political advertisements on television measurably influence the outcome of the Nov. 4 presidential election? Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan cannot be certain that their TV campaigns will make much difference at all, yet each is gambling roughly that amount in his drive to lure the American voter. For each, the $16 million is more than half of his allotted $29.4 million in total campaign funds--the highest percentage presidential candidates have ever devoted to television. In contrast, Independent John Anderson, who is not sure of getting federal funding, will be fortunate to raise for his entire campaign what the other two will spend on TV alone.

The ad splurges by Carter and Reagan were highly visible last week: shrewd television time buyers in each camp had grabbed spots on NBC'S five-night-long Japanese soap, Shogun, which soared to spectacular ratings, reaching more than half of all turned-on TV sets--or some 75 million Americans. Reagan spent $75,000 for an opening-night 60-sec. spot. Carter appeared twice later in the week, spending $112,500 on one 60-sec. and one 30-sec. pitch. He may have come out ahead in this scheduling duel since, unlike those of many serial shows, the Shogun audience grew in later episodes.

The familiar 17-in. image of the President will be seen even more frequently in the weeks ahead. His buyers have booked him into network time every day until Nov. 4. So far, 22 Carter commercials have been completed. Reagan has been airing seven spots, while four more are in production. One on economics is scheduled to appear ten times this week in two different lengths. Reagan's experts estimate that the average TV viewer will see it at least twice. Anderson's handicap has been money. Three Anderson ads were aired this summer and more are planned--if the money is there.

But is viewing a TV ad a useful way for a voter to decide who is to be President? The familiar charge is that candidates are packaged like detergents and voters are manipulated by slick sales techniques. The media men who advise both Carter and Reagan contend that they do neither. All they do, they insist, is to permit their candidates to appear before millions in ways that bring out their best traits, not filtered or diffused by the TV news editor, who often catches a candidate at his worst in a public event, or the print reporter, who interprets what the candidate says.

It helps, of course, when the candidates' TV producers detect promotable qualities in the man they are selling. In the case of Carter and Reagan, the enthusiasm of their media masterminds is unbridled. Says Gerald Rafshoon, the former Atlanta adman who prepares Carter's commercials: "We've got the smartest guy in the race. We're going to play that up." Says Peter Dailey, on leave from his California ad agency to help Reagan: "He is one of the great communicators of his generation. Our only problem is how to get that warmth compressed into 30 seconds of television."

Perhaps so, but a lot of sophisticated planning by the TV experts goes into just how their man is presented on the tube. The electronic campaigns of both Carter and Reagan have deliberately started on positive notes, aimed at bolstering shaky supporters and giving the millions of undecided Americans reasons for voting for rather than against the candidate.

Unfortunately, the positive pitches run the risk of being so bland as to go nearly unnoticed among all the teary dramatics and canned laughter of commercial television. Despite some lively visual effects, the Carter ads have been almost too successful in portraying the President as the quiet, calm, hard-working--and uninspiring --man that he is. Reagan is shown more often simply as what the TV experts term "a talking head"--just Ronnie in an easy chair, making his simple points in his smooth, soothing voice. The aim of the ads, says Reagan Aide Stuart Spencer, is to emphasize Reagan's "competence and compassion." By playing up compassion, Spencer says, the campaign is trying to convey the idea that Reagan would not get the U.S. into a war. Admits Spencer: "That's the biggest liability we have with the Governor's image."

Even the positive ads are intended to carry a subliminal bite. One of Carter's, for example, has an announcer describing the complexity of the modern presidency, compared with Lincoln's day, and flashes through scenes of Carter with the Emperor of Japan, Pope John Paul II, Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat. The five-minute film ends with a weary Carter returning to the White House at dusk to work on into the night. Finally, a lonely light burns in the President's study, and the announcer says, "He's not finished yet." What the viewer is supposed to wonder, of course, is whether Reagan, who will be 70 in February, could handle the load.

The second wave of commercials, most still being made, will get sharper. "Once you've created a positive base," says Reagan Senior Adviser James Baker, "then you can go on the attack." Last week, the Carter team tested one of its five anti-Reagan ads during a CBS movie. The scene was an empty Oval Office. A voice asked: "When you come right down to it, what kind of person should occupy the Oval Office? Should it be a person who, like Ronald Reagan, has a fractured view of America?"

As for Reagan, he sought to exploit Carter's absence from the League of Women Voters' debate by launching an ad blitz on Sunday and Monday. The setting was an empty podium. A woman's voice said: "Maybe he won't debate because he knows the real question is, 'Can we afford four more years of this?' "

The cost of a TV ad varies from $150 for 30 seconds on NBC's Today shown only in New York City, to $3,800 for 30 seconds nationally on Days of Our Lives, to $100,000 for 60 seconds during a prime-time pro football game broadcast across the U.S. Under federal law, a network selling time to one major presidential candidate must offer his opponent a slot with an audience of similar size.

Academic experts who have studied the impact of political TV advertising seriously doubt that the huge costs are worth the modest results. George Reedy, former press secretary for Lyndon Johnson and now a professor of journalism at Marquette University, believes that an appearance on a nightly network news show has far more punch with the voter than a commercial. Reedy is skeptical that it really helps Reagan to appear, as he did last week during Shogun, between a beheading on the show and a tampon ad.

A study at M.I.T. directed by Edwin Diamond, a senior lecturer in political science, concluded that the TV ads in past presidential campaigns have served mainly to reinforce the opinion of voters who already favor one candidate. "People ain't dumb," says Diamond. "One-half of the population is now 33 or over. They grew up on television. They are not fooled by it. They know when they are being Daileyed and Rafshooned."

Even Reagan's TV expert Dailey cites studies showing that nearly a third of the commercial messages delivered over TV are misunderstood by viewers. "People aren't really intently listening," he says. "TV is a way to turn yourself off." Dailey recalls research showing that the electronic brain scan of a person watching TV is remarkably similar to that of the same person sleeping soundly.

The problem for the candidates as they strive to gain every edge-- overt and subliminal--is tricky: How can they wake the viewers up and still appear cool and presidential?

--By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Douglas Brew with Reagan and Christopher Ogden with Carter

With reporting by Douglas Brew, Christopher Ogden

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.