Press Release

While Voters Don’t Like Negative Ads, they are Effective at Grabbing Attention

LOS ANGELES, CA – March 17, 2016 — Ace Metrix, the leader in measuring the impact of video advertising, has found that recent anti-Donald Trump TV ads are effective at swaying Independent voters away from Donald Trump. However, this may not be impacting the Republican field during primaries because out of all recent Presidential campaign ads (not limited to anti-Trump ads), those resonating the most among Independents are ads from Bernie Sanders. These findings were based on examining the effectiveness of 24 anti-Trump ads, mostly funded by Super PACs, that have aired since late January. Other findings include:

• “TALK TALK TALK” earned the highest Ace Score among Independent voters with a score of 559, well above the norm of 420. Created by the pro-Kasich PAC, New Day for America, the ad blasts Trump and the other Republican candidates for engaging in angry rhetoric, in contrast to Kasich as the only candidate who has taken action, more specifically creating jobs. The ad also earned an impressive Impact Score of 56, well above the norm for this audience of 44. The Impact Score directly measures the ad’s influence on the voting decision by asking the question “after seeing this ad, how likely or unlikely are you to vote for the candidate?”
• The most effective anti-Trump ads included themes around being scammed by Trump University, his past history of employing illegal immigrants, and general mistrust of Trump based on past support on issues like abortion and Obamacare. The three highest-scoring of these ads among the swing voters are sponsored by the pro-John Kasich PAC, New Day for America, and two strictly anti-Trump PACs, American Future Fund and Our Principles PAC.
• In exploring the viewer verbatim responses of the top performing Anti-Trump ads, while voters express distaste for negative ads, they do work according to the components scores of Agreement, Attention, and Credibility.
• Looking at performance of all Presidential campaign ads from the past 14 days among this swing group, four of the top six are from the Bernie Sanders campaign, and one is from Hillary for America. Two anti-Trump ads reach the top ten, “Talk Talk Talk” and “For Our Jobs”, but the prevalence of Sanders ads among this group indicates where the swing votes may be heading.

Mark Bryant, VP at Ace Metrix, is available for interviews about political findings and as a resource on specific campaign ads, overall ad themes and what is resonating with the public.

About Ace Metrix POLITICS

Launched in 2012, Ace Metrix POLITICS provides video ad effectiveness metrics and data to political campaigns, PACs and advocacy groups based on 500 respondents per ad and a sample of national registered voters balanced to the U.S. Census. The data collected provides insights into the effectiveness of the ad, verbatim responses and the likelihood the ad changed the way respondents will vote.

About Ace Metrix

Ace Metrix provides technology, tools and insights that enable the advertising ecosystem to understand how and why video creative works with viewers. Advertisers, agencies and publishers rely on Ace Metrix to provide qualitative and quantitative measures, normative data and competitive insights that inform each phase of the creative lifecycle, resulting in advertising that consistently delivers results. The Company’s comprehensive suite of tools map to ad objectives, including the creative impact of persuasion, breakthrough, emotional connection, and indicators of shareability. The Company is privately held and is backed by leading venture capital firms and industry leaders including Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Palomar Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures and WPP.

Dori Busell
Kerlan Communications
917-689-3415
dori@kerlancomm.com