Seeking voters’ affections thru the boob tube

THE campaign period for the Senate is not even a week old, but television air time is already awash with advertisements from a host of aspirants.

Senate President Manuel Villar, Jr. has probably the longest of the spots so far. In his meticulously produced ad, Villar is seen frolicking, singing, and breaking bread with the so-called common tao, among whom, the ad goes, he himself belongs. For a few seconds, he also launches into a dance with a little boy.

There’s former Senator Teresa Aquino-Oreta, too, who courts education advocates and uses a platoon of cute kids. Congressman Francis Escudero, meanwhile, plays the youth card with his ad, selling himself as one with answers to questions of joblessness and what the future holds.

Common ingredients appear to cut across the ads: a catchy jingle (even better, buy the rights to some popular ditty, if you can manage); a reference to your performance, if you’ve done public-service before; the endorsement of a popular figure; a recital of your family lineage, if you think they’ve left a good legacy; a hand-signal (whether original or recycled); and an appeal to basic instincts of love for family and a secure future.

These are exactly what you see in ads that at present frequent television, including also those of Senators Francis Pangilinan, Joker Arroyo, and Ralph Recto, Congressmen Prospero Pichay Jr., Alan Cayetano, and Juan Miguel Zubiri, and former presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor.

Some innovate, with, for instance, animation (Cayetano), or a concept à la Jack Bauer’s ’24’ with tiled panels flashing on the screen at the same time (Pangilinan).

It appears that candidates do take advantage of the reach and power of television. The previous night, the news also featured the making of a television advertisement for Ilocos Sur Governor Luis Singson, with the senatorial candidate being endorsed by no less than the ‘Pambansang Kamao,’ Manny Pacquiao.

This desire for precious television air time attests to the same pattern of the medium’s supremacy that was observed during the 2004 elections. For sure, there are advertisements in newspapers too, but right now, they’re a sprinkling compared to those placed on television.

In the 2004 elections, media strategists exerted greater effort to capture the TV audience. For, indeed, television is king: over 90 percent of all Filipino households now have a TV, whereas only two decades ago, the proportion was a mere 30 percent.

And it is not just television’s reach, but its high credibility, that ensures its reliability as an advertising medium. It is not just that people watch a lot of television; they actually believe it.

In 2004, Pulse Asia asked voters in the two months prior to the May polls which sources of information and news about candidates and the campaign are most credible: 67 percent said it was television. Radio was a far second with 20 percent, and newspapers were most credible for only five percent.

Who will the boob tube help this time?