[Image: Flickr user Powerhouse Museum]
“Light Bulbs” – Chris Jordan (2008)
Depicts 320,000 light bulbs, equal to the number of kilowatt hours of electricity wasted in the United States every minute from inefficient residential electricity usage (inefficient wiring, computers in sleep mode, etc.).
J340 Principles of Advertising 
I think the part about emotional voting was interesting, especially since we’ve already talked about how people are unable to make decisions without using their emotions. Personally, I find negative political advertisements extremely irritating. It bothers me that advertisers think people will actually fall for the mudslinging they’re doing against the opposite party, and it bothers me even more that I know it works. I’m all for competitive advertising, as long as it doesn’t cross that line into negative advertising, which to me is just petty and ridiculous.
It seems as though both negative and competitive advertising techniques are both widely used by clients and agencies all over. I guess I have never thought about the effect of each technique. I personally think that negative advertising in political campaigns is quite obvious to spot yet can be harmful in some cases. Thinking back on all of the negative advertising I have seen, including political campaigns, audience viewers myself included probably feel that awkward feeling because theyre often vicious attacks on another person in order to gain popularity. I personally think that competitive advertising would be most effective because it allows the consumer to be able to see both ends of the spectrum, allowing the consumer to chose what they actually like and do not like based off of their own feelings and judgements.
Both negative and competitive advertising is everywhere, and with the election in November approaching, there will inevitably be much more. I feel there is a fine line between negative and competitive advertising. In the midst of being competitive, the organization or individual must degrade their competitor in some way. Even if the criticism isn’t directly negative, it will still cause the audience to have a negative, emotional reaction. This emotion will come back later in their decision making. All the same, if an ad agency can find success for their client while being tastefully competitive, I feel that should be more power to them. The ability to creatively spin a client’s strengths against a competitors weakness results in successful advertising.