The appearance of political advertising in the Republic of Moldova ten years ago did not particularly attract attention of Moldovan civil society. Neither ordinary citizens, nor politicians hurried to start discussions about this new way of political communication. Even the Legislature had no desire to regulate it. In 1994, the Moldovan Parliament adopted a law on advertising, but it specified that this law did not refer to political advertising.
The magic wand
It is unlikely that the phenomenon of the political advertising has been understood from the beginning, being accepted as something ordinary and extremely necessary for the new-born independent country, or classified as something totally unserious and without a future. More likely, intentionally or not, political advertising has been left to its fate.
It would be simple to suppose that this negligence took place because society had more important problems to solve. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of political advertising does not deserve to be ignored. In spite of the fact that some politicians categorically rejected this method of communication from the beginning, calling it a waste of money and saying it would not be effective in influencing voters’ decisions, in the end — some of them earlier and some of them later — nearly all of them felt the necessity of trying this magic wand.
Has it been essential for all election campaigns since 1991?
Political advertising also existed in Moldova in the Soviet era, but under a different name and with a totally propagandistic character designed to serve the communist ideology. The call for the development of new methods of advertising in the political sphere in Moldova started with the establishment of the multi-party system, which has led to the diversification of the political press in direct relation to the number of new-born political formations.
The majority of politicians, former members of the communist party, hurried to promote their political product, conferring on their newspapers the role of propaganda platform. For this reason, the new-born political press has followed the same principles as in the preceding regime — serving the interests of political power.
Political products in the independent Moldova have been advertised on radio stations and TV channels. Politicians believed in the power of mass media, especially because mass media was seen in the Soviet period as an important factor in making it easier for the population to memorize political goals.
In addition, the transition period was advantageous for the politicians, because the citizens showed a special interest in everything that was considered new in the society. During the first years of independence, symbols and the political messages were easily sent during large meetings and also through the state and independent media. The increased interest of citizens in political issues was fuelled especially by a big confrontation between the supporters of the national revival and those favouring the return of the previous regime at any price.
The population continued to absorb long speeches during this period. But, slowly-slowly, the public attitude toward politicians is shifting. The hope for quick changes and a better level of life is dying under the pressure of difficult economic conditions. The establishment of new economic relations, and the development of the market, influenced not only the political sphere but also the social sectors for which the image in the public mind becomes an important factor, particularly when the actions of the social domains’ representatives become antagonistic.
Despite the economic crisis, here and there also political crisis, politicians and their parties used different kinds of political advertising, promoting their messages (oral or written, video and/or audio) in different ways: at meetings, through the press and electronic media, and with literature and art, caricatures, photos, posters, leaflets, cartoons or souvenirs.
Complex messages and classic strategies
It is important to mention that the messages the politicians used in their political spots during the electoral campaigns of the 1991-2009 period were quite complex. In quick succession politicians have chosen to include in their messages various elements: declarations, arguments, solutions, questions, announcements, and also information about the electoral candidate/s or the political formation/s that she/he/they represented.
In most cases, candidates have tried to send their electoral messages, emphasising the text, which was enhanced by pictures. Some of them managed to provide a picture for each word or expression. Some, especially those representing smaller parties, did not manage it so well.
In the end optical communication proved to be more frequent than verbal communication. It was used particularly at the beginning or at the end of spots where most of the symbolic elements and loud sounds were presented to attract people’s attention or persuade them to take a particular decision.
During 1991-2009 the images have been replacing the text or reducing it significantly, to just a word or two, when politicians try to influence voters on a subconscious level, particularly in their negative ads.
In spots, the messages contain symbolic elements, promises, nice words or criticisms. Mainly they emphasise the candidate’s role or the role of the leader of the political formation he represents, mention the support of ordinary people or celebrities, show the candidate as a defender of the people’s rights, call for national unity, support the values of the ethnic minorities, and also national and European values, encourage or discourage voters to participate in the election, stress the power of the candidate, create a myth, or present the candidate as one of us or show him or her in action.
Exploring the same messages
Except for the local elections of 2003 and 2007, elements regarding a myth or the defence of ethnic minorities’ values were used in the spots of all electoral contestants during all campaigns. The same subjects were used by the majority of candidates during every electoral campaign, according to the existing circumstances. For example, in 2007 the electoral messages of the majority of the candidates were focused on Moldova’s perspective of joining the EU.
During all electoral campaigns, the candidates tried to attract attention to their political ads by using optimistic slogans, full of promises or capable of creating nice dreams about the future. Few slogans, though, were successful. Even if they could be easily understood, the majority of them were difficult to memorise, because they included long sentences that did not stress the main idea.
The slogans, and the texts from the examined period, as well, show themselves to have been influenced very little by any political dogma. Regarding the ideological approach, their messages have a tendency to have a general or unclear character, leaving the voters to interpret them as they wish.
Since the country’s declaration of independence, politicians from the Republic of Moldova have tried to use more and more advanced tricks to create a memorable image for the voters. Each candidate individually shapes his advertising message to give it an evocative character but also uses arguments, even if the strategies stay classic: for the candidate or against the opponent.
Political advertising tricks
The messages in support of the candidate are used to encourage voters and also to influence those who are undecided, offering them information that can make them feel proud, afraid, honest or patriotic. Often politicians use symbols, images with a semantic load, to manipulate voters’ opinions.
Among the successful symbols used by Moldovan politicians in their political ads are: the heart, the sun, the hammer and sickle, the rose, the lion, the dove. Each is identified with a particular political force and attracts a certain number of supporters. The politicians use symbols that do not accentuate their ideological affiliations: the European stars, the bell, the bell tower, the flag of the Republic of Moldova, the sky. But nothing can be certain; even the most successful symbols can advantage a candidate sometimes and disadvantage him at other times.
Moldovan politicians make their first steps in political advertising by adopting in their political ads well-known ideas and characters. The politicians’ images refer especially to their opinions and less to their physical appearance, which is usually considered secondary and remains unnoticed.
Also, electoral candidates prefer to use only the positive facts from their biographies in their spots. The references to their family lives are very superficial, often only to accentuate that they are married. In cases where there appears to be a problem with a family member, the politicians prefer to avoid saying anything about it. For this reason, it is obvious that what voters learn from the political advertising is not necessarily the truth.
Until 2009, there persisted in the political advertising in Moldova more images with symbolic and mythical dimensions that referred to an expected future. Dominant also were images-prognosis. Very few images had cognitive significance, which could have been useful to voters in the decision-making process.
For promotion of their political images, Moldovan politicians chose to present their identities and their particularities with strategies that could idealise or emphasise their potential and resistance.
An image of a party was created through the image of its leader to obtain an identity transfer. There were also other kinds of images as: the leader-president, a brief or a long-lasting popular defender, a combatant, a politician capable of uniting the country, a politician open to dialog, the saviour of the nation, a combatant on behalf of the nation, a politician ending the alliances, a politician capable of understandings his citizens, a traitor, a defender of people’s rights, an honest leader, a national political leader, a leader-reformer, a representative of the middle class, one of us, a good-natured person, a manager, or a family person.
Political marketing
Although political marketing principles started being applied, attracting professionals to the political communication sphere was not very successful. For example, while in Western countries political advertising campaigns were not considered any more effective when they tended to promote the party’s image, in Moldova this was still considered a valid technique, even if the trend of some ads promoting politicians’ images appeared.
The principles of political marketing need to be applied with care if maintaining the country’s democratic course is desired. When the political system is increasingly guided by marketing, there is a danger that images will be preferred over logic, politicians over social needs, and audio segments over collective dialog.
According to researchers, the goal of political advertising as a method of political communication is to influence people’s conception of political issues and politicians. Political advertising is always developed in order to persuade. During electoral campaigns, the candidates’ images are situated between political messages and the voters’ opinion about these messages. A political behaviour like voting, for example, happens taking into account the political images that appear according to voters’ conceptions, positions and feelings.
From the consumer point of view, the understanding of the purpose of the voting procedure increases the importance of the electoral process: it does not allow the voter to have a clear vision about his country’s future, but only offers an opportunity for the candidate to say and to do everything he can to be elected.
Therefore we can conclude that until 2009 political advertising in Moldova did not inform citizens about the options they had, as consumers of the political product, but instead gave complete priority to politicians to serve their personal interests.
There is no doubt that in this case the process of information or of building trust was under the control of politicians rather than under the control of the mass media. In fact, political advertising is considered a unique way of mass information, the development of which is totally under politicians’ control.
Within the limits of the legal framework and aesthetic principles, developers of political advertising in Moldova were free to say what they wanted, to change journalists’ priorities, to accentuate the positive sides of their clients and as well as the negative sides of their clients’ rivals.
Voters’ perception
However, political advertising was unlikely to influence the decisions of voters, because so far it has interested them only for its entertaining character. The results of research conducted in the Republic of Moldova two weeks before the parliamentary elections of the 6th of March 2005 proved that voters do not give serious consideration to political advertising because in their opinion it is not a proper source of information. Voters said political advertising can manipulate public opinion because it contains information that is wrong, difficult to understand, not serious or too negative.
It seems that politicians preferred to provoke voters’ interest in a game at the end of which voters had to accept what was proposed to them: to vote for the candidate. The majority of electoral candidates were interested in gathering votes rather than in investing in their future. They did not like to spend their efforts or their money on preparing a steady audience of supporters.
Basically, this leads to a situation in which society cannot have constant values. At the same time, many of the discussions approached in the extremely politicised and polarised mass media obstruct a detailed examination of the politicians and their parties’ experience.
Vulnerable terrain
We can say that political advertising in the Republic of Moldova was vulnerable terrain. Some spots disadvantaged politicians because they contained scattered and incomplete information. The communication between the candidate and the voter through the political advertising became sometimes difficult and because of the way the information was presented or codified.
Many politicians could not find the proper key for the population’s opinions. The desired effect was not achieved most of the time, because the political advertising did not become the object of big admiration or the cause of big discomfort.
Political advertising could disappear just as it appeared, in a silent way, if people totally lost their trust in politicians. This could happen under different circumstances. Certainly, if citizens would inform themselves before voting for one candidate or another regarding which political platform might ameliorate their daily lives the soonest, then their chances of not being manipulated by the tricky political messages would be much stronger.
Rodica Socolov 