2015/09/03 by Jacob Smith, Neil Weinberg · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Engineering · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Spatial and Panel Data Analysis #Media Influence and Politics #Advertising #Priming (agriculture) #Test (biology) #Berry #Political science #Advertising campaign #Elevator #Business #Engineering
paper · doi:10.1177/1532673x15602755
openalex publication_date 2015/09/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
This article examines the extent to which advertising outside of an explicit campaign environment has the potential to benefit the electoral fortunes of incumbent politicians. We make use of a novel case of non-campaign advertising, that of North Carolina Secretary of Labor Cherie Berry (R-NC), who has initiated the practice of having her picture and name displayed prominently on official inspection placards inside all North Carolina elevators. We extend Mayhew’s theory of advertising to a non-campaign environment and then theorize that Berry serves as a novel case of non-campaign-specific advertising via a priming mechanism. We then test our theory using spatial regression methods and find that Berry outperformed other statewide Republican candidates in the 2012 North Carolina elections. Our findings suggest that candidates can use this form of advertising to indirectly improve their electoral fortunes.