Al Gore: "US politics 'obsessed' with ads"

BBC News:

On the subject of the expenditure of political parties, Mr Gore, a Democrat, said: "Two days ago, I was at an event helping to raise money for a candidate of my political party, running for governor in one of our most populous states.

"I asked the question of him: 'What percentage of your campaign budget, between now and election day in November, will be spent on television commercials?'

"The answer was 80%," he told an audience of several hundred media industry figures on the final day of the festival.

"In my country, the average American watches television for four hours and 39 minutes a day. Astonishing, really.
"That's why candidates spend 80% of their money on advertising campaigns."

TV commercials lasting 30 seconds were "not thoughtful statements of policy" but were "usually emotive" and "well-tested" on focus groups, he said.

And he claimed the power of modern advertising had led to the ability to create demand for products "artificially".

"Now you sometimes see, in extreme cases, advertising created before the product, and then the product is based on what looks as if it's going to succeed.

"That same phenomenon has now happened to democracy," he said, suggesting that too often, political parties made decisions based on reactions to their advertising campaigns.