Don’t Like That Political Ad? Click On It.

I recently learned of a sort of fun game that you can play with the political establishment, regardless of whose ideas you want to be represented in Government. Maybe it’s the websites I frequent, but it seems like I’ve been seeing advertisements on many of them on a regular basis for more than two years. It gets tiring, especially when they make use of trite psychological tricks like using the worst possible candid photo of the person the advertisers don’t want you to like.

But here’s the fun part: because of the way most website advertising works, the advertisers only pay for the ad when someone clicks on it. The more clicks that happen, the fewer dollars that campaign will have to spend on website advertisements. More clicks = less money. It’s true that an increase in clicks on a particular ad might encourage the advertisers to run that ad more, but that’s going to be a temporary side-effect.

It’s also true that corporations are spending corporation funds on their own political ads and donations, instead of reinvesting those funds into making a better product or service, or rewarding shareholders, etc., and so political groups may have more money available this fall than ever before. But aside from making smaller personal donations ourselves, what else can we do? Is this suggestion mean-spirited? Sure. But this is the easiest method I think I’ve ever encountered to reduce the ability of the candidate you don’t like to win, and it’s free for you.

I’m not suggesting you spend all your free time seeking out political ads, refreshing pages and clicking on them repeatedly, but when you see an ad that especially gets under your skin, do the opposite of what your instincts tell you, and give it a click. War chests will decrease, and now that you know the result, it’ll probably also make you feel better.