By Michael Goldman

Getting fed up by the endless onslaught of political ads bombarding you morning, noon and night?

The future of political advertising may well include fewer such generic ads, which are essentially "one-size-fits-all" political messaging.

I predict those ads ultimately will be replaced in four years by so-called "targeted political ads," custom-designed by both candidates as well as special-interest groups to make potential undecided voters more motivated to participate in the political process on their behalf.

Some of these commercials still will be seen on TV, but many more will come by way of computer applications.

In my view, this evolution in political advertising is the inevitable result of the system of niche cable programming, which is isolating viewers by interest, thus making them more easily targeted by specific advertisers and their specific products.

Between now and Nov. 6, however, expect to see thousands and thousands of generic 30-second political ads from the campaigns of Elizabeth Warren, Scott Brown, Richard Tisei, John Tierney, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, as well as ads from candidates you've never heard of before who currently are pursuing office in New Hampshire.

Sadly, these ads will continue to pummel your senses with increased frequency during the time slots labeled "newscast adjacencies," which are the two minutes before and after the morning, afternoon, evening and late-night newscasts, where potential good voters are thought to be regular viewers.


They also will be seen in increasing velocity during the 4-6 p.m. and 7-8 p.m. commercial windows, which tend to attract older viewers who are generally viewed by politicians and their handlers as more likely to vote.

While these ads are similar in construction to your regular diet of post-election furniture-store come-ons, antacid tablet pitches, and outdoor bathtub scenarios where men, apparently in full view of their next-door neighbors, take full advantage of the benefits of products like Cialis, they differ in one major respect.

While the product ads created for your viewing, like those noted above and by other such products and services including ads for hair-conditioning products, auto dealers, and any number of fast-food chains, are assumed by consumers to be available for sale year-round if needed, necessary, or desired, the "point of sale" for politicians is the tiny 12-hour window of Election Day.

For example, if based on their advertising, you chose to go to breakfast at McDonald's on the Monday before Election Day, skipped breakfast at McDonald's on Election Day itself, and then returned for breakfast at McDonald's on a Wednesday after Election Day, McDonald's would consider their ad campaign a success.

On the other hand, favor a candidate the day before Election Day or the day after the Election Day, yet fail to vote for him or her on Election Day means the millions spent on their ads has been a total failure.

And because this terrifyingly small advertising window only exists from Labor Day in September to Election Day itself in November, candidates have no choice but to shove, push and squeeze as many spots as possible into this window of opportunity.

Replayed again and again, these "spots" are designed to reach as many potential voters as frequently as possible in the relatively short time they have available. Thus, candidates year after year incur the wrath of voters who quickly tire of the seemingly endless repetition of the same commercials.

Under the future matrix, there will be more commercials created yet targeted for smaller and more distinct audiences.

Seniors watching a traditional network might get spots on Medicare and Social Security reform.

Young moms watching TLC, Oxygen and OWN might find spots targeting child-care initiatives or commercials advocating equal pay for equal work.

A plethora of individual computer apps could target education and housing, while environmental spots could appear on HGTV, while public-safety spots obviously fit perfectly with the target audience of both Cloo and truTV.

In the end, the bad news of 2016 may be the creation of more spots than ever while the good news is most of us will see fewer and fewer of them. 
