Scientific Poll: Underwood More ‘Presidential’ than Bush or Rubio

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California /PRNewswire/ — During the CNN Republican Debate 11/15/2015, Netflix launched a mock political ad featuring Frank Underwood to promote its House of Cards series. Please watch the mock political ad:

Spot Trender, a top market research company headquartered in Mountain View, CA conducted a scientific poll with 960 eligible Republican primary voters, comparing Frank Underwood mock ad against real political ads featuring Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. “I loved the ad when I first saw it during the debate. We thought it would be interesting and funny to see how the spot would perform against real ones – so we ran a scientific study to get the actual data!” said Rick Nguyen, co-founder at Spot Trender.

Some insights generated by the study:

Quantitative Data:

• Underwood’s ad dominated in likelihood to share, likability, and breakthrough (different than other ads). Rubio’s message was the most relevant and understandable. Bush’s ad under-performed in every key metric.
• After watching the ad, respondents were significantly more likely to vote and donate to Rubio and Underwood than Bush. They thought Underwood was most presidential and most likely to beat Hillary Clinton in the general election. Rubio shined in “protecting religious freedom”.
• It’s surprising that Underwood and Rubio ads beat Bush in “would keep America safe”, “can deal withChina and Russia“, and “would be a good commander-in-chief”, as Bush’s ad mentioned 27 admirals and generals support him.

Viewers’ Live Reaction:

• Overall, Underwood’s ad garnered very positive reaction. It started high and ended high. Rubio’s has it ups and downs. Bush’s ad started relatively positive but dipping below 0 around at the 7th second and remained negative for the rest of the video. “It’s interesting to look at the live reaction graph from the HOC ad compared to others. It had a significantly more positive reaction, even before they introducedFrank Underwood” said Christopher South, Cofounder at Spot Trender.

Conclusions:

• While attack ads do work, it didn’t work in Jeb’s favor this time.
• Respondents loved the idea of kids being patriotic and running around with the American flag!
• Hope really sells. Underwood’s hopeful message correlated with high “is presidential” score. Talking about problems without providing solutions = “whining”.
• Watch out Hillary, Underwood is coming for you… and he’s only getting started!

For more information on the study and additional insights, please visit: http://blog.spottrender.com/frank-underwood-president-2016-campaign/

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