Media advertising and ballot initiatives: The case of animal welfare regulation

I. INTRODUCTION In 2008, the citizens of California voted in favor of Proposition 2, which bans the use of cages for housing egg-laying chickens. (1) Similar propositions in Arizona (Proposition 204 in November 2006) and other states mandate stall-free and crate-free housing for sows and calves for veal, respectively. Media advertising is used heavily in state-level propositions because of the narrow focus of the issue, the geographic concentration of likely voters, and the (typically) highly polarized nature of the campaigns. There is evident support for this issue among some consumers as cage-free eggs sell for a significant premium in retail stores (sometimes $1.75 per dozen or more). What is less clear, however, is whether voting in initiatives similar to Proposition 2 is driven by advertising-inspired mass-support of the issue at hand, or whether it is highly motivated support by a small segment of the population that cannot be influenced by advertising. In this study, we examine the role of media advertising in the initiative process using an experimental analysis of ads used by both supporting and opposing sides for Proposition 2 in California in November 2008. Polling voters' intentions is fraught with difficulties. Often, likely voters will tell the pollster what they think the pollster wants to hear. Second, more important for the narrow issues that are often the subject of public referenda, many voters simply do not care, or are unaware of the issue (Rothschild 1978). In the issue at hand, only a certain percentage of the population are even egg consumers or animal lovers so the issue seems abstract, at best. Third, voters sometimes lack a sense of consequentiality if they are asked their intent and they are not actually in the voting booth so put little thought into their response. In this study, we circumvent these problems by facing voters--consumers in this case--with real economic incentives in an experimental environment to determine their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for cage-free eggs. WTP, while important from a food marketing perspective, is also a valuable proxy for likely voting intentions and an accurate gauge of the importance consumer-voters place on an issue. Ultimately, if a policy is a good one and "deserves" a vote, it should be welfare-improving. Therefore, in this study we assess the value of political advertising not on how many votes it generates, but on how it impacts the way the vote should go, or how the ad affects economic welfare. WTP is not without limitations as a measure of the expected improvement in welfare because of a policy change. Hamilton, Sunding, and Zilberman (2003) argue that individuals vote in referenda in ways that reflect their choices over public goods, and not necessarily private goods, so their choices regarding public policy alternatives may not reflect their private WTP. Further, Lusk and Norwood (2009a, b) and Norwood and Lusk (2011) believe that conventional methods of estimating WTP for public-good attributes are subject to a significant "social desirability bias" whereby a consumer's stated valuation includes an estimate of what he/she thinks the researcher would regard as appropriate. These authors show that social desirability bias with respect to animal welfare issues can be mitigated through a method of "inferred valuation," while Lusk and Norwood (2010) and OLnyk, Tonsor, and Wolf (2010) address social desirability bias in an animal welfare context through indirect questioning, or asking survey respondents to express how they think the "average American" would respond. In the current study, we are not as concerned with social desirability bias as voting outcomes only depend upon whether the WTP for cage-free eggs is greater than for conventional eggs, not necessarily how much. Animal welfare is an important issue in its own right, and has become increasingly prominent as consumers become more conscious about what they eat, and where it came from. …