Going negative on 'Mediscare' has overshadowed Labor's 100 positive policies. He found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that most political advertising was ineffective. However, when it came to negative advertisements, people had a particularly rancorous response. "Whilst attack adverts certainly bring up the emotions, they don't convince people to change their vote," Dr Hughes said. "If anything, negative advertising made people angry with the political process. "Afterwards, I asked people what could they remember about the ad and, surprise, surprise, all people could remember about the negative ads was that they hated them. They really hated them. They didn't remember the ads themselves, they just remember hating that type of advertising."

Tony Windsor was the target of a political attack advertisement this week. Credit:James Brickwood Both major parties have doubled down on the scare campaigns as the election campaign finally draws to a close. But while Labor strategists insisted "going negative" on "Mediscare" was "working brilliantly, Dr Hughes believed "negging" had significant flaws. "Negative advertising works on the theory that it makes you fight or flight. For fear to work really well, it's about the credibility of the message and credibility of the source is everything. What I found was indeed this did not work because we don't trust politicians anyway so we don't pay any attention to them." A recent University of Canberra Institute for Governance and Public Analysis survey showed adversarial politics was causing more voters to break away from the major parties, an effect Dr Hughes said was particularly pronounced in his findings.

"People have been quite clear on how they're thinking as a consumer, that they've had enough of this form of advertising," he said. "They want positive messages, so the minor parties and independents seem positive, even though their policies might not be. That's why the minor parties seem like a breath of fresh air." The good news? There is a far cheaper way to win over voters that actually works. "The one thing I do hear people talk about a lot when it comes to election time is how often they say 'I haven't seen person X around forever'," Dr Hughes said. Loading