# Advocacy Advertising Paid advertising in which a company argues a **political or policy position** rather than selling a product — also called issue advertising, and, by its inventor [[Herbert Schmertz]] of [[Mobil Oil]], **"idea advertising."** The advertorial — a paid column formatted to resemble editorial content, run weekly by Mobil on the [[New York Times]] op-ed page from 1970 — is its signature form. Two functions, only one of which is obvious: 1. **Position advocacy** — pushing the company's take on legislation and regulation, on the theory Schmertz stated in 1971: "Legislation does not develop in a vacuum. It grows out of public attitudes and mirrors public beliefs." 2. **Persona construction** — having the company take positions on matters unrelated to its business (public transit, the arts, education) in order to establish it as a *civic actor* rather than a seller. This is the half that does the constitutional work, because it is what makes corporate statements look like political speech rather than [[Commercial Speech]]. ## The regulatory history Advocacy advertising was born in print because it was barred from broadcast. Under the Fairness Doctrine the networks treated a paid issue ad as a trigger for free reply time, and CBS and ABC refused Mobil's televised advertorials in the 1970s on that ground; Schmertz and [[Rawleigh Warner Jr.]] answered with a campaign against "network censorship" that fed the same argument the Court accepted in *[[First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti]]* (1978) — that a corporation's speech on public questions is protected speech. The [[Fairness Doctrine Repeal]] (1987) removed the broadcast barrier; the *Bellotti* line, run through *[[Citizens United v. FEC]]* (2010), removed the constitutional one. See [[Corporate Free Speech]] for the doctrine and [[Herbert Schmertz]] for the strategist. ## Contemporary forms The form has proliferated as the barriers fell: corporate ESG and "purpose" campaigns (advocacy as brand), utility and pipeline advertising paid from ratepayer-funded budgets, pharmaceutical issue ads during drug-pricing fights, and the ecosystem of front groups that separates the advertiser from the message — see [[Astroturfing]]. The oil industry's defense in the 2020s climate-deception suits, that its decades of advertorials were protected opinion rather than commercial misrepresentation, is Schmertz's 1971 theory offered as a legal shield fifty years on. ## The campaign-finance line The [[Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act]] (2002) drew the line at "electioneering communications" — broadcast ads naming a federal candidate within 60 days of a general election — and *Citizens United* erased it for independent spending. What remains is a definitional game: an ad that argues a policy is advocacy, an ad that names a candidate is electioneering, and the difference is a sentence. The vault's [[Dark Money]] pages track the money that moves through that sentence.