Measure it in hours.
Smart communications people know how to multiply the impact of their efforts by picking up tons of free/earned media. Nothing like dropping an ad and then pulling it back to stir a controversy and get to talk even more about the veracity of the ad campaign that just got covered, for free, as part of the news.
Thanks for the free air time ladies and gentlemen.
And thanks, Berk. Either you are the second most successful Liberal mole in history or you are a lot less media savvy than you claim.
and to that certain long-time Liberal Eastern mole in the Connie camp:
John has a long moustache.
The chair is against the door.
You know what to do next.
*Wink* *Wink*
[Note: From Andrew's link below, I realised he didn't get it that I was referring to the Liberal mole running part of the Connie campaign. He is likely the most successful one in history, having served longer than the Cambridge ring served the Moscow cause. Hence, the clarified reference to the Liberal mole. We don't need an extra click on the conference calls. Our mole has his own dial-in code.]
Update:
Thanks for the traffic, Andrew Coyne.
Of course, it's a given that Conservative and New Democrat supporters will think the entire Liberal ad campaign at this point is "desperate" or "false" or whatever else.
Sorry to disappoint you, my Con and Dipper friends, but you aren't the target audience.
Think about it this way.
Front page of the Globe today: Full colour panels of the spots, other than the military one, all featuring great quotes. Front page. Starting above the fold. Across the country.
Then there's Jason Kenney's newser today in which he talks about "the most vicious, baseless attack ad that our politics has ever seen."
I guess Kenney's hyperbole would be creditable were it not for the genuinely baseless and debased attacks mounted by the Conservatives against Jean Chretien in 1993 and the Harper attack on Paul Martin as a child molester from last year. The Conservatives withdrew the Chretien smear "eventually" as CTV reports and last time I checked, the Conservatives spent a lot of time deciding whether or not the child molester thing was good or bad. Even Mr. Harper himself seemed to stand behind it.
Then, of course, there's the orchestrated campaign to label Belinda Stronach a "whore".
Or, the entire Conservative campaign this time around built around a deliberate misrepresentation of the Gomery Report.
Compare that to what happened in the last 24 hours or so.
The real problem here might be that, with the exception of the military spot, the rest are all genuine Stephen Harper quotes. If they weren't likely to have an effect, the entire Conservative election machine wouldn't be spewing venom and spittle over them.
In 1993, the public rejected the Conservatives genuinely desperate efforts to cling to power. They didn't need to be told what to think.
Just relax guys and take a breath: We'll know in a couple of days whether or not the ads worked.