Germany doesn't have negative ads criticizing opponents (at least it didn't have them when I lived there). This makes them refreshingly boring. I would guess at least 90% of the US ads are basically "the other guy is bad. Be afraid" without much content. Getting rid of the negative ads would help a lot.
"Negative campaigning has been a feature of German political campaigns from the very beginning of the Federal Republic... the central idea of this paper is to examine the considerable difference between negative campaigning in Germany compared with that in the US."
It seems like you're correct that German political ads are almost never US-style 'attack ads' because among Germans, "negative campaigning in Germany is much more risky for the attacker than the impact it may have on the attacked party"
I think part of the reason why attack style ads don't work is because you usually need to choose some "villain", which just isn't feasable with more than 2 parties since voters will still have other options than you. Well, unless you vilify every party except your own but that kinda makes your party look crazy.
The closest I can think of is somewhat vilifying the extreme ends of the political spectrum since most parties can agree on that (assuming you have more than like 5 parties).
