Thursday, Aug 21, 2008
What makes you say, "Yes, that's it! That's real, solid Al Gore"? Advertising pundits ponder.
Jun 16, 2000 | Whenever candidates need an excuse for round-the-clock fundraising, they pick on the high cost of television spots. According to the Alliance for Better Campaigns, television broadcasters have already pocketed $114 million from political ads this year. Just last week, the Democratic National Committee announced it would spend $25 million on soft-money ads for Gore and launched a spot focusing on the vice president's message about the high cost of prescription drugs. The Republicans countered with their own equally expensive ad blitz touting Bush's Social Security plan. But do the ads really work? According to some people in corporate advertising, much of the cash spent on the candidate commercials is wasted. Salon spoke to four real-life advertising executives about the shortcomings of this year's political spots.
Vinny Warren, associate creative director with DDB/Chicago, is the advertising mind behind the "Whassup" ads for Budweiser.
Nancy Pendas-Smith is president of Conill Advertising, a wholy owned subsidiary of Saatchi & Saatchi that has earned the annual Hispanic Creative Agency award for two straight years.
Jon Koffler is a creative director at J. Walter Thompson/New York.
Jeff Musser is a creative partner with Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners in San Francisco. He worked on the advertising for the first Clinton presidential campaign.
George P. Bush "Same as Mine."
VW: This was the most impactful of all the ads I saw because it was surprising. I didn't know Bush had a Latino nephew who was also named George Bush. It seemed to speak well of the Bush family in that it jars their hard-core conservative image, but in a good way. It was also the only ad I saw with any sort of humanity. This was kind of cool in the broadest sense of the word, because it had something new. In the field of political advertising, which tends to be very one-way, either attack, attack, attack, or "I'm so great," (so "Hallmark" great) it stuck out.
NP-S: I think it's brilliant. It's simplicity. He has an enormous appeal, because he really is obviously Latin. What he's saying is so basic, and so it cuts to the heart of important issues for Latinos today -- education, a level playing field, their aspirations and dreams -- it's all why they come to the United States. It felt very genuine and sincere, and he's very personable.
JK: He has a Latino relative, so what? Maybe some people would be surprised by that, and might feel good to know there's a Hispanic in his bloodline. But it really seems like shameless pandering. You know, like, "Let's trot out the Latino cousin." And it doesn't tell you anything new. You still don't know what Bush is going to do for Latinos and it doesn't give them any reason to support him. They don't really give him anything interesting to say.
JM: The problem here is that you bury the interesting nugget at the end, the fact that he's related to George Bush -- if that really is his nephew. It's a regular ad, and then he says, "Oh, by the way, I'm George Bush." If they said that upfront, I might be paying a little more attention. But when you first see him in the ad, he's just this random Latino guy. It's done in such a tacky way -- you know, he's in the garden, that's such a clichi. And really detracts from the good things about him. It would be better if he wasn't so much a poster boy.
George P. Bush, "How About You?"
VW: This commercial was irritating to watch and a bit vacuous. It's like someone said, "OK, we've got George P. Bush for two days, so let's shoot something kind of cool and youth-oriented." Guess who was in charge of deciding who was cool and youth-oriented? It smacked of pandering to the youth audience, for the only time he'll pander to them in four years, probably. It was so poorly done, so cutty, that I couldn't grasp what he was saying. It seemed a bad idea. It was a really lame attempt at hipness, a real stinker.
NP-S: Although the message is still there, I felt like the going back and forth from English to Spanish, along with the other cuts, was really disruptive.
JK: They spend so much money on this shit, and I still don't know who they're talking to. There's still not a common thread, no unique idea that links the different points together.
JM: With the cuts and everything, this looks like a bunch of old guys saying, "You kids really like that MTV stuff, and so here it is. We understand you." That's really out of style. Besides, the audience knows what you're trying to do and just won't believe anything else you say. If they only did it in a different way, something that was more credible, it could be huge for the Latino community.
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