The branding of a president

Democratic National Committee: "Prescription Drugs"

VW: It was just an old guy. If you're an old person, concerned about your medical bills, it's interesting maybe, but what is Gore saying? Blaming it on drug companies was a way out for him. It seemed like he was passing the buck. He basically said, "When I'm president, it'll be different." But didn't he have eight years in which to effect change on this issue? It's so cloying, and I think senior Americans are smarter than that. Visually it was awful, but so were all the rest.

NP-S: We want advertising that touches people, that uses emotion, that really evokes something. And it could be humor, it could be tears, it could be anger. And neither this one nor the Bush [Social Security] ad do that.

JK: This sucks. I hate it so. First of all, it's overdone. It's so, so sincere that it's insincere, maudlin, and you can't believe any of it. So there's this poor guy who can't afford his medication, and Al Gore's going to save the day. Then you look at the end, and you see Gore trying to do that sincere thing that Clinton was able to do, trying to make himself seem more humane. But it's never going to work for him. It just overtly tugs at your heart strings, but the story isn't sad enough, and there's nothing compelling here. It just completely blends into the landscape.

And it's so random. The question is what does he stand for, what is his brand? There's nothing that sets him apart, nothing here that makes you say, "Yes, that's it. That's real, solid Al Gore." What is it that makes him special? This ad just doesn't answer that question for me, not at all. It doesn't say anything you haven't heard before and it's boring.

JM: From the very first frame, you get that type of treatment that just announces "Here's another political ad." It also makes too many points. That's like a classic Advertising 101 mistake, where they have a whole laundry list of things they have to say, and they think it's better to make 10 different points. But at the end, you don't remember any of it.

The RNCs Bush/Social Security ad: "This Generation." (National Journal password required.)

[The RNC's original Bush/Social Security ad, "This Generation," has been re-tooled since we showed it to our panel, and it looks like the RNC got the same advice our panel had: lose the cheesy patriotic intro. It has since been cut, and the RNC released a new version of the ad late Wednesday, which can be viewed here.]

NP-S: It's just cookie-cutter political advertising. Both this and the Gore ad were just so formulaic. It's boring, like "Here's my checklist." But they do have some value. My mother-in-law, Betty Smith in Newark, New Jersey -- and I'm not making that up -- she's retired, and watching both ads, she would learn something. But I'm glad that none of these are negative. Negative ads are a sad reflection on my industry, and what we need to step down to in order to appeal to people and cut through the clutter.

JK: He bounces around and gives you too much to digest. You want to get the audience to grasp just one thought, and there's just too much stuff here. It would be better if he had just one point, and hammered it home. You come out of this saying, "George Bush is going to do something about Social Security," but you have no idea what. If you remember that at the end, then he's lucky. I kind of liked the fact that he had a book at the end, saying "This is concretely what I'm going to do." But as far as the commercial, give someone something they can take away that's going to be meaningful to them.

I think all these ads suffer from the same thing, not giving anything different or that they haven't heard a thousand times before. And the music. God, I'm sure this is the same music used in every political ad. I'd like to play the music from the Bush and the Gore ad back to back. No one could tell the difference. And the visual of the trees and flags and the sun rising ... do people really buy that shit? It's almost insulting that you're just using these standard images instead of trying to say something that separates yourself a little bit.

JM: The whole intro, I feel like I'm being set up to be manipulated. And it's a whole credibility thing. As soon as people know it's an ad, they're not going to listen to it the same way. With the imagery [the sunrise], you know right away it's either a political spot, or else it's for a Claritin ad. You know, "Breathe easy!" The setup, it's like "Here comes the sell, here comes the sell." It's so well-mined territory. The only ads that do that now are if you have an ad that starts like that and do a twist. People only pay attention to ads when they don't look like ads. It's all so obvious.

Either you have to entertain, or you have to inform. And some of these walk that line. This one and the Gore ad do talk about the issues, and that's better than trying to manipulate you with images.

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