Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 11:53am

The Subtle Art of Political Advertising

Back in graduate school a professor of mine discussed the 1984 campaign. One of the national nightly news telecasts (I believe it was ABC) ran a segment basically running down the Reagan economy. It was one of those voiceover features that had a lot of stock footage of Reagan in various places: the Rockies, Mount Rushmore, and other locations featuring Reagan speaking. It was meant to be a devastating piece, but one of the members of Reagan’s campaign team called ABC afterwards and thanked them for the feature. Why? Because the visuals were all of Reagan in these fabulous settings, and in a visual world what appears on screen often trumps the content of the spoken word behind it.

That all crossed my mind when I saw this Barack Obama ad attacking Mitt Romney. Watch this video with the sound down first:

The content of course is absurd. “Partisan experts on our payroll say that Mitt Romney will raise taxes on the middle class to pay for the tax cut for the rich he’s not proposing.” Whatever. It’s par for the course for the Obama administration, and it’s an attack that is resonating less and less each day.

What struck me were the visuals. It shows an authoritative Mitt Romney at the debate. He’s talking in what appears to be a very passionate and confident manner. Meanwhile, President Obama is nodding along with his head down. It just seems like such a bizarre image to portray to the electorate. It’s an almost submissive, timid looking Obama being lectured by Mitt Romney. Considering how people drown out the content of these ads, it’s a visual that essentially reaffirms the post-debate sentiment that Mitt Romney took Barack Obama to school. No matter what was actually said in the ad, the voter is left with a visual image of a beaten-looking president being shown up by an energetic challenger.

Obama may have had a very successful fundraising month, but he might want to reconsider how is money is being used.

Update: Just saw this from Aaron Goldstein where he also ponders why Obama keeps running ads that seem to help Romney.

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Dave
Dave
Tuesday, October 9, AD 2012 3:12pm

The same sort of thought crossed my mind when I saw the ad last night. If I were Obama I’d do whatever I could to pretend last week didn’t happen. I sure wouldn’t keep reminding people about it.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, October 9, AD 2012 4:20pm

Because Obama-worshiping imbeciles are sold on Big Bird and Elmo not employment (But, can they spell it?), skyrocketing gasoline prices, murdered diplomats in Libya, murdered GI’s in Afghanistan, . . . [sigh]

Bruce in Kansas
Bruce in Kansas
Tuesday, October 9, AD 2012 4:53pm

Then there’s the visual of the empty chair in the White House…

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Tuesday, October 9, AD 2012 5:18pm

A classic example of the Obama campaign running an ad that helps Mitt Romney:

https://the-american-catholic.com/2012/10/04/mitt-the-bulldozer/

The Emperor not only has no clothes, he has no good ad men apparently.

Mike Tefft
Mike Tefft
Tuesday, October 9, AD 2012 5:48pm

I am wondering when it will occur to the public: if the Democrats respond to every idea with ‘Well, the only way WE could think of to deal with this involves a huge tax increase’, that might not be an argument for keeping them in charge?

WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Wednesday, October 10, AD 2012 6:53am

September – before the debate – was a good fundraising month for BO. October’s numbers will speak boatloads.

Rozin
Rozin
Wednesday, October 10, AD 2012 7:58pm

It seems surprisingly fair of Obama to run that ad since some of Romney’s ads were rather supportive of Obama (as noted here and elsewhere). As for fundraising what’s a billion dollars between the Chinese Army, Russia, and assorted worldwide leftists and maybe some Mideast oil countries not eager for energy independence to come to the US? We saw this tape in 1996 (and maybe in 2008) but the Repubs and the country apparently see no big deal in it.

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