Several weeks ago, I got into an exciting discussion on the quality and effectiveness of TV spots versus web videos. While I do not favor one expression over another in terms of favorability, I made the case for the need for both forms of media in the political, advertising and marketing domain. My beef was the definitive gap in overall quality between the two platforms.
I will not cede quality in any case. And there is a tremendous amount of low quality web videos that get shopped around political circles. The only good argument that I hear in response, when the quality is criticized, is that’s how web videos should be - not highly produced like TV spots.
This argument is weak and apologetic for bad product. User generated media is becoming extremely important, it has been a main component of web 2.0 and the growing interest and reliance on the internet for entertainment, news, information and art.
However, I argue there is an unmistakable difference between funny home videos and true dramatic or choreographed video pieces. Again, both have their place, but one is much more suited for message delivery and persuasion.
The hidden cam scaled down video is good for grabbing content - a la “Macaca.” But a good video piece that grabs attention, drives emotion and causes action is important for modern campaigns.
Below I show a recent Barack Obama video that illustrates an effective high quality web video, which does not look like a TV spot. This video piece uses all the good production techniques with high end transitions, well timed speed footage and well selected music. All mixed well.
This piece clearly demonstrates, that good web videos can be made, which do not look like a made for television spot.
Signs of Hope & Change (Barack Obama for President)
Yes, now “Joe the Plumber” is a household name. I actually had friends of mine, not in politics, texting me all day about “Joe the Plumber.”
It’s really quite amazing how one man can wake up one day, meet Barack Obama, ask him a question about taxes, and then instantly get shot onto the national stage of presidential politics. Joe, the plumber from Toledo, instantly filled the role of average American worker perfectly for both candidates, as their poster child on a range of issues from taxes to healthcare and everything else in between.
But in my book you really haven’t made all the history books until you’ve been immortalized in a political TV spot. Well, Joe the Plumber” did that one too.
Going negative in politics is nothing new. It’s as American as apple pie and everything else that fits this tired saying. People come to expect it as part of our great debate in a democracy.
But what we rarely ever see are companies or corporations on the attack. Aside from the comparative ads that used to run between Coke vs. Pepsi and McDonalds vs. Burger King from 20 plus years ago, it seems that defining your competitor has become taboo in the private sector.
However, I just stumbled across this little spot recently produced by FOX News Channel that takes direct aim at CNBC’s Jim Cramer. I guess it takes a former political operative like Roger Ailes to change the game of the cable news wars - once an operative always an operative.
The thing that I like best about this spot is how closely it resembles a traditional political campaign attack ad in style and production feel.
Here’s an interesting question posed by an old friend of mine who is not in politics, but who works in television and film production.
“In this election cycle, political ads have made a turn from skewing reality in ones own favor to, at times, outright lying. Is this going to completely backfire on candidates and those who make these ads? Look at it this way, political ads do work, particularly with swing-voters (who these “swing-voters” are and why they haven’t made up their mind yet in these divided times is a topic for another day) but if people start feeling like they are outright being lied to it stands to reason that ALL political ads will start to lose there ability to persuade. This is why governing bodies in advertising censor agencies and brands that lie as they know that negatively effect everyone in this business.”
Recently, several ads have made it to air in the presidential election that have gotten quite a few people in the media and on the internet pretty riled up. One spot, created by the McCain campaign received a significant amount of attention, accusing Barack Obama of supporting teaching sex education to kindergartners. While the McCain campaign defends it’s spot, the Obama campaign called the spot untrue and claimed it was a distortion of Obama’s stance. Who can you believe?
Now let’s get to answering my friend’s question(s)
For those in politics, ads this cycle do not appear anymore harsh or nasty than any other cycle prior. When you’re in this business long enough you get to see some very heavy hitters. However, there is a markable difference between heavy hitting negative attacks and clearly untrue attacks.
The gray area in campaign attacks come when a campaign and their team takes a shred of truth and crafts an entire ad around it, making further insinuations and accusations that fall far from the actual truth itself. But any legitimate political media consultant will not create all out lies. Lies do tend to backfire on campaigns that dispense them.
When any campaign runs a demonstrably false ad or makes false claims it risks exposing itself to multiple forms of backlash that exist in the political theater. Below I have listed the forms of potential backlash that a campaign exposes itself to when it takes a path of false attack.
VOTER BACKLASH - As I have discussed in this space prior, the American public no longer detests negative campaigning and contras advertising. They have come to accept it as normal practice and welcomed aspect to our political election process. However, people do not have any tolerance for attacks that are far-fetched, untrue, racially biased / sexist, character assassinations or attacks on families or other deeply personal attributes. Attacks of this nature tend to draw immediate backlash from the voters, who make their own judgements and who will decide to view the candidate executing the attack more negatively than the candidate they are attacking.
NEWS MEDIA BACKLASH - The second form of backlash against false attacks comes from the media covering the election. Since Watergate, the news media has evolved from basic reporting on elections to campaign watchdog. Many news outlets have a fact check feature, where they monitor campaign TV ads and make and report on their belief of the legitimacy of the attack. In most instances, the media will run this segment on TV or in the newspaper and review the claims and determine if any truth is stretched and make any clarification. However, in instances where an outright lie is purported, the news media will run a story about the ad and question the candidate or campaign who made the false allegation. This type of reporting will make the campaign that conducted the attack lose credibility and damage them in the media. If these stories gain traction and get picked up by multiple outlets, the damage to the accusatory campaign will be compounded.
BROADCAST STATION BACKLASH - Broadcast and cable TV stations have become much more adept at reviewing political advertisements before they place them in in logs for airing. Larger stations have their attorneys check many of these ads, while others leave this work to station managers or traffic directors, who have become much more aware of what to look for in an ad that may raise questions. Often, stations will require back-up for any claims made and will request any other information that may support such claims if they feel the ad appears to cross any lines. Stations reserve the right to not air any advertisement that appears untrue or is proven false. However, once an ad is up, it is very difficult to have it pulled down. Once stations make a decision to air an ad, they tend to standby that decision. often candidates that believe they are being falsely attacked try to have an ad pulled and learn the hard way that this isn’t an easy process (and by the time they do get an ad pulled it already has 500 grps behind it). but if an ad does get pulled, this can become embarrassing and damaging to the accusatory campaign.
LEGAL BACKLASH - This is the hardest to prove and truly make anything of. Every so often, candidates will make claim that they will sue an opponent for defamation of character or libel. Rarely do these cases make it to court, but if a candidate does choose to pursue this route it could put the accuser and any others named in the suit in an uncomfortable legal position.
Ultimately, false attacks can backfire on candidates, and depending on the type of false claim, they can lose a lot by taking such a risk.
A perfect example of this was Felix Grucci’s campaign for re-election in 2002. Grucci, a first term member, was considered a shoe-in for re-election in New York’s First District on Long Island. Running against little-known, and not well funded Southampton College, provost Tim Bishop, Grucci’s campaign launched an attack ad claiming that his opponent had ignored sexual assault charges at the school. As it turned out, the claims were based on inaccurate and discredited information from the college’s student newspaper. The attack backfired and Bishop was narrowly elected, one of just a handful of Democratic bright take downs in a big election cycle for Republicans.
CAMPAIGN REGULATIONS - Governing bodies do regulate political advertising, but not in terms of actual claims made. Candidates and campaign committees must abide by federal election law, which falls under the authority of the FEC, aka Federal Election Commission. Other groups fall under the authority of the IRS depending on their tax status. But these organizations only dictate, timing of spots in an election cycle, how they can be paid for, and what specs the disclaimers must abide by.
But there is an important point made by my friend’s inquiry. If there continues to be an increasing amount of false campaigning, we can expect that there will be action taken. Almost any industry that fails to regulate itself, will expose itself to forced regulation by the federal government, even campaign politics, which is made up by members of the federal government.
As soon as the first Presidential debate was finished the phantom ads started. It’s as if each campaign keeps a voice talent and an editor on staff 24 hours a day.
McCain beat the Obama campaign to the punch with this spot:
Obama countered with this one, released this morning:
Washington Post Staff Writer Howard Kurtz has an interesting piece today highlighting a trend I have been discussing for a while, the concept of making an ad for talk, not for air.
Kurtz calls refers to them as phantom spots – and for lack of a better name, that’s what I’ll call them.
Using Phantom Spots is a tactic that’s feverishly taken off this election cycle.Here’s how it goes:
Determine a searing line of attack on opponent
Construct a :30 or :60 second ad
Claim it’s a new ad that the campaign is running
Show it to the media
Run it just a few times to factually back the claim that it’s a legitimate spot
Kurtz highlights several examples of how this tactic was used this election cycle:
Sen. John McCain received considerable publicity for a television ad accusing his Democratic opponent of having “lashed out at Sarah Palin, dismissed her as good-looking . . . then desperately called Sarah Palin a liar. How disrespectful.”
In the two weeks after the Republican convention, the commercial aired seven times.
Sen. Barack Obama drew substantial media attention for a spot declaring: “John McCain is hardly a maverick. . . . Sarah Palin’s no maverick, either. She was for the ‘Bridge to
Nowhere’ before she was against it. Politicians lying about their records.” During the same period, that commercial aired eight times.
In the two-week period that ended Sunday, the McCain campaign released 25 ads, 12 of which aired fewer than 25 times. The Obama campaign released 28 ads, 11 of which aired fewer than 25 times.
My friend EVAN TRACEY of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group has a good take on these Phantom Spots, “They’ve smartly figured out that there’s news of the day, and by feeding the content beast that is cable news and the blogosphere, they’re getting out their unfiltered take on the news of the day.”
Kurtz goes on to describe how the campaigns are putting the least money behind their most slashing spots, like the Obama Sex Ed spot and the McCain Internet spot, which are the kind that tend to drive news coverage.
My take on these on spots, is more about the role they fill, rather than what is on TV versus what is not.
In past presidential elections, campaigns would normally have a cadre of party stalwarts stumping on behalf of the candidate, doing most of the dirty work.They would be the visible attack dogs of the campaign, discussing the opposition candidate’s record or problems.
The only problem was, these candidates rarely received large scale national coverage.Only in the markets where they visited, did they get their attacks covered by the news media.So campaigns were only left with two options for getting something out to the mainstream mass media – press release or candidate remarks.
Press releases rarely carry any weight with the media anymore and attacks from the candidate appeared to close to home, often times driving up a candidate’s negatives while they attempted to drive up the negatives of their opponent.
What operatives and consultants realized was that the media likes to cover the release of any new advertising.It’s sexier, it has substance – audio and visual.Most importantly for the campaign, it has the appearance of a third party making the attack.Rarely do you see one candidate attack another in a political TV spot.
So the Phantom Spots, have become the new campaign attack surrogates, with video to match.
A month or so ago, we were privileged to watch a cross attack by McCain and Obama, referencing each other’s homes. You know, your run of the mill elitist house hit.
Now, Barack Obama has this new spot attacking McCain for his cars - all 13 of them. Airing in Michigan, which actually makes sense.
Have you noticed something similar in both the McCain and the Obama commercials? Have you recognized a common look and feel in many political TV ads this cycle?
Well your not crazy. It’s true. There is something all to familiar in many political advertisements this year. I found it unbelievable, how many Obama ads and McCain ads look so similar. Many actually look like they were created in the same production studio, by the same editor.
It’s called, “Kid Stays in the Picture.” It’s a production technique. And both presidential campaigns, and many other campaigns with a high end media budget, are using this relatively new production technique.
What is it?
It’s a cinematic production effect that’s created when you separate the layers of the photos and move them independent of one another to gain depth.
This style is being used commercially as well, as you may have seen much of this technique in ads airing during the olympics.
The look ads drama to still photos, taking it an extra step from the tried and true Ken Burns effect, which is when you pan and scan or pan and zoom on still photos in a video piece.
Here is a good description given by Bob Donlon, a TV editor with Adobe.
This [Kid Stays in the picture] has become a pretty popular technique, lots of doc-style shows and films are using it. The first film I saw that used this at length (and by “at length” I mean for the entire duration of the film) was The Kid Stays In The Picture. Almost the entire movie was photographs busted up into layers in Photoshop, then animated in 3D in After Effects.
See this new McCain spot as an example of multiple uses of this technique
Many campaigns do not have the luxury of being able to do multiple shoots or get a lot of stock shots of opponents, which cost a tremendous amount of dollars. So often times, media consultants will use still photos in TV spots to give changes in looks or to tell stories.
But just plastering a picture on a TV spot would be very boring to an average viewer, who’s eye has become used to seeing repetitive amounts of flash and motion. So, by employing the Kid Stays in the Picture technique, the producer creates movement and depth from simple stills.
Also, campaigns opt to use this technique if a candidate does not look particularly good in video footage. As you know, except for Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronald reagan, most candidates are not actors or actresses.
Many times, candidates for office are very awkward on camera. If a media consultant doesn’t see this and doesn’t address it, they will run spots with a poor portrayal of their candidate, exposing them to unintended negative consequences. Properly executed still photography alleviates this problem in positive ads.
In negative spots, the use of stills can also create an interesting drama effect. By cutting the opponent out of stills, and laying them against dark backgrounds or footage related to the subject the spot is talking about, you can tie the visual much tighter to the audio of the spot. This helps tell the story much more effectively. It also helps to create a negative visual without doing the fuzzy, grainy, ominous stuff media consultants did in the past - which turns viewers off.
There are a few other very popular techniques being used this cycle, which I will share in future posts. But this one appears to be the hottest craze. Now you know what it is.
Safe/Likely Obama - California (55) / Connecticut (7) / Delaware (3) / Hawaii (4) / Illinois (21) / Iowa (7) / Maine (4) / Maryland (10) / Massachusetts (12) / New Jersey (15) / New York (31) / Oregon (7) / Rhode Island (4) / Vermont (3) / Washington (11) / D.C. (3)
Here are three very good links for places to view past presidential Red / Blue maps, which provide excellent background on these states’ past presidential voting behavior.
This year’s election cycle is in a very precarious phase, as this past week signaled yet another issue transition for the 2008 election year.
The Wall Street (banks, lenders, insurers) breakdown, blowout, bailout and rally provided a tumultuous week for the presidential and congressional campaigns as Americans watched in disbelief and anxious anticipation of what it all means for main street.
With the fallout still remaining to be seen, one thing is clear, the ECONOMY is now the issue du jour.
Renowned pollster and strategist, Arthur Finkelstein put it best, “Politics is a three dimensional chess game.We make a move.They make a move. Then the hand of God sweeps in.”
However, unlike most election cycles in modern history, this one has witnessed the so-called hand of God several times, in the form of issue dominance. The economy’s new role, as the most important issue in the minds of voters, mark’s the fourth change of this cycle.
Here’s the rundown.
First, it was THE WAR IN IRAQ, with General Petreaus’ testimony and opposing arguments on the troop surge, dominating the media and the political environment around this time last year.
Then, the fight over illegal IMMIGRATION took hold the early part of this year, with hot debate over amnesty playing a larger role in the Republican presidential primaries.
As the summer began, American’s became increasingly concerned over the rapidly rising cost in gas and fuel prices. The ENERGY CRISIS further arrested attention with many gas stations selling over four dollars-a-gallon gas, sparking the ensuing debate over increasing domestic and off-shore drilling to ease U.S. reliance on foreign oil producers.
Now, the ECONOMY is thrusted into the front and center position on the minds of voters as we soak in the brutal hangover from lenders and banks’ high risk mortgage lending.
What’s more interesting, is while each of these issues became the focus, we continued to witness a constant sharp disapproval by voters of the administration and the congress. Each one of these issues reinforced Amricans’ general sense of failure, despair and frustration at the hands of the leadership in Washington.
The emotion started off as anger and indignation and it now appears to be more in line with hopelessness and helplessness. If the spike in Wall Street investment at the close of last week is merely a fleeting knee-jerk attempt to make gains in a low tide and the banks continue to fold, we will see more voter and consumer anxiety.
A continuation of such large scale institutional market failure could lead the economy into something very dark for Americans, and possibly changing the national psyche from expansionism to protectionism.
All this remains to be seen as we closely watch the market react to the large scale bailout being proposed by the President and the investment rallying we saw late last week. So political candidates are on somewhat shaky ground when it comes to economic messaging.
Political strategists know, messaging on the most important issues while tapping into the general emotion driving these issues is key. That’s why this election cycle has forced top-down dramatic messaging and advertising changes. Energy spots and mail must be quickly replaced with economic message pieces. Polls taken before last weekend should be tossed and new polls, gauging issue relevance, are held relevant until other new dramatic changes in the economy and the world affect the American people.
So for candidates trying to win in this election year, in competitive races, higher demands are placed on their teams and consultants to navigate this winding road. Because you never know what new issue may be around the next corner.
Brian Donahue is an executive with Jamestown Associates, a national full-service political advertising firm - specializing in television / radio advertising, direct mail and strategic communications. Read more...
Get in Touch
Comments? Questions? Seen a cool spot lately? Send me ads and I will detail the best and the worst. Contact Brian at bdonahue@jamestownassociates.com
