All but the most avid Deaniacs will agree: Dean's TV spots, well, suck. They are about as appealing and authentic as informercials - shocking from a campaign that has essentially redefined the playing field (only to have the combatants learn the new rules very quickly, catch up and then some...)
Two ideas for new ads, based on the two strengths of the campaign itself.
1) Dean on Valium: As many have noted, making love to the camera works. Might take a bit of coaching in Dean's part, but his message is authentic and he delivers it well. A plain-spoken, from the heart campaign with Dean squarely addressing viewers pseudo-directly in a 15- or 30-second inspirational bit would be quick and cheap to produce. To do this even better, it should be more dynamic than some BS talking head shot - it should be decently choreographed, otherwords.
A ballsy twist would be to start it off with a YEEEARRRRRRGH! and explain calmly and rationally why that was important for supporter morale. It'll at least break the monotony of TV some with the punctuation at the beginning, and probably be quite humorous and instructive at the same time.
Also requiring cajones would be something similar to the "youth category" winner in the Moveon.org contest. This is very similar indeed to a routine called Streeters that Rick Mercer used to do for This Hour Has 22 Minutes, the Canadian equivalent (and precursor to) The Daily Show. Semi-structured ranting, biting sarcasm, ironic as hell, great punchlines, cheaply produced if the material's good. Hard to do well, but Mercer pulled it off more often than not. Dean himself could deliver this with gusto, with the right material it would be gold. You could produce quite a few of these and unleash in rapid succession on TV and on the Web. Even one a day if you put your organization behind it.
2) Deaniacs on Valium: A selection of people out there from a variety of backgrounds calmly and enthusiastically explaining why they were courted to Dean's campaign in their own words. Also cheap as hell to produce - you could probably get enough raw material within 24 hours and a few thousand hardcore Deaniacs with DV or Webcams. The cheaper and more home produced the better. Authentic emotion from real people, as unfiltered as possible, but filtering out the radical fringe who would just scare people.
The home produced DV ad that I saw here earlier is the right idea, but it still holds true to the standard model of TV ads. Indeed it took it way too far - it turns people off not because it's false but because it's too crass in its manipulation and melodrama. In other words, the (hopefully former) Dean ads on steroids. Even more of a bad thing is still a bad thing.
New ideas welcome - something really innovative and crazy ideally.
http://qpon.quiznos.com
Something like this, maybe. Spongemonkeys for Dean.
http://www.rathergood.com for the source of those...uh...things.
http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song for the debut.
The Laibach version of course would send off the wrong ideas.