In honor of the passing of Tony Schwartz, the creator of the "Daisy Ad" that only ran once during the 1964 presidential campaign and marked Goldwater as a nuclear nut forever, I present the following ad idea. I also worked once at Tony's ad agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach, the home of such enduring commercials such as presenting multihued young people on a mountaintop clasping hands and singing, "I'd like to give the world a Coke, in perfect harmony".
Run a true horror ad on Youtube--ominous soundtrack, Bernard Herrmann in Psycho with violins shrieking--an instant shot to the gut. Maybe start out with solitary kettle drum beats and rise in intensity.
Black and white still photos, voice of God voiceover, maybe Morgan Freeman intoning. Run the pix with titles read off by aforementioned voice. "Foreclosure". Shot of shuttered, boarded up home, the belongings of a family, suitcases, a forlorn doll, a dog, sitting on the curb. "Unemployment". Cut to long lines at the unemployment office with overtones of bank runs and soup kitchens. "Corruption." Two pot-bellied men, shot from the neck down, one paying the other one in large bills, counting slowly. "War". Shots of vets or blazing combat. "Torture." Shots of waterboarding (I've seen very scary footage of this on MSNBC). The screen goes black.
Voice with titles, "Bush, McCain. Do you want more of the same?"
You've got to grab the viewer right away in the solar plexus.
I wish I knew how to put together this ad, but I'm sure one of you young 'uns can do it.