I have to take a dissenting view about the anti-Bush ad released by Americans United for Change.
The ad is excellent.
For people like us.
That is, people who can look at pictures and a series of questions and then draw the correct conclusion from them.
However, most people and most voters do not operate that way.
They take in exactly what is presented to them without further analysis.
So viewing the ad from that perspective, it is not very good.
It shows a series of questions and assumes the viewer will provide the correct answer. But s/he may not.
The voiceover clips make statements and assume the viewer will ascribe correct blame. But s/he may not.
The ad does not even make it clear that the events depicted occurred during W's presidency!
Worst of all, it repeats the "he kept us safe" lie three times, spoken twice and on screen once, therefore reinforcing it.
It's only an effective ad for people who already agree with us.
It is actually not persuasive at all.
Here's how to fix it.
The Price Is Right is the number one show on daytime television and has been for a very long time. One reason for that popularity is the way it presents its information.
If you watch the show without listening to it, you still know exactly what is happening at all times. If you listen to the show without watching it, you still know exactly what is happening at all times (though some advertisers don't pay enough to get their brand mentioned—"now we have an 12 ounce bag of dark chocolate chips" but no mention of the Ghirardelli name). If you watch AND listen, you get the message twice.
And what is the message?
The Price Is Right is a masterpiece of television advertising: five days a week it gets millions of people to watch an hour's worth of product placement.
In addition to showcasing specific products, it is a subliminal ad for the concept of discount pricing: Wow—you got that easy chair from Wayfair for $525? I saw one just like it on the Price Is Right for $810!
The vast majority of TPIR fans have no idea what the purpose of the show is, and they do not care. But they watch, and they are highly influenced by it.
If The Price Is Right can make pricing facts memorable, the best minds on the blue team can figure out how to make political facts memorable.
I haven't figured out how to turn the 2016 campaign into a game show, but I have the next best thing.
I want to introduce something I call the "Price is Right Rule":
The key to an effective political ad is when audio and video present a standalone message using the simplest visuals and vocabulary possible.
If someone is only hearing the ad, they get the whole message. if someone is only watching the ad, they get the whole message. If someone is watching and hearing, the one-two punch of audio and video reinforce each other for a more memorable and potentially more influential message.
So when evaluating the communication effectiveness of an ad, begin by evaluating the audio and video separately.
Watch it with the sound off. What message does it send? Is it clear? Does it stand alone or require additional explanation/analysis?
Then listen to it without watching it. What message does it send? Is it clear? Does it stand alone or require additional explanation/analysis?
@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@
Given all of the above, here are my ideas for making the Americans United for Change ad more mass-market effective for the low-information voters we need to reach.
The first card should read:
Candidate Jeb Bush said this about President George W. Bush at the CNN Republican debate, September 16, 2015
then the "he kept us safe" clip from 0:01 to 0:05 is OK, including the word SAFE moving to become part of the sentences below.
Printed words should read:
BUSH did NOT keep us SAFE from a crumbling economy in 2008
BUSH did NOT keep us SAFE from the consequences of Hurricane Katrina in 2005
BUSH did NOT keep us SAFE from an unnecessary war in Iraq in 2003
BUSH DID NOT KEEP US SAFE from TERRORIST ATTACK IN 2001
All current voiceover clips should be scrapped and replaced with a warm female voice reading the exact sentences above.
Current visuals are fine, except the following changes:
add the words Hurricane Katrina in the upper right corner over the shot of the flooding and the Superdome.
Add the the flyover shot of Bush in the airplane and a shot of this Daily Beast headline:
For Iraq, take out Matt Lauer. Replace with a longer series of combat visuals. In the upper right corner have a counter running labeled Iraq War casualties. Start with the number 2003 in RED and have the counter rise rapidly over 4400 as the screen fades to black with the red number, still rising in amount as well as getting larger in font size, moving to the middle of the black screen and being the last to fade away.
then after a moment of all black, a few jump cuts of 9-11 rubble, followed by the iconic photo of Bush with the bullhorn:
dissolve from the bullhorn photo to the current visual with the Twin Tower tribute lights.
You could show MILLIONS of voters the "lights rising into the sky" and ask them "what city is this?" and they would not know. But they all associate the megaphone photo with 9-11 even though it does not show the Towers, and it helps them remember who was pResident then.
Closing card should read:
SAFE? BUSH did NOT keep us SAFE.
The word SAFE? should be in BLUE.
The bolded words BUSH NOT SAFE in RED BOLD (apparently we can't create text in color anymore--hope that is fixed in DK5).
In case it is not obvious, we refer to GWB only as "Bush" in the ad (not as "President Bush" or "George Bush") because we are connecting the name "Bush" to the candidate who is trying to disconnect his campaign from that name.
I do not expect Americans United for Change to change their ad. I have done this as an example of the kind of audio/video standalone work progressives should be doing in all our political messaging.
I fervently hope to encourage D campaigns to remember my "Price is Right rule" as they make ads in the future.
Effective Republicon ads are already doing it.