Ads of the Damned: Mark Neumann, "Scott Walker - Can't Stick to his Guns"

Good news, Mark Neumann! This is your best TV ad yet.

I really don't know how to tie everything that's going on in this spot into one over-arching idea -- largely because I don't think there really is one aside from "Scott Walker sucks!" -- so here is just series of disparate observations:

• Most important take-away from this spot: Neumann's effort to sully Walker's branding by turning the brown bag imagery against him. That's one of the problems with relying on a single campaign gimmick like the brown bag. The brown bags in this spot look crumbled and dirty -- completely unappealing. Who in their right mind would want to examine the contents of those things?

• It's amusing that this spot is "Reason #6" why Walker is a "career politician." I'm not sure what happened to reasons #1-5, but those are just minor details. I'm actually more surprised Neumann hasn't done more to stick the "career politician" label on Walker thus far. Perhaps he's compensating.

• The Peter, Bjorn & John knock-off soundtrack is probably the hippest music choice we've heard yet this year.

• The ad runs long, particularly where the narrator is explaining Walker's history on concealed carry. The script here should have been tightened up to shave a few seconds off the run time, which is 40 seconds. Most commercials run in increments of :30 seconds. Those ten extra seconds could make this ad difficult to fit into a commercial rotation and might limit when the ad runs.

It wouldn't surprise me to see more brown bag bashing from Neumann is the future.

Final Grade: B