Ads of the Damned: Ron Johnson, "The Johnson Way"

Hey, look: it's an account giving a PowerPoint presentation! Feel the excitement!

All that's missing is a TI-85 graphing calculator.

Final Grade: D+

Ron Johnson TV Ad Features Non-People Leaving Not-Wisconsin

Since we're going to nit-pick over metaphors here, I'm sure the right will be just as outraged to learn that Ron Johnson used non-people in one of his earlier advertisements:
Yeah, that family moving out of the house and hitting the road in search of greener pastures in the stock footage at 0:06 and 0:20 are actors(!) who emote and pantomime gestures so as to convey a message to an audience. They're not real people. They aren't moving. They're probably not even related.

In fact, they're not even playing people from Wisconsin. As the trailer rides off into the ominous future ahead, it has what appears to be a Michigan license plate:
Here's something for the sake of the comparison:
And the Wisconsin plate we all know and live with:
So, Ron Johnson's actors (a.) are just as real as the name tag he's devoting so much energy critiquing, and (b.) aren't even playing characters from Wisconsin.

Thank you very much, talk radio, for finding an utterly meaningless issue to obsess over. And kudos to the the Johnson campaign for being big enough to let small, non-issues like this slide.

Oh, my bad ...
MORE: Lest the point we're trying to make above isn't clear enough, let's remove any tone of irony from what we're trying to say: it doesn't matter at all the Johnson used actors in his commercials. In fact, it matters as little as there being a lack of person to correspond to a name written on a prop used in Feingold's ad. The average TV-viewer is smart enough to know that sometimes fake things are intended to represent real things without necessarily having spent a semester studying the theory of mimesis.

There's really just no sense in complaining about either issue above. I'm sure the Johnson campaign will counter by saying that it's an indication of just how little Feingold cares about jobs, but only the simplest fool would believe such an incredible pile of bullshit.

Unfortunately, Wisconsin's talk radio clique and the Johnson campaign really don't think very much of voters. This is not a new problem among conservatives, nor do I expect it to end any time soon.

Ads of the Damned: Terri McCormick, "Rebuilding America"

What a fucking ego trip this ad is.

This is the only "serious" candidate in Wisconsin with the gall to film a Fourth of July parade to make it look like the entire town of Waupaca has come out to celebrate Terri McCormick.

The GOP primary can't come fast enough.

Final Grade: D

By the way, doesn't the still look like something out of the Zapruder film?

Ads of the Damned: Ron Johnson, "Feingold Mud"

Ron Johnson's campaign deserves credit for a quick turnaround on the great lakes drilling issue. Unfortunately the ad they cobbled together isn't very strong. A much better rebuttal would have been Johnson himself standing along Lake Michigan talking about how much he values the water blah blah blah. Instead we get a run-of-the-mill attack ad.

The brilliance of Feingold's ad is that it was a very strong attack ad without actually seeming like one. There was no candid photo of Johnson in bad lighting or eating children, etc. In fact, Johnson was basically represented by a nebulous oil slick. Johnson's rebuttal is remarkably pedestrian: a female narrator tut-tutting Feingold over stock footage. We've seen this all before. In fact, we've seen this so many times that ads like this are the reason most people hate political advertising.

The ad also barely passes the fact-check test thanks to some dodgy semantics. One of the reasons "drilling in the Great Lakes is already illegal" was courtesy of legislation that Feingold did vote for. The bill the ad cites was an energy bill that came to a Senate vote years later. The Associated Press calls Johnson's ad "misleading," adding:

The Republican's criticism is misleading. It implies that Feingold didn't want to protect the lakes. In fact, it was Feingold who co-sponsored the 2001 measure that enacted the temporary ban. Feingold voted against the 2005 measure because it wasn't substantive enough, he has said. [via JC]

It's also the fourth TV spot in a row to feature Johnson wearing his now trademark safety goggles. The Democrats should find someone more clever (and sober) than I am to come up with an idea that uses safety goggles like the Bush/Cheney '04 team used flip-flops to grand effect. Right now the only thing I can think of involves beer goggles, but that's because I've been drinking since noon.

Final Grade: D+

Ads of the Damned: Rick Barber, "Gather Your Armies"

Jesus, this is just awful:

Yet another entry from the Alabama orgy of eye-catching campaign ads. I honestly have no idea how these kinds of aggressive testosterone-laden ads play down there -- if what's his nuts can't win with the same approach, then who knows? -- but this spot just grows more psychotic as it barrels along. Anger is not very flattering.

It's one thing to be angry at something and another thing to demonstrate that anger is going to be the guiding philosophy of one's governing principle. This ad does the latter.

MORE: Dave Weigle on just how ridiculous this ad is.

EVEN MORE: via the Atlantic Wire:

NBC's Mark Murray is flabbergasted: "Rick Barber -- a Tea Party Republican competing in a congressional run-off down in Alabama -- is airing the first TV ad this reporter can remember that advocates taking up arms against the United States."

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

Ads of the Damned: More from First Read

Both of Ron Johnson's new TV ads are featured in another one of First Read's ad dumps.

None of the other ads are anything special.

Ads of the Damned: Ron Johnson, "Apple Pie"

Now this is interesting -- two very different ads in one day!

I'll say this for the Johnson campaign: cutting two spots from the same day of shooting is a very economical way to produce ad copy.

If Johnson's first spot was a straight forward "hard-working, strong-leader" sell, then this ad clearly is designed to be a little more playful: a meta-commentary on the schlockiness of political advertising. It's not a bad concept in theory, and it certainly preys on viewers purported disdain for candidate ads, but in execution this spot falls on it's goggle-covered face.

For starters the first 0:11 are clearly intended to be a parody of endless candidate bio ads ... the problem is that the montage suffers from, of all things, sincerity. If you're making a parody, you better make damn sure the audience knows it's a parody. The narrator's voice isn't over-the-top enough and the stock footage, while certainly generic and corny, just doesn't seem hokey enough. I honestly thought the woman crossing the finish line was participating in the Special Olympics the first time I saw the ad:
I'm not kidding.

But just as I was wondering if this ad actually went so far as to make fun of the mentally handicapped, Ron Johnson breaks through the fourth wall!
The rest of the script is notably more negative than Johnson's previous ad. We hear phrases like "squandering," "reckless," "irresponsible," "fed up" and "failure." It's obviously intended to tap into voter resentment, and since Johnson has yet to really define himself in the eyes of voters viewers can only assume that he wants this resentment to be part of his public identity.

Even Scott Walker has yet to tap into this sentiment as aggressively.

Once we viewers are magically transported back to the Pacur factory floor we are left with a very important question: why? There is no need for Johnson to be back at the factory where he has to put the goggles back on (other than it's cheaper and less time-consuming to shoot two ads in one location). The ad is primarily about "spending" and yet the visuals are much better suited for "jobs" -- there's a disconnect between the verbal rhetoric and the visual rhetoric that just doesn't jive.

The "big picture" message of this ad isn't "Political TV ads are lame" or even "Government spends too much" It's supposed to be "Ron Johnson is not politics as usual."

Unfortunately, I'm not confident this ad accomplishes pushing this message very effectively. The very first image we get of Johnson he's pushing away a sumptuous apple pie spread, as if he's rejecting the very embodiment of wholesome American values. Yeah, I get the joke: he's not rejecting America, but an exhausted and tired version of America that "career politicians" endlessly push; but the opening montage that helps to make this distinction just isn't clear enough.

Final Grade: D

Ads of the Damned: Ron Johnson, "Real World"

Let's kick this off by contrasting the opening TV gambits by the Johnson and the Terrence Wall campaigns. Wall was really nothing more than an extra in his own ad. Even though the narrator was describing Wall's story, by acting out the metaphor of scrapping and repainting an old wall Terrence Wall kind felt like a puppet without any agency and subject to the instructions of an omniscient disembodied voice from above. The whole mise en scene had the effect of making Wall look like an afterthought.

Not Johnson. He is the narrator and the audience's guide through the action of ad, leaving little doubt who's in charge.

The imagery is clearly intended to portray Johnson as a strong leader. I counted 5 shots of B-roll of Johnson giving orders to underlings, scrutinizing details, pointing at stuff like he owns the place (because he, um, does), etc. They're commanding visuals designed to make Johnson look like he's in charge of a working class operation -- he's even literally wearing a shirt with a blue collar while he does so.

Details like wardrobe are important ways to connect with voters. Since he's not an office holder, Johnson's actions in the spot have to look like he's ready to lead, something he pulls off quite effectively in this ad; but he still has to connect with the audience he intends to lead. That's one of the reasons why B-roll of politicians who are running for re-election so often shows them listening to constituents instead of ordering staffers around. I'm sure we'll see shots of Johnson listening to folks at a parade (or something) down the line, but now is the time to announce one's presence with authority.

A few scattered thoughts:

Johnson is at his best when he's speaking direct to camera. When gestures and other actions are required, he has a tendency to ham it up a bit and it looks obvious. That's not uncommon for a first-time actor and only gets better with practice.

Goggles. There's a reason why most politicians avoid eye-wear: it looks like they're hiding behind something. That's just a prejudice the audience assumes when they recognize they are watching a politician speak. I realize Johnson's walking through a machinist's shop and that OSHA regulations require protective eye-wear (and, for that matter, that Johnson actually wears glasses), but these are all things you have to take into account when planning the ad. It's also probably one of the reasons why the ad began with an exterior shot that introduced Johnson to the audience sans goggles, which is a good way of establishing a glasses-free first impression.

Not surprisingly, there's no talk about freedom in this spot.

Final Grade: B

Ron Johnson's First TV Ad is Out

Or at least on YouTube.

We'll give it a deeper look later on.

Ads of the Damned: Greater Wisconsin Committee, "Same"

I have many of the same problems with this ad as I did with GWC's earlier spot, with a few qualifications.

This spot benefits from a lighter tone that corresponds with its central visual: the paper doll, which is a great way of suggesting that Walker and Neumann (and eventually Bush and Cheney) are cut of the same cloth, as it were.

It's a well-made improvement over the GWC's last ad.

Final Grade: B-

Ads of the Damned: Republicans for Environmental Protection, "Boot Bipartisan"

Back in April the GOP produced a slick web ad to promote a new web site. The spot was hyper-melodramatic an came with over the top imagery, but it was very well produced and used a lot of fast edits to create the sensation of a dizzying whirlwind of motion. The spot below seems to have picked up on that ad's stylishness to great effect:



NOTE: This particular version of the ad is aimed at Sen. Sherrod Brown, but REP has also produced versions targeting Sens. Feingold and Kohl.

This Summer Words Will Fly At You Very Fast!

This is another slick production in the same mold as 'Remember November.' The typography moves quickly and the graphics pop, but the the image that really ties the piece together is the boot at the very end. It's a steel-toed construction shit-kicker (recall that the first words of the script are "China is kicking our butts...") that implies more jobs and stomping out nonsense.

It's also a clever way to suggest to voters that they should give law-makers who don't follow REP's agenda the proverbial "boot."

Final Grade: B+

Ads of the Damned: Primary Ad Orgy

First Read has ton of really good primary ads that are worth watching. Most of these wouldn't get anything lower than a B from us ... except for you, Tom Campbell, Carly Fiorina and the Tea Party Express.

We'll have some more to say on some of these a little later, but here are just a few points worth mentioning:

• Sue Lowden may be crazy (and going to lose), but the people making her TV ads are awesome.

• Shorter Matt Entenza ad: "Fuck You, Mississippi!"

• Don't talk about polls in your ads. No one gives a shit.

• Everyone in the state of Maine is apparently running for Governor.

• Seriously, why are some of the shittiest ads coming out of California?

• The most pleasant surprise of the batch: Gresham Barrett:

Ads of the Damned: National Resource Defense Council, "Change"

I don't like these kinds of ads. They're way too reliant on graphics and stock film footage. The audience has to wait until the very end to discover what kind of action is trying to be elicited from the spot. The photography is grainy and foe some reason one of the boxes during the split screen shots is always triple exposed. This is a hot mess that was obviously produced on the cheap.

Final Grade: F

Ads of the Damned: More Hits from the Hinterlands

We have another contender for ad of the year:



Now that's bloody brilliant. It's actually funny and the joke is also hard-hitting.

Whoever is making Lowden's ads is bringing their A-game: here are a few more (as well as a few of her competitor's, which don't even approach the level of quality).



Even though this ad's pretty much shit, we're passing it along for two reasons. 1.) It's for a race in Alabama, which is ground zero for eye-catching political advertisements this years, and 2.) What the fuck? Did that dude basically ask people to vote for him because a black person can't be called a racist for calling another black person a racist slur? The racial politics of this ad are pretty gross.



Fake crowd noise? Please ...

And here's Mickey Kaus doing his best Paul Wellstone impersonation:



And here's the most racist ad you'll this election cycle:

Ads of the Damned: Tom Barrett, "Jobs for Wisconsin"

I was pretty sure that I was going to hate this ad when I saw how long it was (1:03) and since it was Barrett's first ad out of the box I anticipated it being a smaltzy bio piece that features the wife and kids, old photos of Barrett as a kid, etc. Instead, I got a great example of how effective the use of repetition can be in advertising.

The word "jobs" (note the use of the plural) is said 8 times in the script and appears another seven times in written form on the screen. There are seven shots of Barrett breaking ground, touring factories, stock footage of people working, etc. The ad even uses four news clips when most ads probably would have just settled for three. In this ad's case, it's length actually helps drive home the point because the message never changes during the course of the spot. It's just 63 seconds of jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs...

The message is pretty clear: Barrett's campaign is going to be about jobs.

There aren't any nifty gimmicks or fancy tricks pulled in this spot, but if you asked a focus group who had just seen this ad what it was about in one word, I guarantee you that 90% of the responses would be "jobs" -- and that's exactly the point here.

One last observation: Barrett is surrounded by a large supporting cast in this ad. His campaign clearly wants him to be seen talking with voters and working with people. Scott Walker, on the other hand, has put out four TV spots and thus far has been the only person to show up on camera for all of them. It's an interesting study in contrasts that says a lot about each candidates comfort levels in front of the camera and how messaging is being crafted by each campaign to adapt to the personal strengths of the man in charge.

Final Grade: B+

Ads of the Damned: OH Gov.

Take it away, Stu Rothenberg.

Ads of the Damned: David Frum on the PA-12 Special Election

Worth reading.

The Critz ad is particularly interest -- the visual of projecting images of better economic times ahead onto the dilapidated walls of an empty warehouse in the heart of the Rust Belt actually works well.

Ads of the Damned: CA Gov: Steve Poizner, "Adults Only"

Oh, Lord ...

I can't even begin to count the number of times I've been on eBay and I honestly didn't know there was an "adults only" section until I saw this ad. I assume that my eBay experience isn't all that different from most users.

So I gather that this ad is directed at that reliable voting bloc that still doesn't have a lot of computing experience: senior citizens.

The problem is that I don't know how true that statement is. The visuals are too reliant on computer-related signifiers. Instead, it's probably more accurate to say this ad is directed at hard core cultural conservatives. The script contains some lovely conservative dog whistles like the accusation that Whitman banned gun sales from eBay, which implies she is soft on the 2nd Amendment and would likewise "ban gun sales" once in office. The "fake paintings" detail is a nice touch in so much as it implies that it's Whitman herself who is fraudulent, possibly a fraudulent conservative.

But, let's face it, this ad is a love letter to adult entertainment, er, rather "hardcore pornography." An especially nice touch is the frame below as the narrator explains that Whitman started a separate division [cut to frame] that only sells porn."
That kid doesn't look remotely close to being 18 years old. This visual accusation is rather striking: Meg Whitman is involved in distributing porn to under aged kids. The extended implication is that Whitman is involved in child pornography.

The next handful of mud to be flung seems tame by comparison. The script reads "Under Whitman's leadership the porn site became one of the largest on the internet," just as this frame appears:
The ad is basically saying that Whitman herself is for sale, and since the context of the ad is overtly sexual, Poizner is essentially calling Whitman a whore.

Bravo, Steve Poizner, you're a douchebag.

Lastly, and for reasons that are beyond my comprehension, the ad some how ties Whitman to GoldmanSachs, as if being called a child pornography-peddling hooker weren't enough already.
The font makes the it look like the summation of the ad is that "GoldmanSachs Deals Pornography," not necessarily Whitman.

All in all, this has to be the most vile campaign ad I've seen in a long time.

Ads of the Damned: John McCain, "Complete the Danged Fence"

This seemed to win the ire of many conservatives a few days ago:



Some of this anger is a little overstated. This is McCain's fourth TV spot of the campaign and third specifically dealing with immigration (here one, and here's another). Like the other two, the spot recites the details of the "McCain/Kyl plan," but this one seems to have really irritated conservative bloggers.

Why?

The answer that seems to run most commonly in the threads of the offended bloggers is that McCain once supported "amnesty," or at least a version of immigration reform that they disagreed with. If this was really the case, then why didn't raise the issue when the first immigration ads came out. That may be the policy subtext behind the anger, but the filmic text of the ad itself also opens McCain up to criticism of being phony in way politics flip-floppery just doesn't.

Take a look at the fine print of this frame:
It reads "Paul Babeu appearing only in his personal capacity." Well, then why is he addressed by his title "Sheriff Paul Babeu" when we first meet him and what in God's name is he doing wearing his uniform? Sheriff Bableu is a validator. I'm sure there are legal reasons for the disclaimer, but it's juxtaposition next to an figure who's authority McCain clearly wishes to siphon is a little too obvious.

Next is the small point raised by a commenter at Hit and Run: Nogales isn't in Sherrif Babeu's jurisdiction of Pinal County, which isn't a boarder county. I'm sure that most Arizonans would pick up on this. This discrepancy isn't to say that non-boarder counties don't have immigration issues they need to contend with (we know all to well that they do), but what it does do is create a skewed sense of geography for the viewer, one that suggests McCain doesn't really know his own state all that well.

Moving on we have Allahpunidt's criticism of McCain costume: "John “Goddamned Fence” McCain marching along the border in a badass Navy baseball cap looking like he could choke out a coyote with his bare hands." I've always wondered about the baseball cap myself, which has been a McCain staple in outdoors setting since he was treated for skin cancer some years back. I've never been sure if this was a way to make him look more rugged, more "common man," more youthful or was just part of his doctor's orders to stay out of the sun and was a better alternative than a Michael Jackson-esque umbrella. Regardless, it should be obvious why the cap usually says Navy.

The spot does a good visual job of transforming the boarder fence into something that's more than just scenery and almost into another actor. Just watch how the fence visually evolves of the course of the first frames of the spot.

Here it is off to the side, helping to establish the location:

Then we have a shot of McCain and Babeu walking closer to it, as if it's the third member of their party while the two men are talking about the horrible thing illegal immigrants are doing to Arizonans:It's no accident that the frame changes just as McCain says "home invasions" to a close up of a porous and seemingly incomplete fence:Granted, the space between those rusty beams might actually be narrow enough to keep out even an anorexic supermodel, but it doesn't look like an effective fence. There's a two-fold implication here: 1.) that all illegal immigration is a form of "home invasion" against the country, and 2.) that this anemic-looking fence is the only thing keeping back people who want to invade your home at night to rob you.

Just to reinforce the point, the boarder fence actually becomes almost negligible as Sheriff Babeu notes that half of illegal immigrants come through Arizona and we get this image:

Now that's a fence that wouldn't keep out a tumbleweed.

There are a number of issues one can find fault with in the script. The first is the minor curse McCain uses to describe the fence. As Allahpundit points out above, its a callback to a stronger phrase used by McCain several years ago in, of all places, Milwaukee. It's very Mavericky language and reminiscent of a past McCain's been trying to distance himself from lately. The whole point of the ad is to demonstrate how in sync McCain is with the rest of the GOP on immigration. It's fairly obvious that he's trying to channel the anger so many conservatives feel about the issue, but it misses the mark.

The very last line of the script before the disclaimer is even less subtle. "Senator, you're one of us," the sheriff says just before the frame freezes on a close up of McCain. There's just nothing natural about that exchange. Once it's said, it feels like the entire spot has been McCain fishing for a compliment.

There's a weird blend of strong visual imagery and fightin' words that never really seems to add up in this case. A lot of this has to do with incumbency. McCain's been Arizona's senator for decades now and walking in front of a incomplete fences that apparently can't stop an army of impoverished third-worlders doesn't exactly scream strength, even thought that's clearly the point of the ad. McCain's should be bragging about having done everything thing human possible to strengthen boarder security, but here he's pointing out the boarder's weaknesses. If JD Hayworth ran this exact same ad the context would be completely different and it would probably be rather brilliant, but as it stands, it just doesn't seem to work.