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So our ads should be single issue ads. No more shotgun (multiple issue) ads. They should tell a story--note these can archetypes and use actors. James who lost his job and his health insurance and then had a car accident and who is now facing bankruptcy, Phil whose super-smart 13 year is in trouble because he is bored by teaching to the test, a rural Nepalese woman whose baby died because of the defunding of family planning agencies who would have provided clean birth kits, Meredith in college but now has to drop out because state funding cut, Sally who found that Bush's drug cards didn't help her a bit, Tom and his wife, a retired couple, who learned that their former employers were dropping their medical insurance because they could do so and throw them onto Medicare only), Ben and Joan putting off retirement so they can help their kids because their son's job was outsourced, Mary and Phil whose marriage is strained because Phil's mom is asking if she can come and live with them because she doesn't think she'll have enough social security to live on when she retires in a few years, I thought that for the most part our ads were bland and superficial. We are dealing with people who respond to emotional appeals (recall commentary about the girl whose mother was killed on 9-11 and that the focus groups were so moved by it--one commentator said men were crying). Well, that ad made me mad but in a more cerebral, intellectual way. "If Gore had been president, she wouldn't have lost her mom" and "Any president would have hugged her (let no photo-op go by)" and when she said she said she felt safe because Bush was president, I said, "Idiot." But it illuminate one fact. People responded to it emotionally. And then I remembered the ads used so effectively against Clinton's health care plan. Those, too, were emotion driven vignettes.
So our ads should be single issue ads. No more shotgun (multiple issue) ads. They should tell a story--note these can archtypes and use actors. James who lost his job and his health insurance and then had a car accident and who is now faciing bankruptcy, Phil whose super-smart 13 year is in trouble because he is bored by teaching to the test, a rural Nepalese woman whose baby died because of the defunding of family planning agencies who would have provided clean birth kits, Meredith in college but now has to drop out because state funding cut, Sally who found that Bush's drug cards didn't help her a bit, Tom and his wife, a retired couple, who learned that their former employers were dropping their medical insurance because they could do so and throw them onto Medicare only), Ben and Joan putting off retirement so they can help their kids because their son's job was outsourced, Mary and Phil whose marriage is strained because Phil's mom is asking if she can come and live with them because she doesn't think she'll have enough social security to live on when she retires in a few years, Sonia who needed a "partial birth abortion" (I know that is not a medical term and is an invention of the right) for medical reasons and now can't have another child--her baby lived a minute or two, now we see her in the nursery taking a teddy bear out to put with attic sale stuff--she'll never need it. There's thousands of pathos-filled stories-results of Bush/Republican policies that tug at the heartstrings and also (sadly) play the fear card ("that could happen to me").
The point is to draw the viewer in to a story he or she can identify with. The protagonist should not talk to the viewer (well, maybe a quick one or two lines). The ads should be a slice of life, a mini soap opera. These ads do not change our message but they bring our values to life. It is not abandoning our principles but repackaging them and making them vivid.
There is benefit from analyzing what went wrong (picking over the bones), but I had the uncomfortable feeling that the campaign was too cerebral, too rationale. I didn't see the danger because that approach resonated with me. But even if I had I didn't/don't know anyone of influence to suggest this idea to. Finally, the fault lay in not analyzing Republican success and co-opting it.
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