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Digital Campaigning - Which TV Ad Gets Your Vote?
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2891 Reads
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 Much as the blogosphere and newspapers hate to admit it, most Angelenos will get information on the mayor's race from TV - more specifically, from the hype-glow of campaign ads flooding the airwaves.
So, this morning, the Times finally gets around to dissecting mayoral campaign ads - something we handled two weeks ago.
They liken Richard Alarcon's "Crime" spot (Quicktime) to a Dash Hammett figure in a "Law & Order" episode (actually, it's more old-school, like "Hill Street Blues" or maybe "L.A. Law").
And they parrot the now-trite digs at Hertzberg's jolly pink giant ads (Quicktime), which have already prompted snickers in other forums along the lines of "Bobzilla" and Walter Moore's humorously apt "Sta-Puf Marshamallow Man" analogy. The sight of Hertzberg's immense butt planted on an LAPD station made Wal-Mart's ad agent sniff ...
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"I thought it looked a little silly and undignified. And when he's waving to the kids on the playground, it's like he's this giant Gulliver. There's something a little bit patronizing about it." Say what you like - everyone remembers them.
Personally, I keep waiting for F-18s to come screaming down Broadway, peppering Bob's 3-piece with laser-guided missiles and electric Gatling guns until he lumbers off to campaign in some less-well-defended neighborhood.
The Times points out correctly that Bernard Parks mysteriously forgets to mention his work as a city councilman in his shaky, low-budg cops-n-campaigning message (MP4).
And the Times notes accurately that Hahn seems in a hurry to escape the paid extras(Quicktime) acting as adoring constituents in both his spots, striding away from them and toward the camera while spouting an accounting of his paper-thin record.
What's interesting is the Times' Matea Gold and Jessica Garrison looked only at Villaraigosa's oldest (albeit visually symphonic) English-language "image" spot "Believe" (RealPlayer) and ignores the two latest: "Measure" (.wmv, en Ingles), which touts his record in Sacto and his much briefer work at City Hall, and "Mi Hogar" (Quicktime).
That Spanish-language spot offers a much more folksy vision of the candidate surrounded by non-actors, speaking directly at the camera like an old friend and asking for su vota while the words "padre, vecino, lider" stream across the screen. Visually, it's a train wreck - more flashy digital editing than you can see in most MTV videos, but the appeal is a lot more direct than any of the rest.
If you knew nothing beyond these sliced, digitized, drama-pumped chunks of propaganda, which candidate would you choose today? Did your candidate blow it - or overblow it?
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| Posted by: mack_reed on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 08:51 AM
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