Colin McEnroe Show: Political Ads in 2010
Primary season is heating up and so are the ads!
Probably the best known and longest remembered Connecticut campaign commercial was Joe Lieberman's 1988 cartoon ad depicting Lowell Weicker as a snoozing bear.
Lieberman won the Senate seat by a narrow margin that year. No bear commercial, no seat.
What is it with bears? One of the most famous national commercials was Reagan's anti-Mondale highly metaphorical bear commercial in 1984.
We also tend to remember negative ads more vividly, partly because of our neurological wiring and partly because -- to borrow from Tolstoy -- happy ads are all alike but every unhappy ad is unhappy in its own way.
Which is not to say that happy ads don't work. The ads for Clinton and Gore in 1992 tended to show both men, sleeves rolled up, grabbing the hands of well-wishers with warmth and vigor. The impression was youthful, personal, as opposed to the patrician stiffness of George H.W. Bush.
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There's a real formula out there for [campaign ads] ... it's probably focused grouped to death.
Comments
E-mail from Martin
One of your guests mentioned that it seems to be aimed at Fairfield County. Indeed: It shows the car radio dial set to 820 AM, the channel for WNYC, the AM public radio station in NYC -- which is strong in southwestern Connecticut. Things that make you say ummmmmmmm. Usually, TV ads and programs use a non-existent channel, such as 90.6 FM or 108.1, etc. And using AM at all -- how quaint :)).
E-mail from Joan
I think Blumenthal is making a big mistake by not making himself more visible in the media. I hope we don't see a Scott Brown scenario in Connecticut.
E-mail from Paul
Is any candidate held to uphold promises made during a commercial?
If this is not correct what incentive is there to believe anything seen, heard, implied, or even alluded to in commercials!!!
Vote for me.. I can fix anything
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