The MoveOn.org Ads

I have been meaning to write about this for a while since it combines two my biggest interests: Advertising. I figured now, when I got to vote on the runoff ads for “Animated,” “Youth,” and “Comic”.

They have the final 15 up on the home page. Make that 14. They seemed to have removed my Favoirte (although they still seem to have it on the site: low bandwith too). I have posted it here as well.

I am only showing one frame of this ad, but that is all I really need to show. There is black and white footage of Bush lying about WMDs and Saddam’s ties with Al Queda overlaid with flashing images of soldiers who have died in the Iraq war. The music is the sober tune they play at a soldiers funeral (I forget what it is called).

The ad has a clear and effective message, delivered simply. You get it right away; You could be running off to the bathroom and you’d get it. The headline (which could also be the tagline) says it all and rhymes too. The music helps the ad grab you emotionally and the simple presentation keeps you from getting bored. Congratulations to Mike Cuenca and the The Civil Society Group.

The emotional pull of Bush lying getting us into a war where many Americans gave their lives is obviously effective since it was used in 4 of the final ads including my second favorite. That ad has higher production values than the first, and just as much emotional impact, but I liked the simplicity of the tag/headline “He Lied. They Died.”

Another ad I quite liked, In My Country, tackles a different topic: the Patriot act and our shrinking freedom. This would be a good ad to run if the criticizing the Iraq war lies turns out to be a bad strategy.

I got to vote on my favorite ad in the first round of voting, where I saw a bunch of other ads as well. Most of them, of course sucked. It wasn’t the production values that made them bad; it was the ideas. Studying advertising I have learned that simple effective ideas are what make a great ad. It may be nice to have a slickly produced commercial, but a good idea can be sketched out on a piece of paper and be effective.

Calpundit links to a funny sedup of the ads. This show a lot of the problems with a lot of the ads (even many of the finalists), such as the omniscient narrator, a staple of hack political ads, saying something like “Bush has blah blah blah.. and we wont stand for it”. Like this parody, many of the ads also try to cover too much. I am quite aware that Bush is awful in many different ways, but an effective ad sticks to one idea, and gets it across effectively. If you want to make two point, get two ads. The most noticeable part of the parody was the gradual slide in to simply calling Bush names. None of the real ads I saw were this bad of course, although some were close. I know Bush deserves all these names, but when you are trying to convince someone about how bad Bush is, stick to the facts. There are plenty of good facts to use against Bush.

These ads are currently being judged by a celebrity panel. There are quite a few good names there, but I am a little disappointed that they didn’t have anyone from and ad agency. A creative director or agency principal could really ad some insight that actors, authors, musicians and political consultants might miss. I hope they pick one and run one of my top pics. A great ad can really change peoples perception.

That brings me to a new topic: I have just created an Advertising category for this blog where I will have more discussions about ads. Enjoy.