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October 24, 2006
Lieberman or Nixon?
Lamont plays hardball. This is about the toughest ad I've ever seen:
October 24, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
That is stunning.
Posted by: litbrit | Oct 24, 2006 12:40:52 PM
It's not on TV, is it? There's no "I'm Ned Lamont, and I approved this message".
You can't win an election on YouTube ... yet ...
Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | Oct 24, 2006 12:47:27 PM
Its too long for TV ... they would need to chop it up into a series of three or four to get all those comparisons in.
I agree that you probably can't win the election on Youtube, but OTOH, conventional wisdom trails events. Youtube is still a good place to get things out for reaction.
If the Lamont campaign can get this message out, they can win the election. Whether television commercials drawn out of this internet commercial are the right carrier for the message ... I dunno.
What demographic has the strongest mismatch between their oppostion to the war and their support for Joe? It would have to be 45+ for this to have maximum impact.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Oct 24, 2006 12:53:19 PM
It seems to me that this is the year of voting against incumbency. Lieberman's message is "I'm your senator, I pretended to save jobs here, bla bla."
That should be the very thing that Lamont runs against - that he is the sitting Senator. This is the year for Throw the Bums Out, and Ned needs to find a way to feed that particular emotion.
Posted by: craigie | Oct 24, 2006 1:02:57 PM
Lieberman's message on TV is "I want to end the Iraq war", and "Ned is too negative and partisan and has no ideas".
I guess equating the first statement with Richard Nixon will help. Though, I'm curious, if you polled Nixon in Connecticut, he might have higher favorability ratings than Bush.
Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | Oct 24, 2006 1:12:51 PM
they don't need to chop it down. They need to use it in its entirety. This is counter programming to the usual style of commericals. It's a powerful piece because it builds in the audience mind in less than 2 minutes all they need to know and understand, and give them emotional resonance. In film, one of the techniques used to do programming is to actually put a film that is counter to all the other films coming out at the moment, because the feeling is that an audience may want to see, for example, a comedy when everyone else is putting out a drama. The idea is that if you give people all the same choice, any difference will garner more attention for those markets being underserved. Where lamont and other ads have underserved the market, is where this ad comes into play. It should be aired exactly as it is, in it's entirety. Let the view sit through it- piece together- as the video requires the audience to do so that by the end- the audience understands the critique. It's sobering, and a good piece of counter programming to the nomral commericals out there right now, which don't always offer emotional resonance. This does.
Posted by: akaison | Oct 24, 2006 1:17:10 PM
ps, if they must chop it down- the way to do it is to air it in a suspenseful fashion over the course of one show that is popular. start with the first 30 seconds, and by the end of the programming have aired the entire piece in 4 segments- this way over the course of the program it feels like a coming attraction- and again builds in the audience mind. just some observations about how to build anticipation.
Posted by: akaison | Oct 24, 2006 1:23:08 PM
they don't need to chop it down. They need to use it in its entirety. This is counter programming to the usual style of commericals. It's a powerful piece because it builds in the audience mind in less than 2 minutes all they need to know and understand, and give them emotional resonance.
Yes.
Posted by: litbrit | Oct 24, 2006 1:25:00 PM
Hmmm, I bet you could do that on cable ... buying two minute blocks ... and at the same time you would have the demographics to tell you which cable channels to place it on.
And the two minute block would mean more people stopping and saying, "what's this?" as they fast forward through the commercials.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Oct 24, 2006 1:41:07 PM
Its a great idea but its terribly produced. This is good for YouTube, not for TV.
Posted by: Joseph Hovsep | Oct 24, 2006 2:01:57 PM
They used the morph too early in the ad, and in fact I'd have left out the morph entirely (it's too cheap an effect to have a meaningful impact anymore). But the rest of the ad, with the juxtaposed quotes, was pretty powerful.
Posted by: Christmas | Oct 24, 2006 2:05:18 PM
Am I the only one who thought this was very badly put together?
The morph was done too early, the "Nixon wants peace, Lieberman wants peace, coincendence" was embarassing, they don't know the difference between casualties and deaths (there were more casualties than 9000)... I don't know I didn't find it that effective. Maybe it's me.
Posted by: Jacob | Oct 24, 2006 3:19:44 PM
I think you could run a 30-second version of this that would work quite well. As I said in the other thread, this is along the lines of what the Lamont campaign should've been doing from the start.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf | Oct 24, 2006 3:19:54 PM
I agree. The problem was that they kept trying to be the 'netroots' candidate rather than the general CT candidate. The latter may have worked in a primary, but in a general, this is the ad that should have come out within days of the primary if not a day after the primary, and these sorts of ads should have papered CT.
Posted by: akaison | Oct 24, 2006 4:57:57 PM
Just to reiterate what another commenter said: great idea, poorly produced ad. At its current length I found it difficult to watch all the way through.
Besides, it hardly matters, as Lieberman is going to crush Lamont.
Posted by: NBNL | Oct 24, 2006 6:16:16 PM
eh. not so impressed. the ad's too long. no way is a TV viewer going to sit still for that. but much of the length problem could be solved by tightening the editing. and the production values suck.
it's been said, but great idea, lackluster execution.
Posted by: mencken | Oct 24, 2006 7:48:42 PM
emailed this ad to a few friends to get their impressions- none of them political-because that's my barometer- and they thought it was effective except for the morphing part.
Posted by: akaison | Oct 24, 2006 8:25:40 PM
Well, I thought put up or shut up so I made a few modifications to the ad. What do you guys think of the new one? (It's still got the causalty/death mixup and a couple of other annoying things):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-j7JWjp_SM
Posted by: Jacob | Oct 24, 2006 8:59:23 PM
I like the remix better, but after seeing the ad twice in the original and once in the remix, I agree with the people above about the morph.
The effect is old, but more, it does not say precisely what it should. Better to have a right facing Nixon flip over to a left facing Lieberman flip over to a right facing Nixon ... around and around, behind You Decide. At first it pauses briefly when each face centers ... then a wind sound picks up and the spin goes around faster and faster til its a blur.
The problem with A Bet Each Way Lieberman, after all, is that he swings with each passing breeze.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Oct 24, 2006 9:09:21 PM
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