As we continue with these weekly ad analyses, I suspect one of the main themes will be how amateurish and off-the mark so many of the ads are. So this week, I thought we’d look at one candidate’s ads, a selection that on first glance seems to be pretty good. They have reasonable production values and feature a candidate who is as good talking to the camera as any you’ll find. But these ads -- for flavor-of-the-week As we continue with these weekly ad analyses, I suspect one of the main themes will be how amateurish and off-the mark so many of the ads are. So this week, I thought we’d look at one candidate’s ads, a selection that on first glance seems to be pretty good. They have reasonable production values and feature a candidate who is as good talking to the camera as any you’ll find. But these ads -- for flavor-of-the-week Mike Huckabee -- are extraordinarily weak. Up until now he hasn’t had much money to air them anyway, so it might not seem to matter all that much. But if he’s hoping for his television spots to give him a serious boost beyond what he’s already getting, he could have done a lot better. Let’s start with this one, which is a variation on the familiar bio ad, giving the candidate’s primary message and a few of the facts the campaign wants you to remember about him:
The big problem that leaps out about this ad is that the audio and video tracks are sending two completely different messages, and you’d have to strain to follow them both. Huckabee is talking about giving our children a better America -- pretty standard presidential candidate boilerplate -- while the images and words on the screen are about what he supposedly accomplished as governor. One has nothing to do with the other. The first rule of political advertising is this: viewers aren’t paying very close attention. If they aren’t skipping over it with their TiVo or padding off to the bathroom, they’re thumbing through a magazine, talking with their spouses, or staring at the ceiling while your commercial is playing. The last thing you want to do is make it harder for them to understand your message.
