Political Advertising

We’re definitely seeing the power of the Internet, and in particular YouTube, as it helps candidates spread their message beyond their constituency. This ad is for a Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri, but the issue transcends the Show Me state. Powerful. And very, very sad to see.

I wish I still lived in Texas. I’d vote for Kinky Friedman for Governor in a heartbeat. His campaign, like the man himself, is completely out of the ordinary. For advertising, he’s using Bill Hillsman, the same dude who created commercials for Jesse Ventura and Ralph Nader some years back. See more Kinky video here. […]

From USA Today: The ads are jazzy, edgy, hip — everything you don’t expect in politics. Which is the point for at least two candidates using them this year to portray themselves as likable, with-it guys. The ads for Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Maryland Senate candidate Michael Steele look more like spots for Target […]

Adam Nagourney, national political correspondent for The New York Times profiles Republican Party Chairman, Ken Mehlman, in today’s Magazine section. It’s a flattering portrayal of a compassionate and intelligent young man. The article makes Mehlman look quite a bit more liberal than many mainstream members of his party. He actively courts African-American and Hispanic voters […]

Ad Age says politicians plan to spend waste $1.6 billion on TV advertising in the buildup to 2008. Despite all the media chatter about Howard Dean’s digital legacy and the rise of blogs and websites as the new powers of political marketing, local and national broadcast TV will continue to receive the overwhelming bulk of […]

Is war fair fodder for advertising? Leo Burnett thinks it is, and so does Diageo, the world’s largest spirits company. According to the International Herald Tribune, the two have teamed to provide a new twist on Johnnie Walker’s “Keep Walking” campaign (originally created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty) for the Lebanese market. courtesy of Flickr user […]

I need not remind anyone how far gone our political process is, but I will offer up further evidence to support the claim, courtesy of Cinemocracy. I never have understood why political candidates don’t see the need for professional advertising. Do they want to be seen as used car salesmen? For whatever reason, budgetary or […]

I’m from Nebraska. I grew up hunting Bobwhite quail in the rolling farmhills of the southeast part of the state. I recall a Saturday long ago when one of my grandfather’s hunting buddies accidentally shot his own dog. The dog lived, but this man’s horrid form made my grandpa irate. Needless to say, we never […]

Frankly much political advertising is of the shoddiest sort, barely a notch above what’s produced for used car lots and local exterminators. So, it warms the Birkenstock-wearer in me to note that one of the more venerable environmental groups has taken the camera by the hand, as it were, and developed long-format programming that effectively […]

NYT: A full-page advertisement – set to appear in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call today – pleads with Congress to pay for stronger levees in the devasted city of New Orleans. It also reminds the lawmakers that things are far from normal in a city where block after block remains ghostly and dark. “Since […]

Allen Michaan, owner of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, California, posts his political views for hundreds of thousands to see. The theater’s marquee faces the MacArthur Freeway (I-580). The Flickr page where these images are housed is maintained as a public service by David Gans, author, musician and longtime host of the syndicated radio […]

In an Adweek article last week, prominent ad people were asked, “It’s Thanksgiving this week. What are you thankful for?” Among the pithy comments were these, which caught my eye because they were both in the same article: Court Crandall of Ground Zero who said, among other things, “I’m thankful this will be George Bush’s […]