Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Ad wars: Sound, fury signify less on TV front Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 15:33:28 EST Message-ID: \SE E;LIFE;TELEVISION \HD Ad wars: Sound, fury signify less on TV front \BY Rod Dreher \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Going into JFK's 1960 campaign, old Joe Kennedy bragged that he was going to market his candidate son to voters "like soap flakes." In this, the final, desperate week of the 1992 presidential campaign, it's hard to look at the motley trio of candidates without thinking of flakes. It may be useful, or at least entertaining, to ask: How well have these flakes been pushed on the national marketplace, television? George "Woolite" Bush has sold himself rather weakly as a comparatively reliable old standby. His delicate laundering may not have gotten out those tough stains from the gravy years of the 1980s, but switching brands, his television ads tell voters (sort of), is risky. Bill "Fresh Start" Clinton's aggressive, modern ad blitz positions the candidate as a new, improved version of a familiar product. His ads show the lemony-fresh faces of Mr. Clinton and running mate Al Gore crisscrossing the country like cheerily indignant scrubbing bubbles. And then there's the maverick, Ross "Didi 7" Perot, the radical outsider whose commercials tell us bluntly how tough the job is and how this miracle product will absolutely, positively eliminate intractable stains that standard supermarket brands can't handle. Consumers want to believe their eyes and are watching Mr. Perot's infomercials in surprising numbers but are stalled by a walloping case of caveat emptor. Despite the nearly $100 million the three candidates will spend on political advertising this season ($60 million in October alone according to CNN), those ads appear less important at the presidential level this year than at any time in recent memory. Thanks in large part to Mr. Perot's early example, in which he announced his candidacy on CNN's "Larry King Live" talk show, the candidates have enjoyed a feast of free media. Watching Bill Clinton play saxophone on "The Arsenio Hall Show" seemed odd at first; then again, who would have predicted in 1988 that one day the president of the United States would have to pay court on a seemingly daily basis to the likes of Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric? There are limits: No candidate has appeared on "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee" - yet. But talk shows have allowed the three candidates to get their messages out through unorthodox channels, diminishing the significance of political ads. Is that any excuse for the slew of boring political commercials clogging the airwaves this fall? The only competition for Ronald Reagan's slick, feel-good "Morning in America" ads this fall is candidate A, B, or C yukking it up over coffee with Bryant Gumbel. "It's been a dull year in presidential advertising," sighs Jerry Hagstrom, who analyzes political ads for National Journal. "The almost sad story of this election year is that George Bush's political advertising, which was so superb in 1988, is so bad." Lynda Kaid, a communications professor at Oklahoma University, agrees. "I think Bush should have been advertising earlier and done more of what he did in '88: rebuilding his own image before going on the attack," she says. Poor George Bush. With Lee Atwater in the grave and Roger Ailes off producing Rush Limbaugh, the once-feared GOP advertising juggernaut has rusted on the rails. The best of the president's early ads was "What I'm Fighting For." It was a sophisticated montage of Mr. Bush's face, shot tightly, from a television monitor, delivering lines from his convention acceptance speech, interspersed with strong, patriotic images (fighter jets taking off, steelworkers at labor, schoolchildren reciting the pledge of allegiance). Key points in Mr. Bush's address were typed out on a computer screen. This was a forceful, forward-looking ad, creating an image of authority and competence for the president. Compare that with "Grey Dot," an ad attempting to exploit Mr. Clinton's reputation as a flip-flopper by showing two images of him at the same time, each with a William Kennedy Smith rape trial-style dot obscuring his face. It looked cheaply and hastily produced. In the same bargain-basement vein was "Guess," another mocking spot attacking Mr. Clinton's tax record as Arkansas governor. Using shots of a mobile home, a glass of Pilsener and obese, polyester-clad tourists, the ad tried to rouse the Homer Simpson voters by claiming Mr. Clinton had taxed trailers, beer, tourism and, heaven forfend, cable TV. Not a very presidential ad, that. Unlike the Dukakisites, the Clinton-Gore ad team has stood ready to respond quickly to GOP attacks. On Sept. 29, the Republicans began running "Federal Taxes," a handsome ad in which people such as sales representatives Julie and Gary Schwartz appear as examples of middle-class people who allegedly would get socked with a higher tax bill under Mr. Clinton. Two days later, the Democrats had a response ad on the air, slamming the Bush ad as misleading and backing their charges with a quote from that noted Democratic rag, the Wall Street Journal. The GOP thrust had been parried effectively. That ad served more to refute George Bush than sell Bill Clinton, but, significantly, the graphics used were the same ones employed in other Clinton-Gore ads. In contrast to the output of panicky Republicans, there is order and consistency to the Democratic ad campaign. Most of the Clinton ads tell the same story: The economy is in the toilet. Mr. Bush can't be trusted with the economy. The rich have gotten richer, the middle class (not, you'll notice, the poor) have gotten poorer. We're not like the old Democrats. Time for a change. The consistency of the Clinton-Gore message matches the consistency of the ads' visual style. Like the most striking contemporary advertising, many of Mr. Clinton's spots use a choppy mixture of nonrealistic film styles. In one commercial we see black-and-white footage juxtaposed with color, smooth slo-mo sandwiched between jerky cinema verite camera work, all showing Bill Clinton and Al Gore as young, upbeat, energetic and in tune with the times. What's more, these ads often end with printed information in black on a white background. As Jerry Hagstrom observes, "You know it's a Clinton ad when you see it, and you can put it into some sort of a context." Ms. Kaid says Mr. Clinton also has done a good job laying out positive images for himself: "The kinds of attacks he's made on Bush have been done in the context of his own issues." Ross Perot's short ads have been equally consistent in message and style. The deficit is Mr. Perot's issue, of course, and each of his ads has hammered away at this theme from a different angle. In one, we see an extreme close-up of a waving red flag. The spot makes the point that the red flag of communism no longer threatens us like the red ink of our national debt. On another, the ad likens the deficit to a building storm, showing threatening clouds rolling in on the horizon. The ads always make the case that only Mr. Perot, the outsider, has the can-do spirit to face our real problems. A calming trumpet voluntary plays in the background, implying that this one noble billionaire has the guts to stand up for what's right. The long Perot infomercials have defied conventional wisdom. Here's an unattractive squirt with a grating accent appearing on television with a thousand and one charts to tell America how bad things are. People have eaten it up. "They are different. Anything different is going to capture attention," says Montague Kern, a media analyst at Rutgers University. Mr. Hagstrom believes the public is so concerned about the economy and so distrustful of career politicians that they're willing to listen to lectures from Mr. Perot, who "stays with what he believes and states it in colorful language." With so many voters undecided and the race tightening up in the home stretch, the prize could go to the candidate who hits uncommitted voters with the right message at the right time. In this final week of campaigning, the Bush commercials have gotten better. The "Commander-in-Chief" spot, designed to heighten voters' fears of having Mr. Clinton in the White House in a time of international crisis, plays to Mr. Bush's strong suit. It highlights his resolve in Operation Desert Storm and slips in a clip of the American hostages in Iran, just to remind voters how the last Democratic president responded to an overseas crisis. Another new Bush ad uses a blighted desert landscape and ominous music to attack Mr. Clinton's record in Arkansas - no doubt one of the spots the Democrat had in mind Wednesday night when he complained to Larry King that the president's team "just makes up" this stuff. Mr. Hagstrom says the president needs a barrage of such harsh ads with harsh noises to alert people to the danger of giving the White House back to the Democrats. Mrs. Kern suggests a different tack, saying Mr. Bush should remind voters of the more positive moments of the past four years. Bill Clinton, says Mrs. Kern, should stay the course. She expects to see a warm-fuzzy Clinton ad before election day. Mr. Hagstrom agrees that the Democrats should stick with their winning theme - unless there's a last-minute fusillade from Republican gunners. As for the haircut-challenged Dallas zillionaire , Mr. Hagstrom says he needs to "do everything to look as rational as possible. Reduce the zaniness. Look credible." Mrs. Kern advises Mr. Perot to ditch the infomercials in favor of short, punchy ads. "You can watch them once," she says of the infomercials, "but not twice." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM