Political Ads Gone Wild

This article is from Brand Week Magazine a national marketing firm which names my ads the "Most Honest of the Political Season".

Political Ads Gone Wild
October 30, 2006

Michael J. Fox's pitch for stem cell research included, this year's elections have sparked several unusual attempts to woo voters. In North Carolina, Democratic challenger Heath Shuler spent $10,000 to have his name on the race car driven by Brad Keselowski in the Dollar General 300 race held Oct. 14 in Charlotte. Shuler, who is trying to unseat Republican Rep. Charles Taylor, has a narrow lead in the polls and, if it holds up, Nascar would finally have a winner. In 2004 and 2005 two other candidates tried the same tactic but neither got the checkered flag.

The campaign around a Colorado ballot initiative on the minimum wage has reached new lows. A "Stop 42" ad opens with a close-up of a toilet paper roll and an announcer saying an increase to the minimum wage sounds like a "feel good idea." The next shot is of a cheese grater wrapped around the toilet paper roll. The announcer adds "the feel-good idea will quickly turn painful" and "grate" the state's economy. "Vote no on Amendment 42 and wipe out a very painful future." Perhaps feeling they hadn't alienated enough people, Stop 42 also has a spot in which God and Moses (with the tablets of the 10 Commandments in hand) denounce the amendment.

Yet, the most honest ad belongs to Loretta Nall, the Libertarian candidate for governor of Alabama. Nall's Web site features a cartoon picture of the candidate; when people donate money to the campaign it is pushed into her décolletage. The more you donate, the more you get to see. For enough money, she removes her blouse to reveal a tank top with a picture of her opponents on it and the words: "The biggest boobs in Alabama politics." Nall e-mailed: "I think the ads and the T-shirts have been so effective because it bares [sic] all the markings of mocking the authorities. It brings humor to an otherwise dull, boring, same old, same old political season . . . People love an underdog." And boobs. —CVH

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