McCain Spot Ruins a Perfectly Fine Idea

Were Professionals Responsible for This?

Posted by Ken Wheaton on 03.07.08 @ 04:56 PM

When I first saw this spot on righty-blog Alarming News, my first thought was, "I hope that's consumer-generated media." (Video and analysis after the jump.)



This spot manages to take a perfectly fine branding message -- John McCain is the "man in the arena," a serious, straight-thinking guy, unlike those softy dunderheads in the other party -- and cover it in gooey yellow cheese. Some other problems.

• It's too long by, oh, I don't know, a minute and a half. If this is meant to be an ad, it shouldn't run over a minute. I don't care if the web has no restrictions on time and space; a viewer has restrictions on his attention span.
  
  
• Secondly, one of the reasons it's too long is that utterly ridiculous cosmos filler. Did someone have some spare Star Trek B-roll hanging around?
  
  
• I like the idea of putting him next to Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, but I have to admit that Churchill's voice doesn't sound particularly impressive. He does sound particularly drunk--and possibly ill. Next time pay Ian McKellan to read the lines.
  
  
• And Karol's right: The smiling doesn't work. McCain always looks like he's passing a stone or trying not to kill a reporter when he smiles, so why bother? And the girls in the field (probably some too-clever-by-half nod to LBJ's "Daisy" ad that no one is going to get anyway) add nothing but clutter. Why not just chuck a kitten in there, too?