To think that an old soldier should come to this

I’d be happy to answer your question, but first: does Mr Ogilvy say whether I can have a pony, too?

1) Bush was a pilot in the early ’70’s, (and Kerry hardly qualifies as an “old soldier,” having left the service long before he came close to Ike–“old guy who was once a sailor for a couple of years” would be more like it.), and

2) is modern TV advertising really any worse than the lapel-worn buttons that have been around longer, but had not more content, and

3) Is not the phenomenon of banal and contentless political advertising one consequence of an expanded franchise? If we limited the franchise to only those with a certain level of education or wealth or whatever, couldn’t we reasonably expect the quality of TV ads to improve (or at least change to suit the new target market)? I’m not suggesting a diminution of the franchise; I think that would be a terrible idea. But if politicians are forced seek the votes of people who eagerly consume worthless products advertised on TV (“send check or money order today!”), we can hardly ask them to forgo that medium and its idioms when attempting to reach them.

I don’t see any comparison between TV ads and lapel pins; the two seem to have nothing in common besides both being avenues for executing a political campaign.

Lapel pins are useful because (if enough people wear them) they communicate to voters that a large portion of the voters’ peers support the candidate. If not enough people wear them, they do nothing — they are an intrinsically democratic form of advertising. Same goes for lawn signs.

TV commercials tell the viewer nothing about what proportion of his/her peers support the candidate, or even usually about what groups among his/her peers support the candidate. All they do is repeat the candidates name over happy images until the voter comes to associate the name with the images. Where is the similarity?

“Obviously the ‘old soldier come to this’ problem only arises for Kerry.”

Don’t you mean old anti-war protester? What Bush was up to, well, who knows? I’ll give you that, but Kerry followed his service with a lifetime of anti-military speeches and votes. Ike he isn’t. Clark or McCain might have been able to ask the question, but not Kerry or Bush.

The only way to change political ads is to better enlighten the voters. Advertisers are smart enough to know what works, that’s how they stay in business. And canditates are smart enought to know that one poorly timed primal scream after a primary can cost them any chance at a comeback. If voters weren’t so responsive to the negative ads and staged questions, we wouldn’t see what we have now. The question then is, what ad campaign will turn the voters around on attack ads, photo-ops and sound bites?

Jeremy,

Why should I think “the number of a voter’s peers who support a candidate”–whether communicated by law signs, protests, or lapel pins–is a superior basis for decision-making than “happy images”? Both seem pretty vacuous to me.

And, come to that, the number of and length of TV ads does say something about the amount of money a candidate has, and thus, indirectly, how many committed supports he has.

Knowing how my peers feel about a candidate seems like a pretty essentially democratic factor for informing my own opinions in the race. You think not? It is not an absolute thing — I’m not going to say “Gosh, everyone on my block supports John Kerry, so I will vote for him” based on lapel pins anymore than I would say “Gosh, George Bush is the man who will save me from terrorism, so I will vote for him” based on a commercial to that effect.* But, the pins strike me as worthwhile in a way that the commercials do not. I can associate pins, or signs, or bodies in the street, with actual people in my community — advertisements I cannot.

*Note that all of my political ruminations are prefaced by “Gosh”.

What I find interesting all of this is the spotlight it puts on democracy.

After all, what do you get when you cross republican democracy – which in the very least assumes an ability of a citizen to understand what he/she find desirable and conducive to his/her style of life – and an industry with effectively unlimited resources who have refined psychological manipulation into a science with the subtlety of neurosurgery?

Robert Lyman wrote: “Bush was a pilot in the early ‘70’s…”

Let’s not forget that he went on to become an oil tycoon, a baseball tycoon, and governor of one of the biggest states in the union — and that he was fabulously successful in all these impressive roles. This American Hero was so obviously born to be our President that I do believe he’d easily win re-election even without a $200+ million campaign.

This is not precisely on topic, but I thought it might be interesting.

My father and brother are both advertising guys (one servicing, one creative) so we’ve always had a lot of ad books lying around our Delhi home. I was talking to my brother while I was reading one of Ogilvy’s older books. He said, “Remember that an ad guy can rarely stop selling something, especially someone like Ogilvy. Make sure to treat every sentence you read as a carefully crafted ad for something – himself, his company, or some other agenda.” Surprisingly, I enjoyed the book a lot more once I took that into account and tried to read between the lines.

Robbo – do the words “Born with a silver spoon in his mouth” mean anything to you?

“What I cannot see is how you would think that the opinions and manipulations of advertising copy writers are a more appropriate influencing factor.”

Neither more nor less appropriate.

“do the words “Born with a silver spoon in his mouth” mean anything to you?”

Is it just me, or is it hard to hear those words without thinking of the 1988 Democratic National Convention?

There’s a funny affinity between Ogilvy and George Orwell. They both survived the same awful boarding school, St. Cyprian’s, though likely they didn’t know each other as Ogilvy was 8 years younger. (It’s tempting to wonder if he could have inspired the “Comrade Ogilvy” of *1984* but the age difference makes it unlikely.) Both were late bloomers after several false starts in early adulthood. And it seems, now, that both saw their professions similarly.

This is Orwell in “Writers and Leviathan”:

“…When a writer engages in politics he should do so as a citizen, as a human being, but not AS A WRITER. I do not think that he has the right, merely on the score of his sensibilities, to shirk the ordinary dirty work of politics. Just as much as anyone else, he should be prepared to deliver lectures in draughty halls, to chalk pavements, to canvass voters, to distribute leaflets, even to fight in civil wars if it seems necessary. But whatever else he does in the service of his party, he should never write for it. He should make it clear that his writing is a thing apart. And he should be able to act co-operatively while, if he chooses, completely rejecting the official ideology….”

Texas happens to have what is probably the weakest Governorship in the 50 states. So, it’s really hard to be either successful or otherwise in that post.

Yes, but what about the pony?

Lapel pins versus tv advertising. Er – not a good analogy? On account of how tv ads cost a little more than lapel pins do, thus making both parties ever more beholden to the moneyed parties that fund them in exchange for influence over legislation? Even if tv advertising were a great way to persuade voters to vote for X instead of Y – which I couldn’t be farther from thinking is the case – they would still be a massive portal for corruption.

How I envy the UK rules. Not to mention the minuscule election season.