James Fallows wrote a blog post, “The Phenomenal ‘Chinese Professor’ Ad.” I usually find myself in agreement with the National Correspondent for The Atlantic, but not this time.
I have difficulty labeling an ad “phenomenal” that even Fallows himself shows is completely false, even if it weren’t flawed in other wasy.
But it did lead to an awesome spoof ad and it got me thinking about what were the best ads of the season. So here are a bunch. Let’s start with that Chinese professor:
Fallows himself writes:
And if you know anything about the Chinese economy, the actual analytical content here is hilariously wrong. The ad has the Chinese official saying that America collapsed because, in the midst of a recession, it relied on (a) government stimulus spending, (b) big changes in its health care systems, and (c) public intervention in major industries — all of which of course, have been crucial parts of China’s (successful) anti-recession policy.
One must ad that the claim “America tried to spend and tax its way out of recession” isn’t even true. Obama put in place a massive tax cut — he just failed to tell anybody about it, and he spread it around so would be more effective but less noticeable. Last time anybody ever does that, I’m guessing.
Fallows quotes a reader “who knows about the Chinese economy”:
Very interesting advert but I feel uncomfortable praising the technique over the fundamental lack of truth in the message. Yes, skill is admirable but when someone uses a skill in a harmful way – say to mislead or misinform, I can’t muster praise for it. There have been masterful propagandists in our past that have achieved terrible outcomes – I’m thinking Nazi Germany for example.
As you point out, the message of this ad, that some future China surpassed America by not using stimulus spending intentionally misleads the viewer. China has successfully out-stimulused (sp?) us and proved that it works.
I would add that as a television ad, it has one serious flaw. You have to watch it. A large fraction of people “watching” TV aren’t paying that close attention to it and/or are getting up or moving around — especially during commercials. I think a good ad has to work almost as well just listening to it as actually seeing it.
Still, it did lead to a killer spoof by Campus Progress:
Chinese Professor from Campus Progress Action on Vimeo.
Before going to the best ad, let’s look at the worst:
Messaging 101 is, of course, you never repeat the other side’s frame or key word. In this case, “witch” is just too strong, too memorable. That line is up there with, “I am not a crook,” which, nearly four decades later, is still burned into our memory. O’Donnell has ensured that for all her life, that tag line will always be associated with her.
On the bright side, that ad also led to an awesome spoof just in time for Halloween:
And while we’re on the subject of funniest political ads, this is probably the best in the climate arena:
For fans of Glee, and who isn’t — “You may be two of the stupidest teens I’ve ever encountered, and that’s saying something. I once taught a cheerleading seminar to Sarah Palin.” — there’s this great ad:
Finally, for pure simplicity and incontrovertible accuracy, from a candidate who is both running on a clean energy platform and apparently cleaning the clock of his opponent — in spite of the fact that she has broken all campaign spending records — here is my vote for the best ad of the season:
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Of course, the very best and very worst ads are not even seen. Broadcasters routinely deny (censor) ads that they deem too extreme.
Best thing about the O’Donnell ad is the smoke billowing in the background, somewhat contradicting the point about the witch.
A months long survey found that the Tea Party was surprisingly small and largely ineffectual. And yet, to follow the media, you’d think they were an enormous political tsunami overtaking our political system.
Why?
Two reasons — huge amounts of cash amplifying and shaping the movement; and a media obsession with them. And both come from the pernicious influence of self-interested corporations.
Just so with this ad — China used the very techniques they add excoriates to lift themselves out of the recession. Of course, they did have cash reserves to do it, but it’s not because of the free-market BS conservatives are trying to foist on us — it’s because they directly intervened in the free market to keep exports competitive and the took advantage of the the free-market globalization treaties that contained no labor and environmental safeguards.
Long and short of it? The free market, gubmint is bad crap — and I use the term advisedly — really benefits only one group — corporations and the uber-rich who run them.
Regarding the stimulus bill, the mainstream media deserves a good part of the blame for misleading the public. CNN had a feature at one point ‘hunting’ for stimulus spending. They described infrastructure projects, for example, and compared such spending to the $800+ billion dollar bill.
They consistently failed to mention the amount of money going to tax cuts and in grants to the states, making it seem that the stimulus spending was slow and ineffective.
The administration could have been more effective on this topic, but the media was more interested in selling ads than reporting news.
Jerry Brown’s campaign is out with another good ad today, using some comments Whitman made about what a great place California was 30 years ago (exactly when Brown was governor) as an endorsement of his campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEPlZYp5-Pk
It seems as though a couple of ads featuring candidates carrying firearms ought to be in this bunch.
And, just yesterday, NPR’s On the Media launched a campaign ad spoof site patterned after MST3k:
Media Scrutiny Theatre
http://www.wnyc.org/ articles/ its-free-country/ 2010/ oct/ 22/ media-scrutiny-theater-2010-bob-garfield-and-brooke-gladstone/
South Florida has become an incredibly risky place to live.
http://earthsky.org/ earth/ harold-wanless-on-sea-level-rise-in-south-florida
O’Donnell ad is really terrible.
i wonder who has created that thing
She now says she wishes she’d never consented to running the ad. Well she might.
O’Donnell: “I’m not a witch… I’m nothing you’ve heard.”
That’s good. I heard you were a viable candidate.