Bring on the Propaganda: Part III

In the last week, the No on Prop 8 campaign has come out with two new commercials. Though I wish I could say otherwise, they are not that effective. Maybe I've simply become extremely critical since I tend to watch a lot of political ads...but aren't all voters becoming ad-fatigued with less than 3 weeks before the election? Surely the ads need to become snappier, and more hard hitting?

The first commercial up for dissection is the "Lies" ad. Of the two ads, this is my least favorite. The commercial starts off with a bunch of TVs playing the protectmarriage.com ads, (including the most recent), while a voice over declares their statements to be false. The problem with this commercial, is that there is too much going on. I was too busy looking at all the different TVs, and was not paying that much attention to the voice over. If the No on Prop 8 campaign felt that their best tactic was to play defense, (I don't think it is), then why couldn't create a more compelling ad? A little blurb after the TVs part tells the viewer to "keep government out of all our lives" and vote no on prop 8. This is clearly an attempt to reach out to more conservative voters...but what does it have to do with refuting the "lies" of the Yes on 8 campaign? The ad wasn't talking about government entanglement up to this point. All in all, I think the commercial is a failure. With little emotional punch or consistent message, it is an ad viewers won't remember.



The second ad is a little better, though still not good enough in my opinion. The "Unfair, unnecessary, and wrong" ad simply displays quotes from various groups speaking out against Prop 8, with NO on 8 prominently displayed in large letters throughout the commercial. It is not so much that it is a -bad- commercial, I just think it is weak. Gay marriage is such an emotionally charged issue...what happened the commercials that tapped this? The earlier ads "Meet the Thorons" and the ad from Let Freedom Ring released over the summer which much more powerful than this ad. As mentioned earlier, considering the political fatigue non-political junkies must be feeling by this point, wouldn't this be the time to use -more- emotionally charged commercials rather than less? This ad looks like just another political ad like the hundreds that a viewer might see as related to this election. Ads can't just be good, they need to be phenomenal at this point in the campaign season. "Unfair" is just simply not good enough.