The media is awash with chatter about Wikipedia ‘going dark’ and the potential impact of the Protect IP / SOPA legislation making its way through the US legislature.
The above video is by Fight for the future tries to explain clearly and simply why they feel we should be worried.
It’s very nicely put together with some lovely animations which means that any possible perception of hyperbole or doomsaying is removed.
No one likes shameless self-promotion, but I hope you’ll forgive it this once.
I was just interviewed about attack advertising, live, on The Purple Sofas of The Daily Politics on BBC 2.
You can watch the programme on BBC iPlayer here (the feature starts at 23m 27s).
Yesterday Jon Huntsman dropped out of the Republican primary contest and endorsed Mitt Romney. On the very same day the The Democratic National Committee released this advert reminding people of some of the negative things that the former Utah governor had to say about the front-running Presidential hopeful.
Romney was the primary target of Huntsman’s attacks during his campaign, so the endorsement might seem strange. However, as Romney is the only remaining moderate, the backing is unsurprising – as the fact that the DNC have had this video made and ready to go illustrates.
There’s some pretty damning quotations in the advert - ”I don’t know that he can go on to beat President Obama” being a particular highlight – that no doubt floating voters will be regularly reminded of from now until polling day.
This is possibly the most extreme negative ad we’ve seen in the primary campaign thus far.
The ad accuses Romney of killing corporations while an executive at private-equity firm Bain Capital, and reasons that since Romney has previously likened corporations to people, he is therefore a “serial killer.”
The ad’s narrator explains “As head of Bain Capital he bought companies, carved them up and got rid of what he couldn’t use. If Mitt Romney really believes ‘corporations are people, my friend’ than Mitt Romney is a serial killer. He’s Mitt the Ripper.”
This line of attack is incredibly ‘un-Republican’ and much more akin to the sort of negative ad that Democrat candidates might typically use. The spot will no doubt have Obama supporters licking their lips.
Newt Gingrich continues his attacks on Mitt Romney with this latest spot that accuses him of various ‘liberal’ crimes, including having the audacity to learn French.
This, at first glance, might seem to be one of the more bizarre pieces of negative political communication. However, do not underestimate the extent of hostility that Republican voters feel towards the ‘liberal elite’ that they feel are in control of the fate of the nation.
In this ad Newt Gingrich successfully paints Romney as being alien to and unappreciative of the concerns of your average American conservative. It’s not pretty, but it works.
Newt Gingrich has released a very amusing new video which tries to spook the Republican electorate as to how Romney might perform against Barack Obama in the televised debates.
The video features a montage of comments Romney has given that have raised eyebrows, among them – justifiably or not – the now-infamous story of Seamus, the family dog, that Romney once tied to the roof of the car during a 12-hour road trip to Canada.
This ad does well at lampooning Romney. Perhaps it could have been helped along by a montage of Newt speaking powerfully towards the backend. That would have removed some of the comic genius, but might have helped give viewers a reason-to-believe that Newt was justified in making the assertion about oration.
Mitt Romney is being painted as a ‘vulture capitalist’ in a new series of ads that attack the Republican primary front-runner’s activities whilst working for investment banking company Bain Capital.
Mitt Romney has stormed to victory in New Hampshire, but Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry are unlikely to make it easy for him in South Carolina as their new line of attack seems to drawing blood.
Romney’s investment banking firm — Bain Capital — in its restructuring activities made some companies go bankrupt and left workers high and dry his opponents are using this as an example of Romney being a ‘vulture capitalist’.
The ad is overly long and fairly dry, but it will certainly strike a cord with blue collar Americans who hold Wall St responsible for the dire economic straits that the USA find themselves.
Ken Livingstone’s team have announced that they will be running a full page advert in today’s Evening Standard featuring Boris Johnson pickpocketing a passenger.
It includes a call to action to text ‘BorisStoppers’ (a reference to charity ‘CrimeStoppers’) and makes the pledge that Ken Livingstone’s fare policy would save the average Londoner £1000 over 4 years.
The advertising, which will also have an online component, aims to make public transport users aware of its rising cost since Boris came to power in 2008.
It’s a strong piece of copy. It’s simple, funny and relevant to the media context in which people will be viewing it. The attempt to harvest mobile phone numbers is subtly done. The line of attack will certainly be salient and, despite being a negative ad, the tone is light-hearted due to the art directional gag.
Nice work.
*Updated below with high resolution version*
Boris Johnson’s re-election campaign team have released a new attack ad. Johnson’s team were inspired to make the clip when:
“In a four minute interview last week he managed to make at least three false claims. And we don’t know how many potential broken promises.”
Negative ads that use a candidate’s own words against them are very often effective and this is no exception. “Not again Ken” is a great line and one I think we can expect to see a lot more of.
The airwaves post-Iowa have been dominated by a political action committee, or SuperPac, called Restore Our Future. The campaign, which supports Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, ran more than $1.2 million of negative ads in Iowa, mostly aimed at Newt Gingrich.
That’s a lot of advertising, in a short space of time and in a tiny geographic area.
Above is an example of the attack advertising that has been credited for relegating Newt Gingrich to a pathetic 4th place finish in Iowa.
These private pressure groups are not allowed, by law, to coordinate with candidates official campaigns, but after recent regulartory rulings, their ability to run advertising and have an impact on elections has been greatly increased.
Romney’s official campaign ran $852,370 of advertising in Iowa, all of which was postive messaging. It’s amazing that Restore Our Future and the Official Romney campaign seemed to have such a complementary strategy without being in any sort of cahoots.
