Hasta La Creative!

The 2014 election cycle has ushered in a rush of political advertising, with campaign ads airing as early as last spring and record-shattering spending for the first quarter of the election year.

Iowan Joni Ernst—mother, soldier and conservative—wants to take her hog castration experience to the chambers of the U.S. Senate and clip, clip, clip the dreaded “pork,” so beloved be her political brethren.

“Washington is full of big spenders—let’s make them squeal,” Ernst offers. What a towering load of manure.

So-called conservatives freely spend the nation’s tax dollars on the military and thousands of other corporate welfare schemes. Every single day. So, the politics of this is poison. But not nearly as upsetting to me as the truth-jamming that goes on in this ad and others like it. The manipulation of reality for power is a crime, and the continual dripping of stupidity from the media faucet is torture.

What is so difficult about believing in infrastructure and healthy private-public partnerships to ensure it? Government investment is one of the fundamental backbones of marketplace growth. And this is the U.S.A in 2014—our roads, bridges, railways, parks, schools and healthcare must be the safest, most efficient and appealing in the world. How can anyone argue against this with a clear conscience? It simply defies all logic.

The post Joni Ernst Wants To Cut Big Spender’s Balls Off appeared first on AdPulp.

Russian oligarchs have much invested in Europe and in the U.S. The inverse is also true. We have much invested in Russia. Russia is big business.

According to The Hill, public relations giant Ketchum has earned more than $26 million representing Russia, and is keeping the country as a client despite the widely denounced incursion into Crimea by the Russian military.

“Our work continues to focus on supporting economic development and investment in the country and facilitating the relationship between representatives of the Russian Federation and the Western media. We are not advising the Russian Federation on foreign policy, including the current situation in Ukraine,” said a Ketchum spokeswoman.

Ketchum also represents Gazprom, the Russian state-owned oil and gas company. With headquarters in Moscow, Gazprom is the largest extractor of natural gas and one of the largest companies in the world.

Another big American companies with a lot on the line in Russia right now is Boeing.

According to the Philadelphia Business Journal, aerospace products are America’s No. 1 export to Russia, and Boeing currently has an 100-aircraft backlog of orders from Russian airlines.

Boeing also has an engineering center in Moscow, and a joint titanium manufacturing operation with a Russian company.

None of these deep connections are surprising in any way. We live in a global economy and many Americans—myself included—have Russian heritage. Some of us grew up reading Russian novels and seeing Russian plays in the theater. Others idolize the Russian hockey players on today’s NHL teams. My point is this current crisis is a family conflict. And Putin is the rogue relative.

For more on that, see this segment from Rachel Maddow:

The post Russia Is A Lot Of Things, A Good Client And Business Partner Among Them appeared first on AdPulp.

The great English writer Samuel Johnson once declared that, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” Johnson’s beef wasn’t with patriotism per se, rather the issue of it being coopted for the purposes self-interest. In the preceding several hundred years since he uttered the phrase, proof of Johnson’s quote is still readily seen in many pockets of society. Politicians often appropriate the love of country for a broad range of purposes; from securing smooth passage of legislation, to xenophobic fear mongering. To wit, patriotism often rears its head when any standalone merit is hard to find.

The American car industry has a complicated history with patriotism. Since Detroit industry workers smashing Toyotas in the 70s, the call to buy American over imported cars has been strong.

But this is 2014. The problem with American manufacturers evoking the nebulous notion of patriotism is that not only are a slew of affordable imported alternatives available, consumers have never been better informed. Aside from buying a house, a new car is likely the biggest purchase a consumer will ever make. Can (or should) a car buyer suspend rationality for the love of country? The idea of this is worth examining in light of a couple a couple of TV spots from American carmakers, Wieden + Kennedy’s GlobalHue’s Super Bowl spot for Chrysler, and Rogue’s recent spot for Cadillac.

Chrysler’s spot features America’s most revered living icon, Bob Dylan, expounding on the attributes of other nations against the backdrop of gorgeously shot Americana. The spot finishes with a call to action, “Let Germany brew your beer. Let Switzerland build your watch. Let Asia assemble your phone. But WE will build your car.” Dylan assures us that other countries are adept at plenty of other worthwhile endeavors, but cars are central to the American story. To buy a car from another country is treasonous.

The Cadillac spot is more polarizing. A love letter to unfettered self-reliance, the spot seems to know which way its bread is buttered. Unlike the Chrysler spot, it doesn’t acknowledge but rather demonizes the attitudes of other nations, even taking the well-worn path of French bashing, finishing with the phrase, “N’est-ce pas?” While the YouTube commenters formed two camps, one of the, “How insensitive, egocentric, and repulsive.” The other, “Hey butthurt foreigners in the comments: instead of crying, take notes. This is why our country is the greatest in the world and yours isn’t,” the spot reinforces what American buyers of this car will love the most about themselves.

Both spots evoke patriotism, but the Cadillac spot stays strictly in the visceral, emotional space, whereas Dylan’s Chrysler spot ends with a plea of rationality – it’s ok to buy foreign goods, just not cars.

The problem with this message is that is is patently untrue. By many independent (indeed, American) perspectives, Chryslers are a pretty middling choice. The jury is back in — Edmunds, Cars.com, Consumer Reports, and plenty of others suggest that all things considered, Chryslers aren’t a great buy. Chrysler is essentially asking us to sacrifice our decision-making rigor on the altar of patriotism. That’s a pretty big ask boys.

But by embracing only the emotional hot buttons and appealing to what makes them unique, Cadillac’s spot lovingly depicts those with the wallet and the will to buy the ELR. While controversial, this spot is much more relevant and appealing to the sensibilities of the self-made.

Jimmy Darmody from Boardwalk Empire cautions, “You can’t be half a gangster.” American carmakers would do well to take note. Evoking irrational yet powerful emotions can’t be tempered by a call to rationality. IF a brand feels compelled to evoke love of country (and it’s a big IF), then it needs to go hard or go home.

The post The Scoundrel’s Dilemma: When and How to Evoke Patriotism in Advertising appeared first on AdPulp.

Rough-and-tumble campaign tactics are nothing new in New York politics, but a new proposal aims to identify and ban those behind the trash-talk ads.

A campaign highlights the kinds of services the digital marketing company can provide to clients.

Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group, will begin running television commercials asserting that the law will limit Americans’ health care choices.

How the precision targeting of “persuadable” voters that put President Obama over the top in 2012 could revolutionize the advertising industry.

Several antismoking groups and branding and production companies have teamed up on a television commercial to fight the toxic pollution caused by discarded cigarette butts.

Though M.T.A. ads have often attracted — and actively courted — controversy, they have also provided the authority with an unlikely revenue source.