Ad Experts Not Sold on Campaign Commercials

In bites of 30 or 60 seconds, the commercials aim to engage channel surfers and arouse hope, fear, nostalgia, patriotism and sometimes laughter. Two competing brands are using them for the ultimate one-day marketing test: A presidential election.

President Bush has broadcast about a dozen television advertisements since early March, and Sen. John F. Kerry another 10, including two in a major buy this month. Polls suggest some of the Bush ads are influencing targeted voters.

But advertising experts critiquing the commercials express doubt that they are piercing through the clutter of TV and leaving viewers with a potent message. The experts -- who hawk rental cars, airlines, insurance, shampoo and cat food and are unaffiliated with the campaigns -- judge the ads aired so far as barely adequate.

Though they say Bush’s ads show more polish and daring and that Kerry’s are slowly improving, the experts doubt that either the president or his presumed Democratic opponent has scored a breakthrough.

“These, to me, are just wallpaper,” said advertising executive Frank Ginsberg, as he reviewed the Bush commercials on a laptop the other day in his Manhattan office.

He found most of the president’s anti-Kerry ads difficult to follow, and he warned Bush could pay a price for breaking a cardinal advertising rule for a dominant enterprise: Don’t mention your challenger.

“In so doing, you weaken your own brand,” he said.

Ginsberg, who conceived those Purina “chow-chow-chow” ads with the dancing cats, praised a few of Bush’s softer spots, saying they looked “stunning.”

As for Kerry’s ads, don’t get him started. Ginsberg said Kerry needed to improve his eye contact, loosen up and take risks.

“What is his platform?” Ginsberg asked. “What is he going to stand for? What is he going to bring us that’s different from what Bush has brought us? He’s just right in the middle, and he’s not taking a stand” in his commercials.

Political advertising on TV is frequently criticized for lacking substance. The ads often confuse or distort, more than enlighten. Still, their importance is undeniable.

In 1964, President Johnson warned in a voice-over that the world could “go into the dark,” as a commercial for him cut from a little girl plucking daisy petals to a nuclear mushroom cloud.

In 1984, an ad for President Reagan declared it was “morning again in America” as scenes showed people going to work, buying a home, getting married and raising a flag in a glow of sunlight.

Those commercials became classics because they did what all effective advertising does: seize viewer attention, stir emotions and establish a brand.

Johnson’s ad was so controversial it ran just once, and then became fodder for news reports. But it reinforced the image of Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater as a potentially reckless world leader.

Reagan’s ad positioned him as an optimist, in contrast to his Democratic challenger, Walter F. Mondale, who had warned voters that he would raise taxes.

In 2004, Bush and Kerry face communications challenges unknown to Johnson and Reagan: the cacophony of the 24-hour news cycle, a profusion of channels that has fractured the national television audience, and new digital recording technology that enables viewers to skip ads altogether.

But TV remains the vehicle of choice to reach elusive swing voters in a polarized nation -- especially in the states the two campaigns are targeting (which does not include California).

Bush launched the first ads of the general election campaign March 4, two days after Kerry effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nod. The experts recently interviewed by The Times lauded two of Bush’s initial commercials.

In the 60-second “Lead,” a relaxed Bush sat with his wife, Laura, and expounded on the “entrepreneurial spirit of America.” He also declared: “I know exactly where I want to lead this country.”

Slow-dissolve shots of the president in the Oval Office were interspersed with pictures of other Americans at work, such as a waitress opening a diner near dawn.

“He talks about America like he is synonymous with America, which you can only do when you’re the president, and that’s very powerful,” said Jon Bond, a New York advertising executive who helps pitch Target stores.

Linda Kaplan Thaler, a New York ad executive who worked for Democrat Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992, applauded the 30-second Bush commercial “Tested.”

The ad showed faces of ordinary but determined Americans and a flag flying at the wreckage of the World Trade Center. It then showed people carrying on with their lives, shifting from black and white images to color as someone hoists a flag up a pole. A narrator talks about “freedom, faith, families and sacrifice.”

“Everybody was pro-Bush, post 9/11,” Kaplan Thaler said. “Democrats and Republicans were hugging each other.”

But the experts panned the 30-second “Safer, Stronger,” which stirred controversy for showing flag-draped remains from ground zero in Lower Manhattan. They said the ad needed a stronger theme to explain the relevance of the images.

“There’s nothing wrong with dealing with 9/11 as a subject,” Bond said. “It’s not taboo -- as long as you deal with it from the right place.”

Several subsequent Bush ads used images of war, weaponry and terrorism to provoke questions about Kerry’s record on national security. The experts disliked these, saying the story lines and visuals were too complicated. Some said Bush would have done better to strike a more elevated tone in contrasting his agenda with Kerry’s.

“An informed electorate deserves to know the differences between one candidate and another, and such comparisons cannot always be done in a happy, positive light,” said Luke Sullivan, an ad executive in Austin, Texas, whose clients include Southwest Airlines. “But the political consultancy agencies from the Beltway seem to think this gives them license to take off the gloves and swing wildly for the groin.”

One of Bush’s attack spots struck the experts as refreshingly humorous -- and therefore effective. The 30-second “Wacky” took a carnival tone as it played newsreel-like footage of the Keystone Kops and antique gas pumps to accuse Kerry of supporting higher gasoline taxes.

Of course, Bush and Kerry are out to win an election, not a Clio award for advertising. So the candidates are spending tens of millions of dollars to get seen and heard, even if their ads strike professionals as less than compelling.

“They see these things as vehicles for hammering a message home,” said William Benoit, a professor of communication at the University of Missouri. “People in November may not remember any of the ads they saw in March or April. But that doesn’t mean they won’t have an effect eventually.”

Some polls suggest the Bush attack ads are working. The University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey reported last week voters in the 18 states where the ads have appeared the most viewed Kerry in a less favorable light.

To counter Bush, Kerry in March and April paid for ads that rebutted the president’s tax policy, attacked his economic record and said the Democrat would create 10 million jobs.

The experts said Kerry’s early efforts were forgettable, suffering from mixed messages, bland themes and boring campaign-event footage.

“As a couch potato, as soon as I see canned videotape from the campaign trail on the tube, I hit either mute or change the channel,” Sullivan said.

Kaplan Thaler said: “Kerry never, ever, ever smiles.”

In recent weeks, Kerry has intensified his advertising. But the experts found fault with the editing of two recent ads. As the Democrat is explaining his views on Iraq and domestic issues, the ads interrupt close-up footage of Kerry to pitch his website. They then switch back to the candidate finishing his thoughts.

“Inept,” Bond said.

Kerry took a step forward with two new 60-second ads that focused on his life story, the experts said.

The ads tout Kerry’s choice to go from Yale University to fight in Vietnam, and then enter the political arena. The ads include testimonials from Kerry’s wife, one of his daughters and two Navy crewmates from Vietnam. “A lifetime of service and strength,” the ads say.

“A move in the right direction ... but not showstoppers,” Kaplan Thaler said. “The editing, the angles, it all looks so, well, yesterday.”