Panel Gives Thumbs-Down to Most Mayoral Race Ads : Campaign: Experts say TV commercials make some contenders look silly and fail to drive home key messages.

The admen are watching TV. They are looking at one of Richard Riordan’s campaign ads, and they are howling with laughter. The ad is the one that shows the Barbie doll and talks about how Riordan rescued Barbie’s parent company, Mattel Inc.

“It’s like he’s doing the ‘Saturday Night Live’ version of his own campaign commercial,” said Robert Chandler, an executive at BBDO ad agency in Westwood.

“ ‘I know how to handle the deficit,’ ” Steve Hayden, Chandler’s boss, said, imitating Riordan. “ ‘I am tough enough to solve the crime problem because . . . I saved Barbie’ ?’ Seriously, folks.”

Millions of dollars are invested in campaign commercials such as this one, ads that could turn the tide of the 1993 Los Angeles mayoral race. And this is the reception the ads are getting from ranking wizards of the ad business, from the fellows who brought us the Apple Computer ads. Hayden, BBDO’s chairman in Los Angeles, and Chandler, the firm’s senior vice president and creative director, were part of a small panel of experts sought out by The Times to assess the quality of TV advertising in the mayoral race.

One of the dangers of an ill-conceived commercial is that it can make the candidate look silly--and that is what has happened in several ads, if members of the panel are to be believed.

Hayden and Chandler were particularly unimpressed. Like a pair of rogue Energizer bunnies, they buzzed merrily through several ads, making a joke out of most everything they saw.

“Here we are in arguably the media capital of the Western World, what is still the entertainment engine for the globe, and most of these spots look like they were done for the sheriff’s race in East St. Louis,” Hayden said.

With Joel Wachs’ ad, the problem was the odd camera angles.

“Shooting him right up at the nose didn’t help,” Chandler said.

In Nick Patsaouras’ commercial, his “Man With a Plan” slogan reminded them of the old Man From Glad plastic wrap commercials.

“The guy may have a wonderful plan,” Chandler said. “But what comes across in his commercial is a mindless slogan which is in direct opposition to the serious message he is trying to get across.”

If the other admen on the panel were not laughing at the ads, they were not uplifted either.

“There are no grand slam home runs on any of these spots,” said Joe Cerrell, a Los Angeles political consultant for more than 20 years. “You don’t go away humming the tune.”

The Times also solicited the views of James R. Beniger, associate professor of communications and sociology at USC, who specializes in the imagery of political campaigns. None of the experts is working for any of the candidates in the mayor’s race.

The four looked at commercials from six leading candidates: Riordan, Wachs, Patsaouras, Michael Woo, Richard Katz and Linda Griego.

Other candidates--including Stan Sanders, Ernani Bernardi and Tom Houston--have aired ads. But the commercials in this story were the only ones appearing citywide last week--with the exception of Sanders’ ad: The candidate did not make a copy of his ad available to The Times.

If there was an award to be given out by the ad critics, it probably would go to Griego’s sendup of her male rivals.

The 30-second spot features Griego in a bright red outfit talking about what distinguishes her campaign as she walks by a collection of gray cardboard look-alikes of the men.

“Her campaign’s dream is to have everyone think of this campaign as 20 gray men and the woman in the red suit, and it does it. It’s really good,” Beniger said.

Even Hayden was willing to give the ad a qualified thumbs-up.

“I thought the setting was very amusing. . . . Even the black guys were made to look like gray white guys in gray suits,” Hayden said. “Griego’s proposition was ‘I’m different, I’m not a guy.’ The problem is, with a woman candidate . . . it’s kind of obvious she’s not a guy. What has to be demonstrated is real leadership capability . . . programs, content.”

In a crowded field, the challenge for the candidates and their ad makers during the final days before the April 20 primary will be to avoid getting lost in a cacophony of commercials.

And with the average viewer exposed to the same commercial up to 50 times, ads must wear well.

“In the last couple of weeks, the viewers will be saturated. They won’t be able to escape the ads. When they click the remote, they will see another one. It will be both confusing and annoying,” Cerrell said.

“You want to be one of the ads that people remember and talk about. You want to rise above the video pollution that bombards viewers at election time.”

There is not a formula for making an effective ad, but there is one rule of thumb that the experts tend to harp on: Keep it simple.

“Thirty seconds is not enough time to make more than one big point,” Beniger said. “So people who are good at this try to make one point over and over again. It’s also a good idea to say the candidate’s name as often as possible.”

An ad should have a “good close,” Cerrell said. “Before it’s over, it should make a strong sales pitch: Go out and vote for me.”

As the primary race moves into the home stretch, a number of candidates insist that they will have enough money to compete toe-to-toe in the air wars with the most well-endowed campaigns.

But only four--Riordan, Woo, Katz and Wachs--have documented that they have the money to afford a sustained TV presence. Because of their money and, in some cases, because of their familiarity to voters, these candidates have been most frequently described as the front-runners in the race.

Yet, if the experts are right, several ads airing are proof enough that money does not guarantee quality.

Here is a roundup of the ads that the four wealthiest campaigns have produced and a look at what the experts thought of them.

THE WACHS AD

A rousing score and fast-paced imagery energize a commercial that mixes snapshots of the 22-year City Council incumbent with comments about his record. Wachs’ supporters offer such comments as: “He wrote our rent control law. . . . He’s got the ability. . . . He fought for more police,” while Wachs’ campaign themes scroll across the screen. In the 30-second spot, Wachs’ name is written or spoken a dozen times.

Beniger liked the ad’s vitality. “It’s ‘Miami Vice’ or MTV,” he said. “It really holds your attention. It makes Wachs look energetic, like somebody who likes to rub elbows with real folks, somebody who has lots of interests in all kinds of things.”

Cerrell had misgivings. Dynamic to a fault, he said: “Too fast. The message got lost.” And Wachs’ ad was definitely too busy for Hayden: “They crammed everything conceivable into the commercial. . . . I’m surprised we didn’t get his bar mitzvah pictures and his report card.”

THE KATZ AD

This ad opens with a fast-moving shot of barbed wire and pulsating red patrol car lights. It is the post-riot L.A. nightmare scenario. Katz appears against a graffiti-spattered wall, dressed not in a politician’s coat and tie but in a brown leather bomber jacket with the collar up. “L.A. used to be a great place to live,” he says, looking into the camera. “Now everybody talks about leaving. Gangs run wild. And the City Hall crowd runs for cover.” Then he launches into a central message of his campaign: The city should sell the Ontario Airport to raise more money for police.

Chandler cannot get beyond the leather jacket. “He looks like a pudgy yuppie from the Westside,” he said. “Putting on the leather jacket seemed like a transparent ploy to look tougher or ‘Man of the People.’ It didn’t quite track.” But he thought there was the germ of a good idea in the ad: “He had a good premise kind of buried in there, which is (that) Los Angeles is worth saving. I’m not going to cut and run.”

But Hayden did not buy it: “You could remember him as the guy who wants to sell the Ontario Airport. . . . Why not throw in the San Diego Freeway? Maybe he could sell it to the Saudis along with Marina del Rey, so they could have a wet and dry thing.”

Cerrell had mixed feelings about the ad. “It’s definitely the slickest ad. With no tie and that jacket, he’s making an appeal to younger voters. He has a plan,” he said. “But he doesn’t tell me enough about Richard Katz, and that’s been Katz’s big problem. People outside of the Valley don’t know who he is.”

THE RIORDAN ADS

In one ad, Riordan stands beside customers in the meat-and-potatoes diner he owns and condemns his opponents for accepting public funds to finance their campaigns. When Riordan pledges to serve as mayor for $1 a year, the customers look up with great interest. It is as if Riordan had just said his broker was E.F. Hutton.

In the other ad, Riordan, in a blue business suit, is seated at a desk as he talks resolutely about solving the city budget deficit and hiring more police. Then the ad cuts to an old black and white photo of the famous Mattel dolls, Barbie and Ken. The image is followed by a photo of Riordan holding up a carton of milk. The ad says that Riordan, the savior of Mattel and Adohr Farms dairy, is tough enough to turn L.A. around.

Cerrell thought the Riordan “E.F. Hutton” ad is too jokey. But he was alone among the experts to offer even slight praise for the Barbie ad. “(Riordan) comes across tougher. He seems more effective.”

Beniger sided with the men from BBDO on Barbie. “I thought that was terrible,” he said. “My God, he took two large companies and saved them. That’s a very dynamic thing.” What the ad shows are two “dead, lifeless photographs.”

THE WOO ADS

Woo stands in front a graffiti-covered wall in one commercial. In another, he stands on the sidewalk of a residential neighborhood, suit jacket off, tie loosened. As he speaks, a barking dog can be heard in the background. “I took a lot of heat when I stood up to (former Police Chief) Daryl Gates, but we needed a change and that change has just begun,” Woo says.

These are the only ads that Hayden and Chandler did not criticize. They watched them immediately after seeing Riordan’s Barbie ad.

“He’s talking about making L.A. work again,” Hayden said, “which is the same exact message as Riordan, but what he’s conveying is a feeling about bringing you together. I’m not going to be confrontational. I’m going to work for you. I’ll be of service to you.”

Cerrell, on the other hand, was not impressed. He said Woo looks robotic. “They turn the button on and he comes out with a spiel. . . . Or they’re holding big cards up there for him. . . . I’d put him in a suit. . . . He doesn’t look mayoral.”

Beniger disagreed: “I’m not sure that’s necessarily a problem. One of the most pervasive and impressive images right now in L.A. politics is of torrents of bureaucrats going on junkets.” In this particular climate, he said, there is nothing wrong with “looking young, looking like a politician who can take his jacket off and loosen his tie, being positive and energetic, being fresh in any way.”

RIORDAN REVISE: Aide clarifies Richard Riordan’s dealings with Mattel. B1