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They were added when the TV show was made available in syndication and on DVD. Unnerved by viewers’ growing propensity to fastforward through commercials via the miracle of TiVo and DVR, Oreo’s maker found another way to put the product before the public.
Why not do the same with politicians? Voters say they are sick of 30-second political ads and claim, dubiously, that they tune them out. In 2008, might we see a "Hillary for President" billboard in the background of a scene from Law & Order? Could there be a "McCain in ’08" bumper sticker on the next car that Jack Bauer hijacks in 24?
"I can’t imagine a major candidate’s bumper sticker highly visible in a primetime television show, but who knows what the future holds? Who knows what relationships Hollywood producers have with particular parties? "
For Frank W. Baker not to have definitive answers to the questions he poses is saying something. Baker is a South Carolina-based expert in media literacy, teaching and lecturing across the country on the messages conveyed by the media, particularly through advertising.
On Wednesday, he urged members of the Columbus Metropolitan Club to think critically about media messages in an election year. Baker came to the right place. If hell were a perpetual series of attack ads, Ohio would be its fieriest depth.
The unwanted onslaught already is upon us. Tit-for-tat TV ads have aired in the U.S. Senate race pitting U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown against incumbent Republican Mike DeWine. Both candidates have reserved significant amounts of air time in the two weeks before the Nov. 7 election. So, too, has GOP gubernatorial nominee J. Kenneth Blackwell.
The national Democratic congressional and Senate campaign committees each are poised to launch $1 million-plus TV ad campaigns in late September, bound to be matched by their GOP counterparts. The pro- and anti-casino, minimum-wage and smoking factions will spend millions on TV for their ballot issue campaigns.
By late October, just when you think the TV lunacy can’t get worse and are certain that the next political ad will propel your foot through the screen, you can be discomfited by this: In less than two years, the world will return to Ohio to watch America pick a president.
Baker says that Ohioans are ill-prepared for what they are about to behold. Like many advertisers, politicalad strategists "depend on a mediailliterate population," and despite voters’ decades of exposure to political ads, "I don’t think they’re getting more sophisticated about them," Baker said.
"These commercials are so polished, so focus-grouped, so tested, and they are designed to appeal to the emotions of the voters and to turn off the analytical part of a voter’s brain. What we want to do is get the analytical part of the voter’s brain turned on."
When that happens, every frame of a campaign ad becomes grist for critical — no, skeptical — analysis. Why that music? Why those colors? Why that setting? Why a woman narrator instead of a man? Who are the kids in that ad? Why are they there? Why that message. Why is it being delivered by a black male construction worker wearing a hard hat instead of, say, a white female flight attendant carrying a handbag?
Most of all, who is behind the ad and what does he, she or it (business or labor group) really want from me?
Baker said 30-second political ads generally have one of two distinct characteristics. They are designed to enthuse voters, to build or affirm their confidence in a candidate, such as Ronald Reagan’s famously folksy 1984 "Morning in America" spot. Or they are designed to scare voters, to make them feel anxious about an opponent, such as the infamous Willie Horton attack ad used in the 1988 presidential race by Republican George H.W. Bush against Democrat Michael Dukakis.
TV ads remain the primary source of information about candidates for most voters. Responsible citizenship, said Baker, requires that voters ask: "What is left out? What am I not being told? And where can I go to get the information? "
Answering those questions is a daunting task when you can’t even trust the authenticity of the Oreos on Friends.
Joe Hallett is senior editor at The Dispatch.
jhallett@dispatch.com