Ad Wars: the last battle

Undecided US swing state voters are the most advertising-resistant people on earth.

Or maybe they’re just the most confused.

They have been bombarded with upwards of 300,000 ads in the last two weeks alone.

The presidency may hinge on which candidate finally gets through to this relatively small group of voters.

Both Obama and Romney have targeted audiences that they feel could tip the election: seniors in Florida, blue-collar workers in Ohio, suburban women in Virginia, coal workers in Pennsylvania. The spots address the four hot-button topics of Medicare, jobs, abortion and energy.

In Ohio, the most fiercely-contested state, Obama’s rescue of the US auto industry could win crucial votes. He has lost no opportunity to remind Ohioans that Romney wanted Detroit to go bankrupt.

It took considerable chutzpah therefore for Romney to come up with Who will do more for the auto industry (see below)?

Not only does the ad claim that “Mitt Romney has a plan to help the auto industry”, it also slates Obama for taking GM and Chrysler “into bankruptcy”.

The ad ends with an even more outlandish charge: that Obama “sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China.”

The ad left the president outraged and commentators incredulous.

Throughout the campaign Obama has faced a major challenge.

How do you portray your opponent as a liar, without descending into attacks or name-calling? How do you list your achievements in a way that doesn’t come across as complacent or just plain boring?

In the last few days one solution has suggested itself.

A very quick look at President Obama’s first term uses a fast-talking presenter and clever graphics to recap Obama’s achievements in under two minutes.

In a similar vein Thirty Seconds (see below) tackles one of Romney’s key claims to the presidency — his track record as governor of Massachusetts. The ad punctures Romney’s boast that he didn’t raise taxes by trying to list all his tax and fee increases in 30 seconds before giving up: “Nope. That was only half.”

As the race goes down to the wire there is one thing both camps agree on. Every vote matters.

The pro-Obama, 537 (see below) states that this was the small number of votes that changed the course of history, back in 2000. We see footage of the Wall Street meltdown, the Iraq War and Bush-Cheney and are informed that 537 votes was “the difference between what was…and what could have been…”

“So this year,” the voice-over continues, “if you’re thinking that your vote doesn’t count… that it won’t matter… well, back then, there were probably at least 537 people, who felt the same way. Make your voice heard. Vote.”

To get those make-or-break votes Obama has also directed hundreds of messages at supporters. Using social media and YouTube, the aim is to turn sympathisers into voters, voters into volunteers and volunteers into activists. What we’re fighting for is typical.

A Romney ad mobilising volunteers (see below), on the other hand, is rare: recognition, perhaps, of Obama’s greater success in the ground war.

Obama has also been more successful in enlisting celebrities. Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys and Jon Hamm — star of Mad Men — are the latest in a long line of celebrities to endorse the Obama campaign. If celebrity support were all that mattered Obama would be home and dry.

The only celebrity the Republicans can muster is Clint Eastwood. He voices, rather croakily, a super-PAC ad warning us that “there’s not much time left and the future of our country is at stake.”

Doom and gloom has served Romney well in this election.

It is a measure of Obama’s desperation that he, too, has been putting money behind fear-based ads.

The message of The 100th Day of the Romney Administration is that a Romney future is too awful to contemplate — but if it does happen you only have yourself to blame.

The commercial takes the form of a TV news round-up from April 2013 in an America where jobs are being outsourced to China, millionaires are receiving their tax breaks and a family with a child with a pre-existing medical condition is being denied access to healthcare. It ends with the newscaster heralding an interview with “one Obama supporter who wishes she had done more…”

What has happened to hope and promise?

They have returned — to some extent at least — in the final days.

Rousing moments from the president’s last speeches in the swing states have been edited and uploaded as longer-length, cable- and YouTube-based commercials.

The Final Push (see bleow) is a kind of video diary from 2008 and 2012. It shows footage of the heady days in Iowa in 2008 “where it all began” and tributes from supporters who are “fired up and ready to go”.

The Romney equivalent Momentum consists of highlights of Romney’s “extraordinary journey”, showing the new, confident Romney and his shiny-eyed followers at rallies.

The use of rallies has introduced a new phenomenon.

On the eve of the election, in addition to the air war and the ground war Obama and Romney have launched an event war.

The Romney campaign, in particular, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on one-off events like Red Rocks (see below).

Sited in an open-air amphitheatre in Colorado, the event was staged with maximum pizzazz, from slick lighting and loud music down to fireworks and merchandising.

This is the election rally repackaged as a rock concert. It is then filmed and given new life as a TV commercial, which in turn is dressed up as a news report. Marshall McLuhan would have a field day.

As voters go to the polls, the curtain will finally come down on the noisiest, most vociferous, most expensive election advertising campaign in history.

Among the barrage of negativity there have been one or two bright spots. Here are my nominations for the top three ads:

• Wittiest Ad of the Election: Romney Tax Plan
• Most Surreal Ad of the Election: Hank for Senate
• Most Refreshing Ad of the Election: Silence

The last of these ads could serve as the campaign season epitaph.

Quiet now, while we wait for the results to come in.

James von Leyden is a brand consultant and copywriter.