Learned Nothing, Forgot Nothing
Thirty years ago Jesse Helms’ campaign aired a negative TV ad about Harvey Gantt – three weeks later I found myself sitting in a room full of campaign consultants and pollsters saying, We just spent $180,000 to air an ad telling voters Harvey Gantt’s on the wrong side of an issue and it hardly moved a single vote – explain that to me.
Dick Morris gasped, Oh, oh, Carter, you’ve been running that same kind of ad, dark shadows, sinister music, for ten years and now the minute people see it they tune it out.
So we did a simple comparison ad: Jesse Helms believes this, Harvey Gantt disagrees. No dark shadows, no editorial comment. And it worked.
Today, watching ads on TV is like ‘déjà vu all over again:’ Dark shadows, sinister music, campaigns wasting millions of dollars – it’s like the old quip about the last French Kings: They learned nothing – and forgot nothing.
Learned Nothing, Forgot Nothing
Thirty years ago Jesse Helms’ campaign aired a negative TV ad about Harvey Gantt – three weeks later I found myself sitting in a room full of campaign consultants and pollsters saying, We just spent $180,000 to air an ad telling voters Harvey Gantt’s on the wrong side of an issue and it hardly moved a single vote – explain that to me.
Dick Morris gasped, Oh, oh, Carter, you’ve been running that same kind of ad, dark shadows, sinister music, for ten years and now the minute people see it they tune it out.
So we did a simple comparison ad: Jesse Helms believes this, Harvey Gantt disagrees. No dark shadows, no editorial comment. And it worked.
Today, watching ads on TV is like ‘déjà vu all over again:’ Dark shadows, sinister music, campaigns wasting millions of dollars – it’s like the old quip about the last French Kings: They learned nothing – and forgot nothing.