Polling power

During the campaign for the last pres­idential election in 2016, Democratic Senate nominee Jason Kander was speaking to adman Mark Putnam. The Missouri politician mentioned that one of the things he had learnt to do in army boot camp was to rap­idly assemble and disassemble a rifle. Putnam mulled over the information for a second and then leaned in. “I said, ‘I could make an ad about you assembling a rifle quickly but I don’t know if that would be enough to be interesting,’” Putnam says from his office in Washington, a few blocks from the White House. “‘Can you do it blindfolded? Because that would make a great ad.’”

The subsequent Putnam Partners spot, which made Kander look tough with an ar-15 while defending background checks, has a rawness to it and the clicks of gun parts being slotted into place act as punctuation marks. And although Kander didn’t win his race, the advert became one of the most talked about of the year, resonating beyond the Midwestern audience for which it was originally intended. It’s just one example of the quick-witted and often fre­netic creative work going on behind the scenes in the centres of US power. More often than not it’s TV advertising that is charged with punching through the clutter of competing political noise to reach voters when it matters.

As 2020 election season ramps up – with Senate, House, gubernato­rial and down-ballot races alongside the presidential contest – the nation’s political consultancies are preparing to go into overdrive. In an already anomalous year, Michael Bloomberg’s brief run for the presidency saw him spend more than $500m (€469m) of his own money on TV, radio and online advertising, while total adver­tising expenditure for the cycle could top $10bn (€9.4bn).

Unlike the commercial world, where brand loyalty from advert pro­ducers isn’t always a given, political ad-makers all seem to have an unwav­ering commitment to the product they are selling. Every firm in this industry proudly displays its politi­cal colours; working for both sides of the divide is unheard of. Many in political-advert firms have moved into the field after working on cam­paign communications.

Time pressure and an emphasis on quick results are a hallmark of politi­cal advertising. “We have an election day and it’s not about increasing market share by half a point com­pared to our [nearest] competing brand of soap,” says Putnam. John Del Cecato, a New York-based adman for AKPD Message & Media (which made Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 spots), puts it another way. “This is a disci­pline in which you have to convince people to take a certain action on a certain day and it’s very often a binary choice,” he says. “When you go to the grocery store you can buy a six-pack of Coke and a two-litre bottle of Pepsi – you don’t get that choice in politics.”

Concepts also have to be devel­oped with limited resources, a small crew and a short shoot time. “Typically, you don’t have a billion-dollar company funding the ads,” says Anson Kaye, a partner at GMMB, the biggest Democratic consultancy in the US; it recently worked with Kamala Harris. He is sitting in his Washington office behind a desk monitoring a Twitter dashboard and CNN on sepa­rate screens. “One production for a GM ad might be more than you would spend on all the ads combined in a political campaign.”

This means that ad-makers, who have a budget of thousands rather than millions to spend per spot, have to wear multiple hats, even if they might be a partner in the business or a lead producer. Their role spans location scouting, advising on an edit or weighing in on the music; it’s an ad-hoc model that Lindsey Seltzer, a vice-president producer at GMMB, calls “run and gun”.

Clearly, not every political advert has the highest artistic merit. There are still plenty of spots that feature clichéd orchestral music, the sombre inflections of a voice-over and B-roll imagery of a candidate hugging children or wearing a hard hat at a construction site. Often the bulk of these ersatz offerings get made at a local level, according to Isabella Cunningham, a professor at Austin’s Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations. But higher up the ballot, she says, that won’t wash. “Advertisers, in particular, know that the public is sophisticated and that they have to go one step further to have people pay attention to what they say,” she says. In other words, view­ers can sniff out a predictable political advert from a mile away.

“You can’t just have [candidates] hugging babies,” says Fred Davis, founder of Hollywood-based Strategic Perception, which has worked with many Republican candidates, in his sing-song Oklahoman twang. “You’re wasting your money.” For an advert to alter a campaign or go viral, it needs to have a differentiator.

Ad-makers will spend hours with a candidate going through their life story, sifting for gold in the hope of discovering a valuable nugget that makes them more personable. Mark Putnam calls it that “little off-hand remark” that might seed an idea and both he and GMMB’s Kaye believe that, in a world where distrust in poli­ticians is high and the pared-down world of digital advertising is start­ing to drive the tone of television advertising, authenticity is key. That can mean shooting a spot in the style of a documentary with footage gath­ered from a town hall; if your talent is composed and telegenic (as the firms who worked with Obama will attest), a direct-to-camera address can work too. Quirky or dramatic footage that drives home a metaphor is invaluable, from illustrating a candidate’s journey by showing them swimming across the Hudson to asking a city council­lor who is also a yo-yo champion to perform some tricks – even portray­ing your opponent as a giant rat (yes, these were all real adverts).

Having material that is “a little bit irreverent” can help too, says John Brabender, a founder at Republican-focused BrabenderCox, which has offices in a number of eastern US cities. His 2016 video retort to a Joss Whedon-directed spot of Hollywood actors supporting Hillary Clinton, featuring a cast sarcastically thanking the A-listers for their insights, 275,000 times on YouTube and nearly 15 mil­lion times across the web, according to the firm. That example, simple in its concept, gets to the crux of politi­cal advertising. Whether fear, anger or laughter, if it’s provoking a gut reac­tion then it’s doing its job. With ad-makers agreeing that they would take a viewer’s emotional response over a policy head nod, the music – often the last piece of the puzzle for creatives – has an outsized role.

Sometimes the backing tune is purchased from a library but often it’s specially composed for the spot. That task will frequently go to Todd Hahn, who has been coming up with jingles for political adverts from his home studio for more than 30 years. From conjuring a southern guitar twang for a spot that might air in Tennessee to creating an ethereal soundscape, he says that during peak season, which will start in September, he might score as many as 15 adverts a day – for both Republicans and Democrats. “It’s ironic because I’m really not a political person,” he says. “I have no feel for it.”