Monthly Archives: April 2024

How Can an Ad Claim That Donald Trump ‘Couldn’t Be Hired at a Local Mall’?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Jim Swift’s Overtime newsletter from The Bulwark, when I came across this item about a new ad campaign from Republican Voters Against Trump.

No mall would hire Trump… So why would we make him President again? A new ad from our friends at RVAT airing on TV and online in battleground states.

I dunno, Doc – does that sound right to you? Donald Trump does have an awful lot of experience in sales.

– Mall Rat

Dear MR,

Yeah, the thing with Trump is, so much of what he’s sold during his career has been irregular.

Beyond that, the rest of his resumé is even more problematic, as this RVAT press release explains.

WASHINGTON – April 22, 2024 – Today Republican Voters Against Trump launched a new six-figure ad campaign as part of an ongoing $50 million campaign, highlighting Donald Trump’s 88 felony charges.

The ad uses first-person hidden-camera footage of a job applicant going to several stores and repeatedly being rejected after sharing that he has been indicted for stealing classified documents, paying hush money to porn stars, and attempting to overturn an election.

Here’s how that worked out.

The ad is scheduled to run nationally on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” and digitally in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Republican Voters Against Trump is yet another effort from the irrepressible Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, impresario of The Focus Group Podcast, and founder of Republican Voters Against Trump/Republican Accountability Project.

Sarah Longwell is the undisputed Queen of Never Trumpers.

Ask for her by name.

Do the New McDonald’s Billboards in the Netherlands Pass the Smell Test?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and poking around MediaPost, when I came across Tanya Gazdik’s Marketing Daily piece about a new ad gimmick debuting in Europe.

Remember Smell-O-Vision? It’s coming to billboards!

McDonald’s is trying it out in the Dutch cities of Utrecht and Leiden.

“The plain red and yellow billboards don’t use a single word or image to advertise McDonald’s offerings—and they don’t need to,” according to Fast Company. “Instead, the billboards pump out the aroma of warm french fries to passersby, who seem to instinctively know the scent of a McDonald’s french fry compared to any other form of fried potato.”

I dunno, Doc – kind of reeks of desperation, don’t you think?

– Odor Eater

Dear OE,

First off, this is shaping up to be the Year of the Billboard, no? It started with smackable billboards that dispense Heinz ketchup packets, as the Doc noted last month. Now it’s smellable billboards, which McDonald’s is promoting with this YouTube video.

The Mickey D billboards represent the olfactory extension of audio spotlight technology employed in supermarket advertising, which Evan I. Schwartz detailed in a 2004 MIT Technology Review piece: “Known as directional sound, it uses an ultrasound emitter to shoot a laserlike beam of audible sound so focused that only people inside a narrow path can hear it.”

Now we have directional smell. Ain’t progress grand. Then again, when someone comes up with Chanel N°Fry, you’ll know they’ve gone too far.

Could This Half-Page New York Times Ad Be Any More Illegible?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and plowing through the Sunday New York Times, when I came across this on page 7.

Honest to God, Doc – I had to take out a magnifying glass to read the body copy, and even then it was blurry. Who in her right mind (lookin’ at you, Nita Mukesh Ambani) would sign off on a mess like that?

– Read ‘n’ Weep

Dear RW,

First off, just to be, um, clear: The ad that appears in the Replica Edition of the Times is marginally sharper than the print version.

Even so, it’s still ridiculously hard to read. That’s because it violates every tenet of legendary adman David Ogilvy’s rules for effective ad copy.

Use eye-easy typography. Text set in all-caps is extremely difficult to read… sans-serif fonts are particularly difficult to read…reverse type is almost impossible to read.

Reverse type on a rose background is even more impossible to read.

The Doc’s diagnosis: The Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai seems like a happening place. It just needs a new art director.

Did Joe Biden in His New Ad Just Make the Understatement of the Century?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and poking around the web, when I came across this headline at MSNBC’s site.

‘Trump doesn’t trust women; I do’: Biden ad hits Trump’s attacks on reproductive freedom

Really, Doc – that’s the best he’s got? Doesn’t trust women? That’s his indictment of the Grabber in Chief?

– Trusty Reader

Dear TR,

The TV spot was triggered by the state of Florida’s new six-week abortion ban, and according to this piece by Weija Jiang at CBS Mornings, “[Biden’s] campaign says it has a ‘seven-figure buy’ for this ad as part of a $30 million advertising effort in the major battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada.”

“In 2016, Donald Trump ran to overturn Roe v. Wade. Now, in 2024, he’s running to pass a national ban on a woman’s right to choose,” Biden says in the ad. He pointedly avoids mentioning either Florida’s new law or Trump’s stated opposition to a six-week abortion ban, letting viewers draw their own conclusions, accurate or not.

(Then again, Trump was America’s first Cubist President – on every side of every issue – so previous statements are no guarantee of future policy.)

The Doc’s diagnosis: There’s no question Biden’s assertion that “Trump doesn’t trust women” soft-pedals Trump’s reprehensible history of misogyny, misconduct, and more – see Mariel Padilla’s piece at The 19th for further details – but there are plenty of people out there excoriating Trump in far harsher terms (lookin’ at you, George Conway).

Over all, it’s sensible for Biden to leave the heavy lifting to others on this front.