Really, Doc? Trump’s trashing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is going to put a dent in his poll numbers when 91 felony charges, a sexual assault conviction, and an endless series of lies and grifts haven’t? Does that seem reasonable to you?
– Trump Stumped
Dear TS,
According to this New York Times report by Nicholas Nehamas, the Biden campaign “is running [this] digital ad in three states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — that have significant populations of voters with Eastern European roots.”
The ad notes that every president since Harry Truman has been a rock-solid supporter of NATO – except for Donald Trump, who wants to walk away from NATO and its Article 5 mutual defense pact. (The spot also notes that Article 5 has been invoked exactly one time: in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on America.)
Trump’s “you gotta pay” message to NATO members, the ad concludes, is shameful, weak, dangerous, and un-American. (It’s also the unofficial slogan of made mobsters, but why get technical about it. Not to mention Trump’s lifelong commitment to stiffing his own creditors.)
As NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba writes, “[the] campaign is aiming to reach the more than 2.5 million Americans who identify as Polish, Finnish, Norwegian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian — all NATO countries that share a border with Russia.”
That doesn’t seem like much, until you break down Trump’s likely electoral math: About 30 to 35 percent of his voters are ride-or-die MAGA who are largely there for the cruelty and the crazy; then you’ve got maybe 10 percent of voters who mumble “something something something Dementia Joe.”
It’s the next four or five percent who will decide the 2024 presidential election. This Biden ad might tell us whether Article 5 works for ballots as well as bullets.
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 checking out BU Today, when I came across Doug Most’s Q&A with Boston University School of Social Work professor Bronwyn Keefe about Nikki Haley’s new ad campaign mocking Joe Biden and Donald Trump as “Basement Buddies” and “Stumbling Seniors.”
BU Today: When I saw this ad, I admit that I chuckled, but at the same time I cringed a little bit. Is this going too far in your mind? Is the ad an example of ageism?
Ageism is just pervasive. When you go to CVS or someplace to get a birthday card, it’s everywhere, jokes about being older, not being able to hear—it’s so normalized . . . This makes older people feel invisible, small, and useless. It has an impact on the older adult population that is really detrimental.
Isn’t that the point of Haley’s campaign, Doc – to be detrimental to the presumptive 2024 presidential nominees?
– Bidin’ My Time
Dear BMT,
Let’s start by reminding ourselves that Nikki Haley is no stranger to the issue of ageism, having been on the receiving end last year of sexist/ageist comments from ex-CNN bigmouth Don Lemon, who declared in an on-air flameout (leading to his exit from the cable network) that Haley was past her prime.
Haley tweeted in response, “Liberals can’t stand the idea of having competency tests for older politicians to make sure they can do the job.”
So Haley’s new media campaign – which consists of online videos, digital ads and voter emails according to Jazmine Ulloa’s report in the New York Times – is very much on brand.
As for the issue of ageism, it’s not like Haley is trying to take the car keys from Gramps. One of those two guys is going to occupy the Oval Office a year from now. Their age and mental competency are legitimate questions.
But that’s not the most important concern for voters this November. The real issue, which Haley’s campaign blithely glosses over, is that both guys might be old, but only one of them is an unhinged anti-democratic grifter. We’re not talking six of one, half dozen of another here, folks. Joe Biden and Donald Trump are not a matched set, no matter what Nikki Haley or Cornel West or the No Labelsniks want you to think
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 full-page ad from Philip Morris International about its Zyn nicotine pouches, which are apparently quite popular among the younger set.
Think the tobacco industry’s latest damage-control campaign can work, Doc?
– Zynterested Observer
Dear ZO,
Zynteresting indeed.
That ad comes in the wake of this piece by Emily Dreyfuss in the Times Opinion section two weeks ago, which detailed the growing flight from vaping to nicotine pouches among teenagers and young adults.
Do you know what a Zynbabwe is? Or an upper-decky lip pillow? OK, here’s an easier one — how about just Zyn?
If you are scratching your head, don’t feel bad: Almost no adult I have spoken to has had any idea either. This is despite the fact that the nicotine pouch Zyn is a jewel in the crown of a multibillion-dollar tobacco company. Haven’t heard of nicotine pouches to begin with? Neither had I. But when I ask my 19-year-old neighbor Ian if he knows what a Zynbabwe is, I get a shocked reply: “You know about Zyns?”
Young people certainly do, Dreyfuss says, thanks in no small part to the tobacco giant’s efforts. “P.M.I. is . . . a company that has long denied it markets tobacco products to minors despite decades of research accusing it of just that. One 2022 study alone found its brands advertising near schools and playgrounds around the globe.”
Thus the full-page ads spinning out corporate eyewash such as “We restrict the marketing and sale of ZYN to those of legal age – which is 21 in the U.S. We do not use social media influencers in the U.S.”
That, of course, is meaningless, since social media influencers in the U.S. use Zyn – prodigiously – as Sasha Rogelberg has detailed in Fortune.
Nicotine pouches, which do not contain tobacco but are slipped under a user’s lip like snus, have grown wildly popular. Over 800 million units were sold between January and March 2022, compared to 126.06 million units between August to December 2019 and beating out its competitors. ZYN shipped 105.4 million cans in the U.S. in their 2023 Q3, a 65.7% increase from Swedish Match’s 63.6 million can shipments in the same period in 2022. Philip Morris International, which owns ZYN’s parent company Swedish Match, partially attributed their $9 billion in quarterly net revenue to the “exceptional growth” of ZYN.
On social media, young people and so-called “Zynfluencers” are spreading the nicotine buzz, withTikToks using #zyn receiving over 715.6 million views to date.
Something similar happened several years ago with Juul Labs Inc., which in 2019 owned 75% of the e-cigarette market and was valued at over $38 billion, Suddenly the Food and Drug Administration was on Juul Labs like Brown on Williamson, and there were over 5000 lawsuits accusing the company of deceptive marketing and targeting of minors. That led to a flurry of newspaper ads like this one.
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 checking out Politico Playbook, when I came across this item about Joe Biden’s campaign jumping on “[a] recent Suffolk University/USA Today poll [which] found that 59% of voters agreed that prosecuting the [January 6] rioters was ‘the appropriate work of the justice system.’”
These public perceptions, of course, create a major opening for Biden. And, as we’ve written several times now in Playbook, the president continues to lean in. During his speech yesterday at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Biden cast his own reelection — and Trump’s defeat —as imperative to protecting democracy.
“Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. It is what the 2024 election is all about,” Biden said, a message that’s front and center in a new campaign ad that will start airing today in seven swing states.
Is pearl-clutching about threats to democracy really a threat to Donald Trump’s 2024 prospects, Doc? Or is Scranton Joe just whistling past the graveyard?
– Biden My Time
Dear BMT,
First of all, don’t say “graveyard” in the same sentence as Joe Biden. Beyond that, the Doc has previously noted that there are serious questions about the efficacy of presidential TV advertising (even if they’re raised by GOP chew toy Vivek Ramaswamy).
Regardless, Biden has so far failed to develop an effective advertising message. As New York Times reporter Reed Epstein detailed on The Daily podcast, his campaign recently spent $40 million on swing-state ads promoting Biden’s economic record – to little or no avail.
Epstein also pointed out that another potential ad theme – Trump’s 91 felony charges – is largely off limits. Biden can’t/won’t talk about the four separate Trump indictments because that just plays into Trump’s claim that the Department of Justice is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Biden Crime Family.
So what’s a fella to do? This, apparently.
Those people are nuts graf: “I’ve made the preservation of American democracy an essential issue of my presidency. Now, something dangerous is happening in America. There’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy.”
The ad, which is paid for by the Democratic National Committee, is not getting a lot of love on YouTube: 97,000 views but only 2700 thumbs up. Not to mention lots of comments like these.
As Epstein noted on The Daily, voters concerned about threats to democracy are likely already in the anti-Trump camp, so Biden might just be whistling past the . . . voting booth with that approach.
The Doc is not in the habit of prescribing remedies for ailing political campaigns. But in this case, Joe Biden might want to forget surrogates like the oily Gavin Newsom and get himself a witch doctor to generate some good juju.
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 scrolling through Politico Playbook, when I came across this item about a new effort to free the eight American hostages held by Hamas since October 7.
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — A new national TV ad from the families of U.S. citizens still held hostage by Hamas calls on U.S. officials to do more to help bring them home alive, and soon. “Act now, or more will die,” a narrator says. “Every second counts.” The eight Americans have spent nearly three months in captivity, and the spot highlights the brutality of the Oct. 7 attack. Targeting elite audiences, the six-figure ad buy from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum will run for a week.
Think that might make a difference, Doc?
– Fingers Crossed
Dear FC,
Given that the Hamas hostage standoff includes more moving parts than an hourglass, it’s tough to gauge what impact – if any – this ad from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum might have.
Start with the six-figure ad buy, which could be anywhere from $100,000 to $999,999. Assuming the ad budget is at the lower end of that range, the group might be hoping to create a news ad – “an ad that is designed to give news coverage,” as media theorist Kathleen Hall Jamieson has defined it.
So far, the ad hasn’t gained much traction, at least according to Google News. That might change, though, now that the New York Times website has posted this Michael D. Shear piece.
The families of Americans held hostage in Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel have released a television ad to press for urgent action to rescue their loved ones.
The 30-second spot, which is set to air on cable networks and during Sunday network news programs in the United States for the next several weeks, shows grainy images of the hostages being seized by Hamas militants, and black-and-white images of the captive Americans.
Given that the Times is still the assignment desk for much of the news media, that could jumpstart more coverage, especially tomorrow when the story will likely run in the paper’s print edition. Maybe by then the Hostages and Missing Families Forum will have also produced a press release about the ad, which it has inexplicably failed to do so far.
There’s also social media to give the group’s plea a boost. Although the ad’s YouTube video has garnered only 1400 views in its first 24 hours online, #BringThemHomeNow has lots of activity on Xitter, and the Bring Them Home Now Facebook page has 52,000 likes and 71,000 followers.
In the end, who knows whether the “elite audiences” the group is targeting will get the message. Regardless, the Doc’s fingers are crossed as well.
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 Politico Playbook, when I came across this item about a new ad campaign highlighting Donald Trump’s bromance with authoritarian figures past and present.
The Republican Accountability PAC is rolling out a six-figure ad campaign to take Trump to task, titled “Dictator Donald,” hitting the former president for his recent comment that he wouldn’t be a dictator if he returns to the White House “except for Day One.” The 60-second ad compares Trump to the likes of BENITO MUSSOLINI, HUGO CHÁVEZ, AUGUSTO PINOCHET and Hungarian PM VIKTOR ORBÁN.
In your home for the holidays: The ad will begin running nationally today on CNN and MSNBC. It will also be shown on the Hallmark Channel and during TBS’ “A Christmas Story” marathon in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
That’s some Murderers’ Row Trump is being compared to, eh, Doc? Think the spot might work?
– Christmas Jeer
Dear CJ,
So you’re sitting there watching Catch Me If You Claus when this commercial pops onto your big-screen TV.
Then again, anti-Trump ads generally face an uphill battle, as New York Times reporter Jonathan Swan noted several months ago.
A well-funded group of anti-Trump conservatives has sent its donors a remarkably candid memo that reveals how resilient former President Donald J. Trump has been against millions of dollars of negative ads the group deployed against him in two early-voting states.
The political action committee, called Win It Back, has close ties to the influential fiscally conservative group Club for Growth. It has already spent more than $4 million trying to lower Mr. Trump’s support among Republican voters in Iowa and nearly $2 million more trying to damage him in South Carolina.
But in the memo — dated Thursday and obtained by The New York Times — the head of Win It Back PAC, David McIntosh, acknowledges to donors that after extensive testing of more than 40 anti-Trump television ads, “all attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective.”
Of course, an ad campaign depicting Donald Trump as a five-and-dime dictator could conceivably be more effective than accusing him of failing to build a wall at the southern border. And yet . . .
“Even when you show video to Republican primary voters — with complete context — of President Trump saying something otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it,” Mr. McIntosh states in the “key learnings” section of the memo.
Regardless, the Republican Accountability PAC ad is a good start. Let a thousand followers bloom, yeah?
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 listening to The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last on The Secret Podcast, when JVL started talking about Donald Trump’s latest NFT (non-fungible token) grift.
Donald Trump this week announced a new wave of his NFTs, and these are the Mugshot series.
Hmm where all of the pictures have are, you know riffing off of his mugshot glare Yeah, and if you buy a hundred of them, which I believe is $10,000 worth so if you if you buy $10,000 worth of these you will also get a Physical trading card like a like a baseball card here.
Seriously, Doc – ten grand for a Trump trading card? Please tell me that is . . .
– Not Freaking True
Dear NFT,
Truer than anything Donald Trump ever says, I’m sorry to report.
Start with Trump’s mug shot, taken last summer in a Georgia courthouse.
That was just raw material, though, as Vanessa Friedman wrote in the New York Times.
[T]his week, NFT INT, the official licensee of the Trump name and image for digital trading cards, began selling a special “Mugshot Edition” NFT set that includes, for a certain few willing to buy the whole thing, pieces of the blue suit and red tie Mr. Trump wore in the photo.
Or, as the NFT INT website calls the garment, “The most historically significant artifact in American history.”
The goods, for those of you keeping score at home.
That would be what’s known in the business as a “relic card” – like a piece of the True Cross relic, which plays nicely into the whole Orange Jesus thing. The Times piece notes that there are “enough tiny suit pieces for 2,024 buyers.” Some coincidence, eh?
The Doc’s diagnosis: This is just the latest indication that everything in Donald Trump’s life is transactional, right down to the clothes off his back.
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 yesterday’s edition of Politico Playbook, when I came across this item about the new Trump Super PAC ad running in Iowa.
TAKING NO CHANCES: Trump’s Make America Great Again super PAC is ramping up for ads against DeSantis in Iowa, “a shift in strategy after months of focusing their messaging on their likely general election opponent,” NYT’s Maggie Haberman and Shane Goldmacher report. The ad campaign will total “hundreds of thousands” of dollars and “aims to paint Mr. DeSantis, with less than three months before the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, as insufficiently conservative, by accusing him of supporting statehood for Puerto Rico.”
What’s the deal here, Doc – are the Trumpiacs ticked off because DeSantis knows that Puerto Ricans are American citizens, while the former Cheeto in Chief did not?
– Super PACman
Dear SuperBro,
Apparently the MAGAts have moved beyond attacking DeSantis as RINO Ron to scorched-earth depictions of him as Radical/Socialist/Marxist Ron.
The pitch: “Liberals have a plan to make Puerto Rico a state, adding two Democrats to the Senate, and Ron DeSantis sided with the liberals’ power play. DeSantis actually sponsored the bill to make Puerto Rico a state . . . [something something pack the court, something something reckless spending, ban guns, give amnesty to illegal aliens] . . . DeSantis sided with the liberals and sold out Iowa conservatives. Ron DeSantis is just plain wrong.”
That could be, but the spot is kinda wrong too, as the Times piece points out.
As a congressman, Mr. DeSantis, along with several other members, co-sponsored a bill that did not openly call for statehood for Puerto Rico, but laid out a path by which it could be accomplished. Mr. DeSantis’s state has a number of Puerto Rican constituents, and his support for an effort to explore a pathway to statehood was politically resonant in Florida.
Then again, “actually sponsored the bill to make Puerto Rico a state” is close enough for political advertising, right? In an age where a once and perhaps future president can say “Hezbollah is smart” and cause barely a ripple in the mediaverse, no one’s gonna get worked up about some minor distortion of the facts.
The corn’s been off that cob for a long time, my friends.
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 clicking through MediaPost Marketing Daily, when I came across this piece by Ray Schultz.
‘The Guardian’ Rejects Gambling Advertising
The Guardianhas banned gambling advertising out of concern for the damage done by chronic betting.
“Many people liketheoccasional bet, buttheadvent of 24/7 betting apps on smartphones, marketed tothepublic through billions of pounds and dollars in advertising across all forms of media, has placed high-stakes gambling machines in almost every pocket,” writes Anna Bateson, chief executive,GuardianMedia Group.
Bateson continues that “Guardianjournalists have reported onthedevastating impact ofthegambling industry intheUK andAustralia, helping to shiftthedial and ensuretheissue remains high onthepublic agenda.”
Whaddaya think, Doc – are they smart to put their money where their mouth is?
– Ad Hawk
Dear AH,
Let’s start by recalling this classic formulation from the great press critic A.J. Liebling: “The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.” So a tip o’ the pixel to The Guardian for valuing principle over principal in this case.
In an Inside The Guardian note, Anna Bateson expanded on the “devastating impact” of the gambling industry,
A growing chorus of media analysts and public health officials has been comparing the adverse effects of gambling ads to the damage cigarette advertising previously wrought. (The Doc sang that tune months ago.)
Australian website The Conversation published a post with the headline, “Sport is being used to normalise gambling. We should treat the problem just like smoking.” Closer to home, Daniel Kaplan at New York Times-owned The Athletic quoted this political Cassandra in a ban-it-or-not piece.
“This is a public health crisis,” said U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., who has introduced a bill to ban sports gambling ads, comparing them to once upon-a-time ubiquitous tobacco spots. “What we’ve done is simply displace Joe Camel with this activity.
“What’s worse is they’ve replaced Joe Camel with celebrity spokespeople.” (Joe was a smoking cartoon camel popular in the ’80s and ’90s in ads for Camel cigarettes.)
According to ad-measurement firm iSpot, national sports gambling TV spots grew from $17.6 million in 2018, the year of the Supreme Court decision, to $278.4 million last year ($110 million in 2023 through April 30). And those figures do not include local TV or other outlets including websites, social media, billboards, radio and podcasts.
(To be sure graf goes here)
To be sure, the New York Times Company itself has a horse in this race, as was disclosed in Kaplan’s piece: “The Athletic, it should be noted, has a sponsor partnership with BetMGM.”
And – what are the odds, eh? – this ad was embedded slightly below that disclaimer.
That brings us to an equally serious problem, namely the emerging triad the Doc has dubbed the Axis of Wheedle: sports books, sports leagues, sports media. Case in point: FanDuel hooked up with the Tennis Channel during this month’s French Open to showcase betting lines before – and during – men’s and women’s singles matches.
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 Punchbowl News, when I came across this item by Jake Sherman.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the former chair of the NRSC, is running an ad nationwide touting his race against Mitch McConnell for Republican leader and his 11-point plan, which became a widely used Democratic talking point.
The new spot is running in D.C., New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
Scott is up for re-election in Florida in 2024, but this ad isn’t running in Florida, according to AdImpact. This is sure to raise lots of eyebrows in Senate GOP circles.
It sure raised mine, Doc. What the hell’s that all about?
Income Taxes for All? Rick Scott Has a Plan, and That’s a Problem.
WASHINGTON — Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the somewhat embattled head of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, said one utterly indisputable thing on Thursday when he stood before a packed auditorium of supporters at the conservative Heritage Foundation: His plan for a G.O.P. majority would make everyone angry at him, Republicans included.
It was an odd admission for the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. His leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has repeatedly told Mr. Scott to pipe down about his “11-Point Plan to Rescue America,” with its call to impose income taxes on more than half of Americans who pay none now, and to sunset all legislation after five years, presumably including Social Security and Medicare.
According to this CNN report by Alex Rogers and Steve Contorno, other proposals in Scott’s plan included “ending imports from China, cutting the federal government workforce by 25% and building a wall on the US-Mexico border and naming it after former President Donald Trump.”
As everyone except Rick Scott could have told you, the whole thing went over like the metric system.
Especially lathered up was Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-I’m de captain here!), as he made clear at a press conference reported by CNN.
“Let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda,” McConnell said. “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”
“That will not be part of the Republican Senate majority agenda,” he reiterated. “We will focus instead on what the American people are concerned about: inflation, energy, defense, the border and crime.”
Apparently undaunted by the widespread backlash he encountered at the time and his subsequent beatdown by McConnell in last fall’s Senate leadership bakeoff, Scott has doubled down with his current TV spot.
Here’s his pitch, annotated for your convenience.
People told me not to run for Republican leader against Mitch McConnell. They said I wouldn’t win. (Duh)
I knew it was gonna be hard. (As in, impossible)
But we gotta start somewhere. (Too bad Rick Scott is currently nowhere)
Look – we’re on the road to woke socialism. (His proof: A screenshot of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)
And Republicans are just a speed bump. (Not even that smart, honestly)
We can’t keep doing the same old thing. It’s time for Republicans to be bold, to speak the truth, and to stop caving in. (The way Mitch McConnell keeps doing)
Help us change our party – join us at RescueAmerica.com. (Please give me money so I can run more noodleheaded ads like this one)
I’m Rick Scott. I approve this message. (Of course you do)
Scott is spending a reported seven figures on the national ad buy, which truly makes you wonder why he doesn’t just set his money on fire.
Meanwhile, Politico Playbook PM reports that a new ad campaign has been launched by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, whose chairman until 12 days ago was [checks notes] Rick Scott.
Inconveniently for the NRSC, Morning Consult’s Eli Yokley just reported that “60% of Montana voters approve of Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, making him the most popular incumbent expected to face a competitive 2024 contest.”
So maybe not the wisest use of the NRSC’s money.
The Doc’s diagnosis: It’s hard to imagine that those NRSC ads came together in the past two weeks, which means they probably represent more of Rick Scott’s handiwork. If so, the logical conclusion would be a) he has four middle fingers, and b) none of them are very flippin’ effective.
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Ask Doctor Ads 