If you haven’t see it yet, the following Carly Fiorina ad attacking fellow Republican Tom Campbell (both are running to be the GOP’s senate nominee to face Barbara Boxer) is worth a few minutes:
Not only in the beginning something out of Terry Gilliam’s playbook circa 1969, but it may be one of the more over-the-top political ads I have seen in a while. Further, the entire motif of the ad ultimately doesn’t make any sense. It spends over two minutes casting Campbell as a sheep (although exactly who it is that he is blindly following is unclear) and then at the end does a switcheroo, calling Campbell a wolf in sheep’s clothing (a guy in a weird sheep costume with glowing red eyes lurking amidst the herd).
So, at first it seems that Campbell the sheep is the bad guy, but later Campbell is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. So does that mean that being a sheep is a good thing? If so, why all the identification of Campbell with a sheep earlier in the piece?
It is one weird commercial.
And really, FCINO (Fiscal Conservative in Name Only)? What media consultant thinks that that acronym is going to work? RINO (Republican in Name Only) works, at least in part, because it can be used as a verbal shorthand and sounds like real word. How would one even pronounce FCINO? (fuh-see-no?) I don’t see it catching on.
Sphere: Related Content
February 4th, 2024 at 1:21 pm
Wow! It was brilliant.
In addition to your analysis, I ask: a 3:21 ad?!?!?!?
When/where is Carly going to play this thing?
I think your average TV spot is 30 seconds–so I guess she is going to try and fill an entire commercial break!/!?!
February 4th, 2024 at 3:31 pm
A valid point. It is remarkably long. Perhaps the goal was simply to go viral.
February 4th, 2024 at 8:20 pm
[...] regards to the Demon Sheep ad I noted earlier today, Brian Caulfield writes at Forbes: “Now we know why InfoWorld [...]
February 6th, 2024 at 6:10 pm
[...] PoliBlog: A Rough Draft of my Thoughts » One Bizarre Commercial [...]