Persuasive Ad Analysis - Looking Back (Pt. 3)

In this third installment of our series that examines the most effective persuasive ads of the 2004 presidential campaign, we consider an ad that was so effective in smearing John Kerry and painting him as a flip-flopper.




View the ad at YouTube.

What Makes This Ad Persuasive?

• Despite providing no support for the claims it makes, the ad provides a long list of areas in which John Kerry supposedly "supported" then "opposed" an issue.
• The video of John Kerry windsurfing in two directions provides a powerful visual representation that serves as a metaphor for the ad's underlying theme.
• The video of John Kerry also paints him as a northeastern elitist, something that is not too well received in parts of the United States.

This ad also received significant press coverage. Consider the following article from the Boston Globe:

The image was simply too much for senior Bush media strategists to resist: Senator John F. Kerry windsurfing off Nantucket, his boat twisting back and forth in the gusty air, the very maneuver Republicans have accused the Democratic candidate of making on important policy issues for months.

''I thought it so perfectly conveyed the message," said senior adviser Mark McKinnon, who quickly grabbed the footage of Kerry, shot by news crews during the Republican National Convention, to turn it into a campaign advertisement.

...

The Kerry campaign, in an unusually swift response to the Bush advertisement, attacked the president as being frivolous and cavalier with the windsurfing advertisement at a time of tragedy.

...

And Kerry officials launched a new advertisement of their own, titled ''Juvenile," in which a narrator says: ''One thousand US casualties. Two Americans beheaded just this week. The Pentagon admits terrorists are pouring into Iraq."

It continues: ''In the face of the Iraq quagmire, George Bush's answer is to run a juvenile and tasteless attack ad."

Mike McCurry, a senior spokesman for Kerry, demanded that Bush pull the ''shameful" ad off the airwaves, accusing the president of taking a ''lighthearted approach to the war in Iraq."

''Mr. President, this is a shameful advertisement that shows a disturbing disregard for those fighting and sacrificing in Iraq, and you should repudiate it immediately," McCurry said in a statement.

Senior Bush adviser Karen Hughes, traveling with reporters on Air Force One, quickly dismissed the demand and defended the decision to use water sports as a campaign theme during a time of war. ''His choice of leisure activities is a lighthearted way of making a very serious point," Hughes said of Kerry. ''He may have a case of selective amnesia when it comes to some of the things he's said."

In fact, several Bush campaign aides expressed deep satisfaction with the advertisement. The television spot -- and the comments from surrogates such as Giuliani that accompanied it -- marked an intensive effort to reinforce accusations that Kerry is inconsistent, the chief attack Bush has made on the Democrat over the past six months.