Update: Because I don’t think I was totally clear in the post that follows, I just wanted to put up front that I think it was a good ad in that it had a snappy punchline and called Wills out on his hypocrisy. My beef is only with the ad’s split message. Clear? Good. Carry on.
I give the ad an A for concept and a C for execution. The umbrella/hair gag at the end was solid, and it was set up perfectly with the Beebe quote. That’s the A. However, there’s a bit of a disconnect between (paraphrasing) “Wills is just like the rest — he said ‘no negative ads,’ but then he went negative” and “he wanted to build a tunnel with taxpayer dollars, which I think is silly as evinced by my stylish green umbrella.” The former message is one of Wills’ hypocrisy showing how he is no different from any other two-faced candidate. The latter message has nothing to do with hypocrisy at all, and it speaks only to Wills’ willingness to spend taxpayer dollars to cover his own balding pate.
Was it a good ad? Good enough, especially in its punchline. I think it will play well with on-the-fence voters, too, assuming any exist. But — and I hate to say this, given where BHR’s endorsement rests in this runoff — it’s just another example of how Elliott’s campaign keeps doing well almost despite some of their efforts. They were late to get any issues/policies on their website (or have their website be even slightly interactive), they were horrible in their use of Twitter and other social media, and now they keep churning out almost-well-done ads.
After Joyce Elliot’s previous ad, I wrote:
My only knock against the ad is the non-sequitur between Elliott as persuasive uniter who has helped improve Arkansas’s education system and Elliott using her lifelong passion for moving Arkansas forward to get the economy going again.
I’m not saying she can’t be an effective advocate for economic growth, but giving me 15 seconds of her background in education doesn’t suggest anything that would make me think “this person will create jobs.” Overall, though, the commercial is good; it just feels like they wanted to do both an education and a jobs commercial and instead wound up combining the two in the end.
As least there is some consistency in their inconsistency, I guess.