Playbook
How to Write a Great TV Spot
By Ken Kurson
about a great political spot. You’ve got precisely thirty seconds to tell a story, to persuade a voter that your guy deserves support, that the other guy doesn’t, or, as in far too many ads (which usually fail), both. It’s been said that every novelist is a frustrated
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short story writer, and every short story writer a frustrated poet. I’d add that a lot of poets are prob- ably frustrated political consultants. Thirty seconds translates to seventy-two words, give or take. (A word to the wise: Don’t be like every candidate’s brother-in-law, who insists he has penned a bril- liant eighty-five-word script that can be comfort- ably read in thirty seconds. The surest way to waste the considerable dollars you’re putting behind your televised message is to speak so quickly that none of it penetrates.) As a matter of fact, you don’t even get seventy-two words. Thanks to our good
classic New Yorker cartoon features a professor scrawling an incompre- hensible equation across a chalk- board. “Then a miracle happens,” reads the caption. That’s how I feel
friends Senator John McCain and former Senator Russ Feingold, the obligatory disclaimer—“I’m Joe Blow and I approve this message”—eats up ex- actly one-ninth of your airtime. Think of it as an 11 percent tax. So, economy of language is the single most im-
“Job Killer” (Robert Dold for Congress, IL-10, 2010) 44 Campaigns & Elections | Canadian Edition
portant factor in creating a powerful television advertisement. The most effective ads are those that have one thing to say and focus all thirty sec- onds on saying it powerfully. The least effective ads are those that try to cram five unrelated mes- sages into the thirty-second window. The latter, called “kitchen sink” ads, are unmemorable and untrustworthy. Saying, “My opponent raised tax- es, hiked his own pay, skipped lots of votes, doesn’t live in the district and beats his wife,” is like firing five poorly aimed BBs. If your polling has revealed that voters are most inclined to believe and be moved by the “raise taxes” hits, then what you need is a rifle with a telescop- ic sight: “My opponent raised taxes.” Since that’s not going to fill thirty seconds, rather than pad it by throwing in the kitchen sink, you’re better off citing specific examples of taxes raised. One memorable ad by my firm during the 2006 election attacked New Jersey Congressman Mike Ferguson’s opponent Linda Stender. Rather than hitting her on several different fronts, a devastating spot simply listed the different taxes Stender had voted to raise throughout her career in the New Jersey Assembly. Marry that tactic to the fortunate circumstance of her last name, and a new villain was born: Stender the Spender. After Ferguson retired in 2008, Stender prepared to run for the newly open seat against Leonard Lance, the Republican nominee, who had survived a bruising primary. The verbatims in the polling revealed that, despite her years in
Jamestown Associates
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