March 19, 2010 06:01 AM UTC

Advertising 101: Note to Bennet's Agency

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• by: JeffcoTrueBlue

I just caught Bennet’s new t.v. spot. It was tivo’d so the first time I saw it was with no volume as I fast forwarded through commercials. Here is what I saw: FREEZE  LOSE   BAN   BENNET. I can’t say I disagree with the statement but I really don’t think that’s what they meant.

After I got done laughing I watched the ad on normal speed and I will say it was a somewhat decent spot. For those average voters not following the back and forth with him and Romanoff, the message was pretty good and probably will resonate with voters. It was a little too Pete Coorsish for my liking and Bennet looked tired but if I didn’t know Romanoff had been beating on those same points before Bennet did, I’d probably like what he had to say.

I’d love to see Romanoff run a spot countering the ad and include a clip from their debate of when he challenged Bennet to reject government health insurance until all Americans are covered and Bennet refused. Most people watching the ad will probably never know the hypocrisy of everything in it. So I guess Bennet’s strategy is wait until they hear Romanoff say something the voters like and then spend hundreds of thousands of out of state dollars running ads co-opting the ideas and misleading uninformed voters.

The agency who did and approved this ad should be beaten and flogged though. One of the key rules in television advertising is that before you approve a spot you watch it with the volume off and these days you also watch it on fast forward and slow-motion. Positioning those words exactly in the same place in huge all caps so the sequence reads FREEZE LOSE BAN BENNET is sloppy at best, amateur at worst.