The first ad is a 2005 ad that aired during O'Malley's initial run for governor of Maryland. In this particular ad, the strategy of choice is mostly candidate-positive. The ad features multiple people giving their positive testimony of all the wonderful things O'Malley did as mayor of Baltimore. At the end however, one of the men giving testimony makes a comment about "don't believe those negative attacks from [incumbent] Bob Ehrlich, they're pure partisan politics" which is in a way, a passive-aggressive go at an attack ad. The primary focus of the ad is on O'Malley and how great of a job he's done as mayor, but then at the end they get sneaky and bash Ehrlich (in a pretty polite way honestly). I think this ad could also count as a sort of image defense ad. The man in the ad states that there are negative attacks on O'Malley, so I think this was their attempt to once again highlight all the positive things about O'Malley's image in order to forget about the possible negatives.
The second ad I choose is an ad from 2006 (also aired during his initial run for governor of Maryland). This ad to me is the combination of a candidate-positive and an issues ad. In the beginning of the ad, people are shown with text across the screen saying things like "we want...A better stronger Maryland" "we want...affordable healthcare". With this, O'Malley and his campaign are addressing the issues he plans to deal with in Maryland. Then the video transforms to saying things like "we deserve.." and "we need...leadership that works" and "he believes..." and "we believe..." with images of O'Malley in the background. Are you putting things together yet? O'MALLEY BELIEVES HE IS THE ANSWER TO SOLVE ALL OUR PROBLEMS AND CAN GIVE US WHAT WE NEED AND DESERVE!!
The third ad is the longest and most moving in my opinion. This ad says it was published in 2013 but I'm not entirely sure its purpose as O'Malley had already been re-elected as Mayor in 2010 (so when it actually aired, I'm not positive of). However, the ad basically follows O'Malley's journey through the public office and reiterates how awesome he is and what they've already told us 685987 other times. This ad however, focuses a lot on issues and how he's addressed those issues during his time in office. The ad presents all the awards he's been given and all the statistical change hes made during his time in office. It points out that real change can only be tracked by statistics, and O'Malley has all the statistics to back it up. Overall, the ad is just very high quality and very emotionally moving. The video and images themselves are super clear and fitting, the music in the background fits perfectly with the images and the voice over. You can tell a lot of time and money was spent on it. If I saw this ad, I would think O'Malley was god's gift to earth.
I think all of these ads chose to use candidate-positive strategies, image strategies, and issue strategies due to the fact that they work for O'Malley. All his ads are pretty similar to me, but they work seeing as he wins every time he runs for an office. It's hard not to believe something that has statistical evidence (for most people), and O'Malley is all about tracking statistics so he can pretty much just brag about himself in all his ads. He shows he is dependable and honest with what he can do to fix issues by showing people the statistics. That combination of positive image and honesty about issues, I think is really powerful in a time where many people view politics as tainted. It's hard to know whats true, what's false, and what has been manipulated in politics. O'Malley really makes his viewers feel like this isn't the goal of his campaign. Overall all the ads are just very positive. I think that something else that is refreshing to see.
In other news, here is what buzzfeed has to say about Martin O'Malley:
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_O'Malley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mb2FBF7Pwo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an6TXUV8XjU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPqEg3Xh7xg
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/we-need-to-talk-about-martin-omalley#.eywadJgOW
Do you think the huge amount of focus during the third advertisement starting on his time as Mayor of Baltimore might've been for a specific reason? It appears in the second half he is fairly confident about his record as Governor, so in running for Governor a second time why would he focus on Baltimore so much? Could he simply have been airing it in the city and used it to target or could there be something else?
ReplyDeleteDo you think he is running similar types of ads in this Presidency campaign? What are his tactics compared from then to now?
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