Word: ads
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Wilder's statewide campaign in 1985 can best be understood as the test marketing of the candidate for the 1989 gubernatorial race. Strapped for campaign cash, Wilder made news by touring each of the state's 95 counties. He neutralized stereotypes by filming a TV ad trumpeting his endorsement by a prototypical rural policeman, who looked like an extra from Smokey and the Bandit. Even when his G.O.P. opponent attacked him for owning slum property and being reprimanded by the state supreme court for unduly delaying a client's case, the normally combative Wilder turned the other cheek. As Paul...
Enter Doug Wilder, divorced, father of three and abortion-rights crusader. Coleman was a tempting target, since he had placated the Republican right by opposing all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. Wilder media consultant Frank Greer prepared an abortion ad, almost certain to be emulated by other pro-choice Democrats in 1990. Framing the issue in age-old conservative rhetoric, the spot featured images of Thomas Jefferson as an announcer intoned, "Doug Wilder believes the government shouldn't interfere in your right to choose. He wants to keep politicians out of your personal life...
...also consciously harked back to segregationist, backwater Virginia, a sleepy Southern state dominated by the oligarchic Byrd machine. The implication was that not only abortion and race were at stake but even the state's economic prosperity. It is oversimplistic to attribute too much influence to a single TV ad in a media-glutted statewide campaign. But the abortion issue was framed in a way that allowed Wilder to make inroads among racially tolerant, upscale voters who might be tempted to vote Republican on economic grounds. In affluent northern Virginia, Wilder ran a crucial two percentage points ahead...
...promoted an employee ("I'm putting you in charge of Pittsburgh, Peter!") and closed a contract ("Dick, what's the deal with the deal?"). The 1982 Federal Express commercial featuring the fast-talking Mr. Spleen struck a chord in frantic managers everywhere. Last week it was rated the best ad of the 1980s in a Top Ten list compiled by the One Club, an industry group...
...judges looked for ads that broke new ground. The Ally & Gargano agency's Federal Express ad shattered taboos against making fun of the customer. One runner-up, adman Hal Riney's first Bartles & Jaymes wine-cooler commercial, scored with tongue-in-cheek humility. Another winner, Wendy's 1984 "Where's the Beef?" slogan, created by Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample, became a political zinger in the hands of Walter Mondale. But as the 1984 election proved, even advertising has its limits...