Gone in 90 Seconds
September 1, 2004
by Brendon McCullin

I like to watch television. A lot of television. I’ve cut back a bit thanks to my loathing of all reality shows, but I still watch a significant amount nonetheless. And I’m not just a loyal television viewer; I’m the sort of audience that advertisers love. Not only am I in a good demographic but I’m too lazy to turn the channel during commercials.

Lately, though, my television viewing has become a challenge and it’s only partly because every new show that the networks put on is God-awful. No, my bigger problem is that it’s an election year and I’m continually being bombarded with political advertisements for the ongoing presidential race.

No matter which side they come from it’s always the same: very grave, full of half-truths and, worst of all, exceedingly boring. Just hearing in his own voice that George W. Bush or John Kerry approve of this tripe sends me scrambling to find out if Ralph Nader made it onto the ballot in my state.

There’s also a certain amount of unfairness to it all. The campaign with more money ends up with more commercials and more advertising time. It’s not as though it’s an accident that a Bush-Cheney ad pops up at every commercial break. Even forgetting fairness, more advertising just means more that I have to avoid.

Thankfully, I have a solution. As a matter of fact, I just might have a way to not only alleviate my ad conundrum but to boil down the entire campaigning process into a time frame that most Americans’ attention span can handle – 90 seconds.

Instead of wasting millions of dollars on various television advertisements, each candidate gets 90 seconds of across-the-board ad time. That’s 30 seconds more than a normal commercial in deference to the magnitude of it all.

Now before you start thinking that I’ve gone off the deep end, just think about the impact that could be made in that short amount of time. Apple Computers made their Macs seem instantly cool with their elaborate one-time only Super Bowl commercial back in 1984. It worked well enough on me, anyway, since I’m sitting in front of an iMac as I type this.

The same thing would apply here. The advertisements would be seen on one glorious night, tied to some huge event. Obviously, the Super Bowl is too early in the year for a November election, but there are other television spectaculars that might work, like the Latin Grammys or a very special episode of The O.C.

With millions of dollars freed up from buying ad time all over the country, the money could be poured into making a commercial that might actually be interesting. Perhaps then we could get away from graphics of newspaper headlines with a generic voice over artist prattling on about Congressional voting records. I don’t just want to know whom I should vote for; I want to be entertained while the case is made.

Each campaign would have the opportunity to hire one of the nation’s major advertising firms, the ones behind all of those catchy slogans and quick hitting visual razzle-dazzle. Perhaps DDB Worldwide, which does the current Budweiser “Leon” ads about the self-centered football player that doesn’t really want to play football. Who wouldn’t want to see George W. Bush and Leon engaging in some witty banter?

Or what about Wieden & Kennedy, the firm behind ESPN’s “This is SportsCenter” spots? Dress John Kerry up as the Stanford Tree, run him around the ESPN studios and suddenly I’m interested. Or there’s Ogilvy & Mather, the company doing the new Miller Lite campaign where referees come out of nowhere to penalize people for drinking the wrong beer and other transgressions like unibrows. Really either candidate could borrow that concept to have their opponent flagged for “Unnecessary Stupidity.”

Come to think of it, for the amount of money we’d be talking about a campaign would have the option of getting Steven Spielberg to direct Tom Cruise in a mini-movie. Or convince Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Garner to make-out for 90 seconds while the candidate’s name flashes unobtrusively in a corner of the screen. There are a million and one creative ideas out there just waiting to take shape. Anything goes as long as it fits into the allotted time.

One and half minutes to make your case and then you’re done. No more approving messages. No more hurrying a negative ad onto the air to accuse your opponent of being negative. And the loophole for those “527” spots gets closed so that everything stays mano-a-mano. Everyone gathers around their sets on one fateful night and the person with the best commercial gets to be leader of the free world, just as God intended.

It might sound far-fetched but it’s not as though it’s completely without precedent. Anyone that’s old enough or ever studied political science or advertising knows about the impact that Ronald Reagan’s “Morning Again in America” ad had on the 1980 election. Flash some optimistic images in a depressing time and next thing you know the “Death Valley Days” host is president.

Go back a little further and there’s the infamous “Daisy” commercial, with it’s implied message of a little flower-picking girl getting nuked, which doomed Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign. For the unaware, that ad aired only once but still cemented the election for Lyndon Johnson. Just think, with all of the technological advances in special effects both political parties would now be able to blow up a whole lot more than just a little girl.

Sure it would be a radical departure, but most good ideas are. I’m sure the guy that invented the toaster was met with unimaginable scorn in his day. However, Americans all across this great land would reap the rewards and regain the freedom to enjoy some frivolous television without being forced to think. To me, that is truly a cause worth my time and effort – just as long as none of my shows are on.

(Brendon McCullin is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine)