Thursday, December 20, 2007

Ike ad 1956

If TV ads for presidential campaigns today were as simple and as silly as those put on by Dwight Eisenhower's people in 1956, I wonder if we would all think the politicians had gone insane, or if we would be relieved. Has this business (marketing, really, is what it is) changed so much since '56? Our first and possibly second answers will be yes, but then watch this Ike ad a third time and think about it. Maybe only the quality of the production (and of animation) has improved.

Here's that ad (a .MOV file). Don't those marching figures, stepping to the repetitive intoning of the man with the open-vowel-starting one-syllable nickname just make you want to get up out of your chair and march along too?