I saw this politically-flavored ad in New York City this weekend and it struck me as unusual.
In an election year, we can expect to see many product advertisements that utilize political imagery or poke fun at political culture. Along the same block, I saw a display featuring cardboard cutouts of the two presidential candidates bearing various wines and spirits. But most of these ads, do not take a political perspective or mount a critique. They tend to be of the “whether you support Obama or McCain” variety. This ad for a storage company make a very clear criticism of Sarah Palin — albeit on experiential and not policy grounds.
Is this actually unusual? Is it permissible because NYC is a fairly liberal place? Or perhaps because Obama-Biden are such clear frontrunner? What do you think?
Comments 2
vlucca — October 22, 2008
Actually, Manhattan Mini-Storage always have had very left-leaning advertising, usually making fun of Bush (on his mangling of words, invasion of Iraq, etc). These "attacks" are sometimes insightful, but sometimes not (like this one). They also have some that have a young couple who have put everything into storage, so all they have left in their apartment are two pillows (to cover up their nakedness) and their dog. A third type of ad they do shows their charitable work (which, strangely, are for animals.) So, I guess overall they're trying to be provocative in a safe, predictable way, but I feel like they genuinely care about the aforementioned political and social issues--even when it's not an election year. But at the same time, they're not going to get anybody to vote any differently, either.
jose — October 22, 2008
Hi Andrew,
I read something yesterday tying this back into a New York city tradition of partisan advertising/public art. Actually given the strong support for Obama under the 18-29 age group, I'm surprised more advertisers aren't piggy-backing on his appeal to promote their products.