KAMPANJ | ”Stage” var den mest effektiva tv-reklamen under valrörelsen 2012. Detta enligt Ace Metrix, ett företag som analyserar reklam i tv.
Shorr, Johnson, Magnus producerade videon för Priorities USA, en pro-Obama Super PAC.
När Mitt Romney valde att inte besvara attacken gjorde man ett av sina stora strategiska misstag under valkampanjen.
Jane Mayer skriver i The New Yorker:
”I’m a big Frank Capra fan,” Saul Shorr, one of S.J.M.’s partners, said […]. “And in this campaign Romney was the Edward Arnold character, the wealthy authority figure in several of Capra’s films, like ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ and ‘Meet John Doe,’ who’s not looking out for the little guy.”
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When ”Stage” first aired in Ohio and other battleground states, in June, ABC News called it ”the Brain ad that Romney should fear most.” And, on Election Night, Sarah Palin singled out S.J.M.’s ads as among Romney’s biggest problems in Ohio.
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Andrea Johnson, another of the firm’s partners […], described the team’s approach. “We’re really trying to capture the person we work for, so that the ads feel authentic, and we often do that by telling stories,” she said. Because the firm was working with a small budget compared with its opponents, Adam Magnus, a third partner, said, “we had to maximize our throw weight” and focus on only one theme-Bain Capital. Bill Burton, of Priorities USA, said that poll testing indicated that Romney’s Bain record had the potential to define not just his résumé but his character. Focus-group participants were angered by the idea that private-equity companies like Bain could profit while breaking promises to fund workers’ pensions and health-care plans.
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By midsummer […] internal research showed that, in areas where S.J.M.’s ads aired, Obama had an eleven-point advantage over Romney in “trustworthiness,” compared with a five-point lead in places where the ads had not run. In October, an Ohio focus group showed that “Stage,” which by then hadn’t aired for a month and a half, was one of the few political ads that people remembered. Burton said, “Not answering those attacks was the biggest strategic mistake of the Romney campaign.”
the Campaign Dossier 