I'm an animator (+I know many animators more skilled than myself), so if there is any consensus on what sort of ad we should run, I could give it a go.
That being said, I think that our ad should focus on the current disconnect between politics and technology, the public's love of filesharing (We could pull up the statistics that say Canada has the highest % of pirates in the world) & the hope of transparent government.
Also, I think we should minimize the amount of URLs in the ads, these people know how to click hyperlinks. We should direct them to our website. Then our website should direct them to youtube, facebook, twitter, etc.
You know what ads are doing great? Apple's. They are managing to sell poison with them. Surely we can come up with something that will sell the antidote.
I think you should go for it. However, you should:
1) Define what the ad is trying to do. It should be to *persuade* people who might help us to go somewhere else to hear the longer (and sexier!) version(s) of our message(s). I favor attempting to move people to YouTube first and ultimately to our website. By the time they get here, they should be pointed to material on the wiki and finally make their way into the conversation here.
2) Examine other advertisements that are attempting to do something similar and have been successful. Great artists steal. Steal.
3) Do low quality mock-ups of the various ideas and test market them. Here is not a bad place to test market (on the Pirate Party Forums) because this is our initial favored demographic -- activists who will actually do something.
Re: That being said, I think that our ad should focus on the current disconnect between politics and technology,
Maybe, but remember, the purpose of the advertisement is ultimately *only* to persuade. I have my doubts as to whether that is persuasive enough to get me on to the Internet to look further. Whatever the case, this is an empirical question that you can test and answer empirically before we blow our ad budget 'live'.
I favor advertisements that are likely to result in the most votes in an election. My thinking is that we should *leverage* our TV time to get *more* time on YouTube. YouTube visits are free and they can go viral. TV ads (unless up on YouTube) can't go viral very well. I favor bringing people to YouTube rather than the website because Video is much more immersive, much more persuasive and much more accessible (the majority(!) of people have very poor literacy with the written word). Even the bookish are more likely 'hooked' by moving images and sound than prose, no matter how well done.
With respect to grabbing attention, you should grab the eyes first. If I saw an image of a predator like a wildcat about to pounce on a baby on it's mother's naked chest as they lay in a bed of rose petals, with the hint of a shiny weapon nearby, I doubt I would turn away. How about this: Imagery similar to the above, action starting on a close-up of the woman's chest (covered enough for prime-time). Idyllic music plays in the background as we pull out to reveal a baby's wide eyes and compelling face. Back further, and as the red background begins to show, the music takes on a slightly dark coloration presaging the action to come. Suddenly, a sharp sound from the orchestra as the cat moves into the frame mid-pounce and the baby's eyes widen in surprise. Freeze-frame right there and on a held violin note put up the youtube address of the full video and a voice-over saying 'Get the story".
The above capitalizes on a bunch of human hard-wiring. There is sex, danger, the natural instinct to protect the young and the arresting color of ripe fruit. There is also a storyline and it is incomplete. Curiousity as to what happens next will drive a lot of people to look for the ending, even if they are downright angry about being manipulated.
I am (way) not a visual artist, but I wonder if it is possible for the baby's wide eyes to look like they are happy initially in the context of the initial close-up and for the context to suddenly make them look surprised and fearful (but same expression and eyes) as you see the cat pouncing.
I would try to make the other side of it a happy ending. I have an idea that would require cgi manipulation and I think would be happy, funny and deliver a strong message all at once. Yeah. When I see someone take action on this, I will work with them on the ending. The rest of you will have to wait for the video buwa ha ha.
To get elected, we will need help from a lot of volunteers ahead of anything else. We can likely depend upon *some* like-minded people to look us up. However, even they have competing demands on their time. We need to grab people as well as we can, in much more primitive areas of the brain than the cerebellum.
We need to employ all the tried and true methods of persuasion. That includes a battery of techniques of salesmanship.
I suppose we should have some info about all that somewhere as well. One thing I think should be noted is that there is a higher probability of people saying yes after saying it ten times in a row. Everything that can easily be framed as a question whose answer is an obvious 'YES', should be. No questions should have a probability of being answered 'NO'.
We have a substantive message, but it is something that requires much more edification than we can deliver easily. It also requires a much greater awareness of the issues than even computer geeks have. Sadly, we have to persuade people to come into the temple, sit down and listen before we can deliver the sermon.
Calculus is a groundbreaking human achievement. [What the segue is this?] It is an interesting subject in its own right, but for some things, it is mandatory. Calculus matters. However, it is not going to be accessible to the majority of people ever and would not be accessible to anyone in a thirty second (let alone 15 as I would like) second commercial.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and even 'baby steps' are still steps. We want them off of that couch and over to the computer. Getting them to act even that much starts a process of interactive 'buy-in'. If they invest the time to go to the computer to see the rest of that 'spot', they will already be 'involved' in some sense. If we amuse them, they may just stay to learn more.
It bugs me that we have to do stuff like the above. It is manipulative. However, this is a contest between us and other political parties. They will be doing their best to use every trick possible. My goodness -- look at the completely stupid messages they put up. Surely we can improve on that. [Search for liberal and conservative ads on YouTube. It is enough to make you join another party to fight them.]
To asuage my conscience, even stuff that has to remain under wraps to hobble the competition during an election campaign should be revealed in all its gory splendour after the election. We should be as transparent (more really) as the government we propose to form.
For those who struggled to the end of this message nota bene:
We are in an election campaign right now. It is not a question of whether we are in one or not, it is a question of how well we are doing and if we can do better. I think we have a great start, but our campaign is not likely to win if the election were called tomorrow.
