Menino ad says one thing, but empty chair says another

I saw the new ad for Boston Mayor Tom Menino's reelection campaign during the Sox game last night, and I have to ask, What the hell were they thinking? If you listen to the voiceover, it touts his impact all over the city, saying he's a guy who doesn't do his business behind closed doors at City Hall. But if you look at the pictures, what you see is his empty chair and an empty desk doing nothing all over town. Menino is nowhere in sight, and to judge by the empty desk, he doesn't have anything to do, anyway. (Even the voiceover starts by telling us what he doesn't do.) I don't live in the city and don't have a stake in who wins, but this is a terrible spot. "Mad Men's" Don Draper, a genius on the emotional impact of advertising, would have laughed it out of his Sterling Cooper office before it got to storyboard. Sure, it's nicely shot, with hip angles and vaguely U2-ish background music, but a picture is still worth a thousand words, and the pictures here tell us Menino is a no-show. Just a few tweaks to the copy and it would make an excellent ad for one of his opponents. Watch:

Comments

[Frank Smith]

Menino was probably behind closed doors meeting with the greedy developers who fund his campaign. That's his M.O.