Picture yourself sitting in with the Mad Men in Sterling Cooper’s boardroom. Or that great smoky projection room near the beginning of Citizen Kane.
“Boys, we’ve just landed the Carly Fiorina acount. She’s running for the Senate in California, and she wants us to make her next YouTube clip. Any ideas?”
“Well, we could say that Tom Campbell, her Republican opponent who just parachuted into the Senate race after deciding not to run for the governorship isn’t fiscally conservative.”
“Yeah, but we’re talking Sacramento here. Nobody is fiscally conservative. He inherited a bloated budget, and there’s only so much one Republican can do in a Democrat-controlled state. I mean, look at Schwarzenegger.”
“We could paint him as a sheep.”
“A what?”
“You know, a sheep, not a leader.”
“And? We’re getting paid the big bucks here, fellas! Besides, those guys doing the GOP ads in Chicago have already set the bar pretty high. What do you want me to do, put some actor in a sheep’s suit?”
“Yes. With glowing red eyes, like he’s the devil or something. You know, like that Darth Maul character from the Star Wars movies. Or the Terminator, to tie him in with Schwarzenegger. Think of it as…Demon Sheep!”
“I like it! Boys, we’ve got a winner with this one. Run that baby! Get it up on YouTube, pronto.”
“Don’t you mean EweTube, boss?”
“BWAHAHAHAHAH! What could wrong with this idea?!”
Click on photo, scroll to about 2:20 into the clip to find out:
(And if you’re on Twitter, search on the #Demonsheep hashtag for endless jokes from both sides of the aisle about this ridiculous ad.)
Update: Pejman Yousefzadeh does not mince words (though the above ad does put me in the mood for mint jelly for some reason): “The Worst Political Ad In History.”
Update: Demon Sheep merchandise (presumably made of 100 percent demonic fibers) is available in the lobby.
Update: Mary Katharine Ham on the satanic lamb:
This thing’s going viral, but not necessarily in a way that will help Carly Fiorina’s message. It just oozes that special brand of ludicrous hilarity that the Internet loves, and the Internet will give the demon sheep many, many lives. And, you will now be able to say, “I knew the demon sheep when.”
If I thought the creation of the demon sheep was an intentional Internet hit, I’d be impressed, but I’m not sure it was. Nor am I sure that the true inanity required to produce viral hits will ever be the kind of thing that serves political campaigns well, but here’s to the Fiorina campaign for creating something we’ll all remember.
More from Allahpundit: “Geraghty thinks it’s genius, but I came away from it wondering more what Fiorina was thinking than what Campbell was thinking. Not good.”
I have a feeling that Fiorina just lost herself the race. This is just as idiotic as some of those ads they ran last thing against Scott Brown. Sometimes particularly lame negative advertising rebounds against the one who bought it.
Hewlett-Packard shareholders everywhere are thanking their lucky stars they dumped her in time.
I believe those are supposed to be the eyes of a wolf who is in sheep skin. Seems those eyes should be green. Reminds me of MassachusettEs.
What, the worst ad in history gets ton’s of free publicity and puts Fiorina in the public eye? She will be famous. Whether or not she will be elected is a whole ‘nother question but I bet a lot of people are now aware of her.
Chuck,
Exactly. If she wins, this will be written up as “Quirky viral video helped to shore up Fiorina’s standings in the early days of the 2010 elections.” If she looses, then of course it will be, “What was she thinking?!”
Ed
Idiotic? Idiotic you say, SUH?! It’s bloody GENIUS. Because as any man (or woman) worth his Roger Sterling (or Peggy Olsen) salt will tell you — the most important thing your product must be, is MEMORABLE.
Think small.
And win.
Cheers,
Victoria
Brilliant,one of the best political videos I’ve seen in a while.
I think it’s genius.
It appeals directly to the frustration and anger of the big spending, fiscally irresponsible RINOs that betrayed conservatism and fiscal responsibility.
“Great. We’re losing the sheep. Rewrite. Lose the sheep everyone. That’s fantastic!”
Scott of the Antartic
Is that Robert Davi narrating?
I knew Tom Campbell in the mid-1980′s when he was a professor at Stanford Law School. I learned that Tom has a major disadvantage as compared with most politicians. He is honest. He is a straight shooter. He is very smart and he takes his responsibilities seriously. He believes in public service. I don’t think you will catch him twisting his opponent’s words or going negative. In today’s world, that’s a significant handicap because most politicians succeed by telling the voters what they want to hear (Hope & Change) and misrepresenting the opponent’s record.
That ad looks like a parody of a political ad! Is this the work of a high school student or what?
At 3:21 long, the ad is clearly designed for the web, where funky gets you noticed, not the tube. The demon sheep may make the ad memorable, but I wonder if the association they’re really working on is Tom Campbell = sheep. Did you notice how many times they cut directly from a head shot of Campbell to a head shot of a sheep rather comically chewing away?
Campbell is fuzzy, the “ordinary citizens” are clean and crisp, the folks at the end are in an office, not a barnyard, taking care of business. It’s interesting that they don’t zoom in on Fiorina’s face — so you don’t associate her directly with the rest of the images in the ad. You’re essentially left with a question: Who is the serious alternative to the ridiculous Campbell? It’s Carly of course, positioned as the responsible candidate vs. the guy printing money.
All of which is to say, don’t assume the ad is trying to do what you think it’s trying to do. Marketing people know that an ad you like may not be nearly as effective when you get to the point of purchase as an ad that annoys the hell out of you. When you’re in the election booth, are you really going to vote for the sheep guy or the other candidate? The big spender or the business woman?
This ad is Onionesque, and not in a good way (at least, for Fiorina). All Campbell has to do now is show up at a single press conference/opportunity and put on a ‘demon sheep’ mask (or one of the Demon Sheep t-shirts now available), and the backfire will be complete. Also, the ad is waaay too long and takes forever to get to the payoff (such as it is).
Finally, any ad Fiorina runs from now on will be met with the question (explicit or implicit), “But where are the demon sheep?”
I agree with those who said that Fiorina in effect blew up her own campaign with this ad, all while entering a brand-new meme — “demon sheep” — into the political lexicon. The folks who did (or approved) this must have been smoking something awful strong. ..bruce..
I do not know why everyone is so critical. It portrays Campbell as a sheep (and no one wants that- follows the herd, does what he is told). Nails him with his involvement in California’s economy with taxes and spending. Associates him with the current government. All negatives. I agree with JM Hanes, the connotations associated with Campbell are all negative, Fiorina comes out positive looking. As someone from out of state and not up on the election, I immediately think positively about Fiorina and doubtful about Campbell. The demon thing is a minor distraction, I think the whole thing works— This is “You Tube” not prime time. No one is looking for serious, just interesting.
It’s like a political ad done by the people who make the Snuggie commercials. But I think the Sheepinator will hurt Carly more than the old retread Tom Campbell.
you are saying the Campbell Camp will not
respond with an add portraying Fiorina
as a sneaky-snaky spy lady:
“Beware the snake in the grass;
..It will bite you in the asp. ”
Free advice to the CC Committee for the
Propagation of Truthful Seditious Rumors:
Your message should be: “Game over. New Game,
new rules; Economic recovery, the generation
of new wealth, is our only issue.”
It’s not really possible to know what effect this will have. I personally found it funny. It was negative, but it was over the top enough that I suspected that the intent was to be funny. I haven’t fact-checked it, but assuming it isn’t full of lies, I liked the approach. It’s one thing to show a opposing candidate in black and white, and slo-mo, which everyone does, and is really cliche’. Showing a guy in Florsheim’s, on his hands and knees, in a sheep suit with glowing eyes? I’d never seen anything like that before. It’s risky, because it might not be perceived as funny by many. But I liked it.
Chuck DeVore (the 3rd GOP candidate) has jumped into the “demon sheep” controversy with both feet: http://demonsheep.org/demonsheep/. Heh. ..bruce..
I’m absolutely flabbergasted at the inanity of that ad.
Do FCINO’s Dream of Electric Sheep?
Google “Tom Smith” and “Fenton, Death Sheep from Hell” and you’ll find the appropriate remix soundtrack for this ad.
Carly Fiorina? Isn’t she the idiot who nearly destroyed a once great tech firm (HP)?
At that, she’s still likely to be an improvement over what’s in Washington now.
Demon sheep makes me say holy cow. That’s phenomenally bad. (And Campbell’s actions did not “literally set the stage” for anything, unless he has a hobby in community theater.)
Do we know who’s in the sheep suit?
I can’t imagine why anyone’s opinion would be swayed by that ad, but I bet we’ll still be seeing Demon Sheep T-shirts years from now.
I’d vote for the sheep…
This was genius. It’s campy, over the top, and bad, but intentionally so. Who in their right mind would think otherwise with that poorly constructed, demon-sheep, hand puppet that my 5th grader could make with some felt and an old sheepskin car seat cover in his arts & crafts class? And filming that guy crawling in a sheepskin from behind? It was hilariously terrible. But it worked. I voted for Campbell against Feinstein in his 2000 run because I believed him to be fiscally conservative. I was torn between him and Fiorina when he jumped from the Governor’s race to the Senate race. After seeing this ad, i’m going to throw out whatever I thought I knew about Campbell and do some more in-depth research (as I was planning to do with Fiorina) before I go to the ballot box.
In essence, this ad portrays Campbell as a wolf in sheep’s clothing and Fiorina as wanting to be a good docile sheep. Neither of these personas is what the voters of California are looking for in a US Senator. Thank goodness there is a third option. Chuck DeVore just might end up being the beneficiary of all this attention. He’s one sharp guy.
All I can say is I remember that part about Tom Campbell favoring a gas tax and that’s pretty persuasive.
This ad is absolutely idiotic and will reduce her to punchline: Those who find it persuasive: So what? The predominant question will always be “Who thought this was a good idea?” about 30 milliseconds after “This can’t just be a stupid joke”.
This ad is just like Compaq. It’s big, it’s loaded with drama, and in the end it’s reduced to a joke because the RINO that approved it wasn’t really qualified and doesn’t have a clue.
California: Even when it tries to reverse it’s disastrous course it manages to pick three RINO’s (2 who thought McCain’s campaign was just swell) to replace it’s current Kennedy RINO. California’s like the Titanic outfitted with an Iceberg magnet.