I am non-political, but I learned that the Rove-Bush-Cheney
Advertising Agency was created in 1999 with an obscene budget – unlimited since
they weren’t spending their money. It
was a budget every ad agency in America would kill for. All those dollars allowed them to dominate
radio, TV, newspapers and magazines. Their market: The American People.
Of course, before presenting their numerous programs to
Americans, they conducted focus group after focus group to see if their ideas would
fly. We suspect that those respondents
were first vetted for their political penchant much like attendees at their
various political town halls. The groups
gave them a heads up on their program - naturally.
Their messages, half-truths, filled with over promises,
exaggerated in the extreme and blatantly false were heard, seen and read
everywhere – literally inescapable. They
bombarded Americans with a litany of campaigns to sell their concepts:
- Conservative
Compassion (meaningless failure)
- Weapons
of mass destruction (another failure)
- War
(an explosive failure)
- War on
terror (big bomb)
- We
fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here (logic lapse)
- Smaller
government (a big failure)
- Controlled
spending (an expensive failure)
- Education
(an illiterate failure - most children left behind)
- Privatized
Social Security program (colossal failure – rejected by most)
- Ownership society (the rich win, the poor lose)
And many,
many others. RBC was a veritable factory
of short-lived, destructive concepts. They forgot Lincoln’s wise words that you
can fool some of the people some of the time etc, etc.
Like
most ad campaigns, theirs were filled with braggadocio and hyperbole and each
message was repeated, repeated, repeated– a major key to the success of every
ad and commercial – a fact they understood too well. They were hardly amateurs and photo ops were
their forte. My personal favorite was
the staging of Bush’s head aligned with the Mt. Rushmore presidents. It was truly inspired. The fly-boy suit comes
in second.
Having presented their agenda to one and all, they then
deluged the American public with slogan after slogan again and again. A few are:
Bring ’Em on – Shades of the old
West
Mission accomplished -
Overstatement
Faith based initiative – God help
us
Shock and awe – Overpowering and
catastrophic
Intelligent design - Oxymoron
Clear skies – Polluted
Death tax – May it rest in peace
Freedom fries – Short-lived and
embarrassing
Freedom toast – Burnt – and equally
absurd
We will succeed – At what? Wishful thinking.
We will stay the course – No matter
the consequences
Some
of them flew initially but they all eventually and justifiably crashed. The measure of a successful, thriving ad
agency is its ability to sell their products or services not once but again and
again. One-shot sales are a fiasco and
that’s all they had. Judging by this
nationally accepted standard of repeat sales as a measure of success, the Rove-Bush-Cheney
Advertising Agency ultimately folded its tent and closed up shop. We will not miss them. Please note: There really was no such ad agency.
But there could have been.
It should also be noted that the
advertising community, in addition to bestowing awards for the best campaigns,
also has an award for the biggest bomb. It’s the Holy Moley Award.
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