Is Ben Carson’s new “outside the box” ad so bad it’s good? Or is it just awful?
The Republican candidate – who overtook Republican rival Donald Trump for the first time in a New York Times/CBS News national poll on Tuesday, with 26% to Trump’s 22% – has released a new spot that shows him in front of a white background beside a box with “Washington Political Class” written on one side and a picture of the Capitol on the other.
While upbeat music plays in the background, the retired pediatric neurosurgeon states:
I’m Ben Carson and I’m running for president. The political class and their pundit buddies say: ‘Impossible. He’s too outside the box.’ Well, they do know impossible. Impossible to balance the budget, impossible to get border security, impossible to put aside partisanship. I’m Ben Carson, I’m running for president, and I’m very much outside the box.
As the ad draws to a close, Carson gestures towards the box and exclaims: “There must be a good idea in there somewhere.”
Benjamin Bates, a professor of communication studies at Ohio University, said Carson’s ad was simple but very effective.
“It’s visually simple, it’s linguistically simple, it’s very straightforward and it matches his personal biography as being from outside Washington with his major argument, so I think it’s a very effective little narrative that he’s put together,” Bates said.
Mike Sheldon, the CEO of Deutsch North America, disagreed. While the spot was strategically headed in the right direction, he said, overall “the ad is a complete mess”.
“That ad is very cheaply produced. It’s a little all over the place,” Sheldon said. “He talks about being outside the box but what he really means is being outside the establishment. At the end he says ‘there must be an idea in there somewhere’ but that makes no sense because he just said he’s not in there. If I were him, I’d hire an ad agency fast.”
Despite the simple nature of the ad, Allan Louden, a professor of communication at Wake Forest University, believes that it “fits the moment”. He acknowledged that “better ads have been produced over time” but he believes “it’s brilliant in terms of its context”, as more American voters are dissatisfied with the government.
According to John Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and author of the book In Defense of Negativity: Attack Advertising in Presidential Campaigns, Carson and Trump are “both tapping into anger and dissatisfaction with Washington” in different ways.
While Trump is “loud and boisterous”, Carson is quieter. Geer said Carson is “sticking to his style and that’s always effective” because “ads have to play to the real strengths of the candidates”.
But Sheldon says Carson is walking “a fine line” between being down to earth and coming off as unable to handle the presidency.
“I think he risks going too genuine and leaving people feeling like he doesn’t have the strength to really be a president and have a backbone,” he said.
Carson isn’t the only candidate in the presidential election to have appeared in an eye-catching clip. The Guardian has compiled a short list of videos from this campaign season that are just as memorable.
1. Ted Cruz
Republican candidate Ted Cruz released a video titled “Making Machine-Gun Bacon with Ted Cruz”. “There are few things I enjoy more than on weekends, cooking breakfast with the family,” Cruz says at the beginning of the video. “Of course, in Texas, we cook bacon a little differently than most folks.” The US senator then shows viewers how to cook bacon by wrapping it around the barrel of a gun and firing a few rounds. After sampling a bite of the newly cooked bacon, he adds: “Mmm, machine-gun bacon.”
2. Rand Paul
In a video titled “How Would You Kill the Tax Code?”, Rand Paul, another Republican presidential candidate, showed how serious he is about overhauling the American tax system. He demonstrated various techniques to destroy the 70,000-page United States tax code: with a wood chipper, a chainsaw, and fire. Throughout the whole video, The Star Spangled Banner is played in the background on an electric guitar.
3. Lindsey Graham
After Donald Trump gave Graham’s personal phone number to the public during a speech in July, Graham released a video entitled “How to Destroy Your Cell Phone With Sen. Lindsey Graham”. While classical music plays, the US senator destroys his phone with a meat cleaver, a blender with Red Bull, a golf club, lighter fluid, a toaster oven, a grill, and more. “Or, if all else fails, you can always give your number to the Donald,” Graham says before throwing his phone out of the shot.
