Campaign Ad Analysis Option 2
- Hillary Clinton (2016): Daisy
- Johnson (1964): Peace Little Girl (Daisy)
I have picked out two different ads that relate to each other but have been used at different times. My primary campaign ad is Hillary Clinton’s ad “Daisy” and the other one is “Peace Little Girl”, used by Lyndon Johnson in the year 1964.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign ad (Daisy) focuses on the comments made by Donald Trump for using Nuclear weapons. The ad begins with a girl in an open garden, standing next to a daisy plant and holding daisy’s in hand. The girl appears to be plucking the petals of the daisy flower, showing children’s playful and innocent nature. The particular scene in this video is featured in a black and white color, showing that the video is historical. We then hear the voice while the girl is plucking the petals of the daisy flower, “This is me in 1964”.The video than transitions from a historical video into the present day. A woman named ‘Monique Corzilius Luiz’ is sitting and facing the camera. She goes on say, “The fear of nuclear war that we had as children. I never thought our children would ever have to deal with that again, and to see that coming forward in this election is really scary”. As her statement ends, the videos keeps showing her worried face and then transitions to Joe Scarborough who says, “Trump asked three times, three times that why can’t we use Nuclear weapons”. Then Donald Trump is shown saying, “I want to be unpredictable”. While the video continues to show Donald Trump speaking aggressively. Joe Scarborough asks, “What safeguards are there to stop any president, who may not be stable, from launching a nuclear attack. The video then shows, Michael Hayden (Former Head of CIA and NSA) saying, “The commander in chief is the commander in chief”, transitioning the video back to Donald Trump, who says “Bomb the sh*t out of them”. The video is highlighting to us that Donald Trump can and might use nuclear weapons. Highlighting with Michael Hayden’s statement that commander in chief has the power to do so. While at the end, Donald Trump saying, “Bomb the sh*t out of them” shows that Donald Trump actually wants to use nuclear weapons.
The campaign ad used by Johnson in the year 1964 shows the same girl used by Hillary Clinton in her campaign ad. Actually, Hillary Clinton has taken a clip from Johnson’s video and she has used it in her own campaign ad. Most importantly, the woman that was speaking in Hillary Clinton’s video that she is really scared is actually that little girl who featured in the campaign ad of Johnson in the year 1964. In Johnson’s ad, while the girl is plucking petals of the flower, she is counting them insignificantly. Suddenly, she hears a voice of counting and the camera focuses on her eye and zooms in. There is an actual voice of count down and a nuclear bombs goes of showing us from far away. The video highlighting to us a girl’s innocence and then the impact of a nuclear bomb. Johnson then says, “These are the stakes. To make a world where all of God’s children can live. Or to go into the dark. We must love each other or we must die.” Later on the video says that the stakes are too high, vote for Johnson on November 3.
While looking at both the campaign ads we can see that Hillary Clinton in her campaign ad uses the similar tactics used by Johnson in the year 1964. Johnson highlighted the threat Children would have if he is not elected president, indirectly referring to rival candidate. The difference between them is that Johnson doesn’t target anyone, whereas Hillary Clinton in her ad highlights the threat of Donald Trump using the nuclear weapons. The idea that Hillary Clinton has portrayed in her campaign ad is a sequence to the 1964 campaign ad by Johnson. Another factor that contributes to what I am saying is the fact that Monique says that the fear we had as children is back again in this election. Hillary Clinton actually wants to show that it is Donald Trump who will use that weapon again and kill innocent children such as “Peace Little Girl” in the video. She then provides evidence of Donald saying that he wants to use such weapons. Highlighting again the threat the world would have if Donald Trump becomes president.
I like the choice of your campaign ads. The fact that the contemporary ad has a direct introduction of historic ad scene and character, makes it very interesting. You did good showing how both ads use emotional appeal around children.
You have highlighted elements on the historical ads which is good. But I hope you could analyze some of these elements and how they work with the contemporary ad.
I personally like how you used both of these campaign ads side by side here whilst putting the ad from 1964 at the core. You explained the sense of urgency that Johnson was trying to convey well, by clearly stating how it was similar to Hillary’s campaign in 2016, using children’s safety and potential instability to sway voters. The fact that you also went into explaining how Hillary’s ad was depicting her opponent, Donald Trump, as unstable, was important as well. Overall, You noticed the use of the safety of children and the risk of an unstable leader as primary tactics in both ads to call out their opponents. I think that you could further your argument by delving deeper into exactly who their opponents were, to be able to understand just why they used these tactics.