Ad Critic: Citizen Pickens Goes to Washington

Billionaire oilman and Republican uber-donor T. Boone Pickens has plunked down $58 million to promote his solution to the energy crisis which he calls, strangely enough, the Pickens Plan.  He’s sinking the bulk of that money into a massive issue advertising campaign and his first ad went on the air last week:

This spot accomplishes a very difficult feat.  It makes two arguments to two diametrically opposed constituencies… and does it effectively.  Conservatives will eat up the patriotic/energy independence message while liberals will latch onto the environmentalist imagery.  Pickens himself is an effective spokesman, but by tying the plan directly to his own personal brand he has forfeited a number of key advantages.

The first 30 seconds of the ad’s script mostly push an economic nationalist message, focusing on the money we’re sending overseas to pay for foreign oil.  That’s predominantly aimed at working class voters and much of the Republican Party. 

The imagery however, is all about the liberals.  Fire and smoke are deeply ingrained environmentalist imagery and their ultimate bad guy is a smoke stack belching pollution into the sky. These images dominate the first part of the ad and they tap into half a century of environmental messaging.  Conservatives aren’t as viscerally connected to these images, but they still read smoke and darkness as “bad.”

There’s also a subtle anti-Iraq War message around :20.  When the script compares the amount of money being spent to “four times the cost of the Iraqi War” and shows soldiers at a burning oil pump it’s subtly tapping into the common belief on the left that the war was all about oil.  That buys credibility among liberals because the imagery and language mirrors a lot of anti-war rhetoric.  Conservatives generally don’t agree with that assumption so they won’t read that in the subtext.

Where the first half of the ad is all darkness and fire the second is greenery and light.  It’s classic “dark present vs. bright future” dichotomy and the tactic works here because it reflects the public’s pessimistic mood.  Except for a brief shot of person filling up a gas tank the visuals – windmills, sweeping green fields, clear blue sky, solar panels – are painted bright green.

The second half of the script is meant to tee up Pickens’ future ads and drive viewers to his group’s website which serves as an email list-building hub.  It’s well written copy and the main “I have a plan to solve this” message is well delivered.

Pickens performs extremely well for an amateur.  His voice, specifically his strong Texas accent, works in the spot’s favor by drawing viewers’ attention.  It’s unusual to hear an accent like that in most parts of the country and it helps the spot cut through the clutter.  By explicitly playing up his background as an “oil man” the spot introduces him as a credible anti-oil messenger while his earnest, forceful voice and facial expressions combine for a very effective delivery.  Pickens also gets bonus points for not wearing a suit.  No one likes a white guy in a suit and tie.

Pickens however, has turned himself into a target by naming the plan after himself and taking on the spokesman mantle.  That wasn’t wise or necessary.  Pickens’ credibility as an oil tycoon makes him a strong spokesman for an alternative-to-oil plan, but it also gives opponents the ability to sink his proposal by attacking him.

The beautiful thing about issue advocacy campaigns and initiatives is that they don’t have a face.  They can rally coalitions across normal partisan lines and can’t be damaged by ad hominem attacks.  By tying his proposal to himself Pickens has forfeited these advantages and guaranteed that the quickest way to sink the Pickens Plan is to sink T. Boone Pickens. 

Overall this is a very effective ad and I expect the rest of the series will be as well produced.  Ultimately however, voters and policymakers will be deciding whether they like Pickens himself as much as whether they like his plan.  Hopefully, Pickens knows what he’s getting into but either way a $58 million campaign guarantees that we’ll be hearing a lot more about T. Boone and the Pickens Plan.