Girl from Herman Cain ad

Cain commercials crossing the line

What’s with Herman Cain and the weird ads? They were strange enough while he was actively campaigning for the GOP nomination. (I’d still be having nightmares about that leering smile if Stephen Colbert hadn’t produced such a great parody.)

But the ads didn’t stop when Cain dropped out of the race. Next up was the goldfish ad. Again, weird. And a bit discomfiting in its deliberate suffocating of a goldfish. Gotta hope that was just a camera trick. No animals hurt in the making of this commercial, etc.

But now he’s taken to shooting rabbits. Of course nobody really shoots a rabbit (I hope), but even the illusion is disturbing. The idea that someone would portray the killing of an animal to make a point about economics is disturbing. And perhaps the worse part of both ads is that a child is instrumental in the killings.

Come on, Herman. Enough. It’s fine to try to make a point, but the sensationalism, the attempt to shock, is totally overshadowing the message. Attention-getting graphics are a mainstay of advertising, but they aren’t supposed to get talked about to the total exclusion of the message.

Knock it off, Herman. You’re not cute and you’re not clever. You’re just tasteless, disgusting, and creepy.

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Note: Even YouTube was taken aback by the rabbit ad. Soon after it was posted Monday morning, it was flagged and taken down for review for allegedly violating YouTube’s “policy against spam, scams and commercially deceptive content.” It reappeared several hours later.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYN-Awrq3og]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdpN5C1_flQ]

7 thoughts on “Cain commercials crossing the line

    1. Either he’s getting some very bad advice or he thinks he’s terribly clever and being the center of attention. But even given that, the use of a child in the ads is exploitative and extremely distasteful. I expect the general campaign to be no-holds-barred and the ugliest we’ve ever seen. The 2010 campaigns were just a preview.

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