Is affect effective?

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It's been a couple weeks since I've posted.  Usually that's because I'm busy and there's nothing really inspiring me to post.  Well, I've been busy between travel for work & Thanksgiving, but I actually have seen a lot of really interesting stuff that I've wanted to post about. We'll try a post a day for the rest of the week to make up for two weeks of silence.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PRC2pkMmrU]

I thought this ad was very clever.  After watching it, I couldn't tell you how much Blount took from Big Oil, or exactly what the charges were, but in my mind I remember the oily footprints walking out the door or the oily hand print on the back of the constituent's shirt.  So this is not only a clever ad, but an effective one.

Look, people like to point to the facts inside the ads, and those can be important, but what's more important is the overall affect of the ad (btw, affect is one of my favorite words).  Here the facts are like a soundtrack in a movie, they're background for the clever (there's that word again) visuals that really drive the message.

Imagine this ad with more standard visuals:

A picture of Cong Bount, CG: XXXX from Big Oil.

A picture of a Oil well (or oil company logos), Blount, Voted against American Clean Energy & Security Act.

Look, I've made that ad, like 1000 times, it's easy, it's not going to offend a pollster or other sensibility, and it'll get it's point across with enough repetition or if it's a view already moving through the political discourse.  But this ad, with these visuals is something different. I saw this ad once, and not the connection is locked in my mind Rep. Blount = Big Oil.  (Now, there are other factors, like the fact that I'm more inclined towards a pro-environment message and against big oil, but leave that aside for the moment.)

It's maneuver theory at work (I'll put this on the list of things to talk more about in the future).  It doesn't go up against your opponent's strength, but uses the necessary force to achieve it's objective and no more.

Creating affect if done correctly is certainly effective.