A good story should connect the dots
Last time Terry McAufliffe ran for governor he lost the primary. I think I looked at his ads back then and thought they looked inauthentic. He's running again, no primary this time, are his ads any better?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EmM_Y6uUCPg
This is one of those ads that tries to connect the dots, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to walk away thinking. I thought the first part about where he talks about starting a business was interesting, but then it veers into family and creating jobs. I've been slowly re-reading the classic book "Made to Stick." In the chapter on Simple (one of the rules of SUCCESS), the say (wisely) that if you say three things you aren't saying anything.
That's kinda how I feel about this ad. It's sort of a broad brush paint by numbers approach, that pretends to tell you something but really doesn't say anything particularly interesting. They hit all the highlights for me, but don't really tell me a story that puts all the pieces together. Is he a hard worker? Self starter? Family guy? How exactly does he know (other than a poll) that Viriginia wants good jobs? A good story can create a framework, something to unify those elements. A good story can be told either in the text or subtext, but this ad does neither, so I'm left just watching a bunch of blah, blah, blah.