Kucinich Launching TV Ad Campaign
Ads by George Lois Include Voice Over by Danny Glover
The Kucinich campaign is launching nine new television ads created by the legendary George Lois, widely regarded as one of the most creative and successful advertising communicators of our time. Lois has also produced new print advertisements and campaign posters for the campaign. Lois created the winning ad campaigns for Senators Jacob Javits, Robert Kennedy, Hugh Scott, and Warren Magnuson, and ran the "celebrity" ad campaign that helped free former middleweight boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. The nine TV ads include the voice of movie star, film producer, activist, and United Nations Peace Messenger Danny Glover.
One of the nine ads and the print materials are available today for viewing at kucinich.us
The TV ads, which include 30-, 20-, and 15-second versions, are all variations on the theme "Fear Ends. Hope Begins." In the ad available for viewing today, Glover says: "Fear ends. Hope begins. Listen up, young America. If pre-emptive war continues to drive our foreign policy, if our volunteer troops are stretched thinner and thinner, you could be facing compulsory draft. All young Americans deserve a world without end -- not a war without end. Kucinich for President! The eyes that see through the lies!" As Glover finishes these remarks, the camera zooms in on Kucinich's eyes in a photograph before cutting to a video of Kucinich saying: "I'm Dennis Kucinich, and I'm running for president. Do I approve this commercial? You bet!"
The ads will begin airing in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Washington, D.C., on January 4. Details on the purchases of ad time will be available at the January 4th event in Iowa.
ABOUT GEORGE LOIS: Running his own ad agencies, Lois is renowned for dozens of marketing miracles that triggered innovative and populist changes in American (and world) culture. He introduced and popularized Xerox; created the concept and prototype design for the New York supplement for the Herald Tribune (the forerunner of New York magazine); made a failing MTV a huge success with his "I Want My MTV" campaign; helped create and introduce VH1; created a new marketing category, Gourmet Frozen Foods, with his name "Lean Cuisine"; and (by inventing yet another new marketing phenomenon) persuaded Americans to change their motor oil at thousands of Jiffy-Lube stations. He made the totally unknown Tommy Hilfiger immediately famous with just one ad, and saved USA Today from extinction with his breakthrough "singing" TV campaign. In 1994, almost overnight, he changed the perception of ESPN from a "demolition derby" sports channel to the number one sports network with his dynamic "In Your Face" campaign. George Lois is the only person in the world inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame, the Copywriters Hall of Fame, and the American Institute of Graphic Arts Hall of Fame. He is the author of "George Be Careful," an autobiography, "The Art of Advertising," which has been praised as "the bible of mass communications," "What's the Big Idea?," which is used as a text book in college communications courses all over the world, "Covering the '60s," which displays his iconic Esquire covers during that decade, and in early 2003, "$ellebrity," an extremely well-reviewed book dealing with Lois' extraordinary campaigns using celebrities in fresh and innovative ways.
STATEMENT FROM GEORGE LOIS: "My wife and I had studied each of the candidates during the debates and Kucinich's message, plans, mind, and heart continually surprised us and totally won us over. I did research on him, including reading A Prayer for America, his powerful and visionary ode for re-awakening the American Dream. Morally, I think Kucinich is incredible. He makes a point of saying forcefully that he does not believe the lies of the Bush Administration. My poster was featured in the NY Times Magazine section on November 30 sporting the headline 'The Eyes That See Through The Lies.' This is a bold statement that Kucinich was running against a bunch of candidates who had allowed themselves to be conned and/or Bushwhacked into a future of unending pre-emptive, un-American wars that are jeopardizing our economy, our Democratic way of life, the future of our youth, and indeed, the future of our planet."
ABOUT DANNY GLOVER: Glover is a celebrated movie star, film producer, activist, and United Nations Peace Messenger. He has endorsed Kucinich and participated in a number of campaign events over the past months, including public forums and fundraisers. Glover had this to say about why he is supporting the Kucinich campaign: "I have watched Dennis Kucinich not only in the glory of a political campaign, but I have sat and dialogued with him and watched him learn from others, and of all the candidates he stands the closest to my conscience, and I must go with my conscience."
