That’s a Democratic primary poll
Ferry dust. The stuff old boats are made of…
It is absolutely misleading.
It’s a terrible ad. Yes, it’s done the way it’s being done for emphasis, but that emphasis is misleading. Worse, he immediately got called out, publicly and by a large number of people, for pushing an edited and misleading video. That means whenever this plays, there’s going to be the follow-on of ‘Mike Bloomberg wants to feed you doctored video’.
That’s not just going to hurt him in the primary, it’s going to be fodder for Trump. Trump’s loyalists are primed to look for faults they can repeat and broadcast in any of the Democratic candidates. Putting out a distorted video just makes sure any attempts at hitting Trump on his dishonesty are preemptively de-fanged.
You misunderstood my point of view. I was looking at it purely as a piece of advertising. As advertising, it’s effective. The intention was to make Bloomberg look good after a disastrous night and that’s what the ad did. It sold a product.
Beyond that, misleading clips that quote politicians without context and otherwise push the boundaries of truth to make points have been standard for decades. This is a step further admittedly, and I don’t like this direction. But I don’t know where the legislation that will eventually be necessary to control this stuff can and should come down. I understand that something will need to be done at some point because the technology exists to doctor video and anybody who wants to can do it.
In the meantime, I don’t think a single ad will destroy Democrats’ ability to hold the higher moral ground on these issues. Or at least I hope it won’t. But I think you need to remember the Democratic Party wasn’t the client on this ad, it was Bloomberg, and he obviously decided to go low.
My take on this ad is that of course it’s intentionally misleading, but not dramatically more so than most attack ads.
In any event, I doubt it will be effective. Most primary voters probably already heard what a disastrous debate it was for Bloomberg (and quite a few actually watched and saw for themselves), and my guess is most voters will correctly identify the ad as a feeble attempt to polish that turd.
Bloomberg’s ads up to this point have been fairly effective with some Democratic voters, because they were almost all straight-up attacks on Trump. So even those who don’t particularly like Bloomberg didn’t mind him using his big bucks to go after the cretin in the White House.
But using his big bucks to run attack ads against the rest of the Democratic field, most of which have much higher favorable ratings with Democratic voters than he does?
Seems like some real risk that this approach could backfire.
Of course, after his miserable performance last night, maybe he doesn’t have that much to lose and so taking a risk like that makes some sense. If it works, maybe he gains a little support. If it backfires…oh well, the status quo wasn’t going to work out for him anyway.
I don’t think it did. I think its primary effect was to prompt the response. And that makes it a terrible ad. 10 years ago? 10 years ago, it’s a solid and effective ad. But this isn’t 10 years ago, and the social media sphere is very different than the one in which Bloomberg’s last political campaign took place. And not understanding that doesn’t help Bloomberg, either.
Bloomberg’s targets are probably frozen in way more distant time than 10 years ago, and his ads (from what I’ve seen) have all been kind of classic tv style advertising spots, but that doesn’t to me arbitrarily signify they’re ineffective, this one included. In style, it’s very much in the same vein as the rest, and the Trump ads have been sending people over the moon.
But I have to admit, I don’t have a clue what effective advertising designed for social media platforms looks like because I don’t participate in social media. So I’m sure you know better about that and I take your word that Bloomberg’s ads are ineffective on those platforms.
It’s worth noting that that poll makes no sense. It shows PA as basically the inverse of the WI results, with the Dems beating Trump by around 50-42. They’re different states, but not that different.
The Sanders campaign isn’t. Ignore the candidate’s age, look at the ages in the support staff. The RNC and right-wing superPACs aren’t, and the Russian misinformation campaign isn’t, either. They’ve been working through social media channels since the last election.
I wasn’t talking about the candidate’s age. But anyway, thanks for the input. Next time maybe try to tell me something I don’t know. Obama was one of the first to make use of AI and microtargeting back in 2008, but Howard Dean actually began pioneering use of the web in campaign strategy back in 2003. And I sincerely doubt data driven Bloomberg isn’t heavily invested in the use of AI, whether you think his ads are effective or not.
Have a great evening.
It’s already backfired. He’s wounded badly and he’s only making it worse
Yes. I thought the ad was within the usual bounds of fakery, but to then get called on it means it has probably done some harm.
Well, if you provide a list of things you don’t know, we’ll try to make amends!
I am not sure there can be a good legislative solution.
Leaving that aside for a moment, I suspect that we will all have to become more “literate” in the ways of video and image. For example, at this very moment our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are using myriad “apps” on their phones to alter (“doctor”) photographs and video. To them it’s fun, it’s an art. They understand very well that what you see is not necessarily what is. We’ll all have to catch up with them.
The young are far more savvy, though I think the potential for susceptibility exists even among the young. I don’t want to sound elitist but the potential here is probably dependent on education. But for the young and old, high-school drop outs and the college educated (and beyond! the lizard brain trumps the cerebrum), the engine behind susceptibility is bias. People will believe most anything that conforms to what they want to believe.
And there are many many things I don’t know. I shudder at the enormity of it so a list would be inconveniently long. But the fact that there are cyber troops out there up to no good wouldn’t be on it.
Fun fact: the only candidate I’ve been targeted by this primary season is Bloomberg. I’m not talking about emails, I get them from Sanders and Warren too. That’s old hat and the result of donor lists.
I’m talking about Mike popping up where normally it’s coats from Nordstroms and cardigans from Neiman Marcus. I was impressed – especially since I have a deliberately small footprint and am not easy to find.