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[post_functional]

It's official: I loathe these ads.

http://www.blogher.com/am-i-too-cynical-better-life

I had always been suspicious these ads from The Foundation for a Better Life were either a slick ad campaign from a cult (e.g., Scientology) or some right-wing PR firm (think the Arthur S. DeMoss foundation that assaulted our sensibilities with cute-as-the-dickens mostly white kids in the 80s as part of their swell "Life, What a Beautiful Choice" anti-choice ad campaign).

Taken from the "Might Have Known" file, it very much turns out to be the latter.  The ad campaign is the brainchild of one Philip Anschutz, oil magnate, corporate raider and bigot. 

The really slick aspect of the ad campaign is that it appropriates the icons and values that everyone--- and particularly (secretly soft-hearted) liberals like myself--- could get behind.  What's not to love about a picture of Christopher Reeve that says "COURAGE---PASS IT ON"; or Thomas Edison that says "PERSEVERENCE---PASS IT ON"; or Susan B. Anthony that says "EQUALITY---PASS IT ON"; or Jackie Robinson that says "CHARACTER---PASS IT ON".  (Some of these I'm making up, some of them I'm not.  I don't feel like looking it up.  I've seen these in airports everywhere.  So have you, probably.)

But today, I saw the commercial (speaking of ad campaigns that don't make sense) that gave me the "aha!" moment.  Accompanied to the strains of country ballad "The Good Stuff," we see a montage of stages in the relationships of heterosexual couples on their way to the altar.  "It's the first kiss on the second date / Dropping the ring in the spaghetti plate / This is the good stuff".

Aha.  That's what this is about.  It is a slick campaign to convince the moderate middle that if they are for the good, wholesome values of perseverance in the model of Edison; of character in the model of Jackie Robinson; of equality in the model of Susan B. Anthony; of courage in the model of Christopher Reeve--- if you believe in all these good, warm, fuzzy things that define mainstream American values--- then you cannot be in favor of gay marriage.

And, like the hokey pokey, that's what it's all about. 

We've been seeing these slick, warm-hearted billboards for years.  But this is what it's all about: the preservation of heteronormative cultural values.  I have to hand it to him.  In an era of 30-second soundbites and instant gratification, I really admire the long arc to this ad campaign.  To lull people into receptivity for years on end before lowering the boom and oh so subtly revealing what it's really about.

And it is subtle.  The "good stuff" ad never says "We're against gay marriage".  It's simply that the iconography is undeniably aggressive in its hetereonormativity.  "Something something something about the rice in her hair [picture of a veiled bride] / burning all the meals in the first year" (N.B.: in the ad, the wife cooks meals for the beleaguered, but good-natured, husband).  Note also that the choice of country music is a dog-whistle to a particular segment of the population who will clue in to the subtext because of it.

You know what?  I'm going to issue a one-time-only blanket apology to all the Libertarians on the board for all the $hit I give you guys.  Because your platform is basically two parts: the constitution, and the abolition of regulation (including, and especially, taxation).  So that means you're not half bad.  I agree with most of you on most of the constitution stuff.

But this culture-war crap has got to go.  It's all bad and it's all loathesome.  Some billionaire hates gays so he can finance a multi-year ad campaign grinding his ax, and grinding out his ads.  It sucks.  I'm ambivalent about what to do about the fact that if you have a billion dollars you can just slime people you don't like.  Maybe bring back the fairness doctrine (though it has thorny and complex First Amendment ramifications).  Certainly limit the number of media outlets billionaires can own.  (Sigh... I know, Libertarians, you don't like that.  Apologia is not concurrence.) 

This is another place where I have to hand it to the right.  They get it and the left doesn't.  The right knows how to put out the "Morning in America" ad.  Obama figured some of that out, but Hope and Change was primarily an economic message--- we Hope the economy will Change and get better.  After Dubya and deregulation trashed the economy, the right effectively had to cede the Morning in America message to Obama, at least for this election cycle.  But boy oh boy, are they now hitting hard on the cultural stuff.  Liberals put out ads appealing to rationality, and that's invariably why they lose.  "Vote No on 8 Because It Will Create a Slippery Slope of Legalized Discrimination."  That's true.  But that weak message can't compete against the emotional, subliminal associations of heteronormative marriage with The Good Stuff.  (That was essentially what the weak-as-water No on 8 ads in California really amounted to.)

California's counter-intuitive failure to stop 8 I think revealed something profound that the right is able to seize upon.  In California, the supposedly most liberal state, liberals there are committed to gay rights on the "some of my best friends are...." level.  Hence, the slick campaign.  It's Okay, liberals.  We understand you.  You supported civil rights, and so we're showing you pictures of Jackie Robinson.  You supported women's lib, and so we're showing you pictures of strong, independent women like Marie Curie and Susan B. Anthony.  You supported disability rights, so we're showing you Christopher Reeve.  And it's okay.  We know, deep down, you're still wigged out by the idea of your gay friends actually marrying each other like you can, and you know what, that's fine.  That's just fine.  Go with it.  It's okay.  Reject gay marriage and be part of mainstream America.

Smart strategy.  If they can peel off just enough support of people who traditionally support other civil-rights-resonant legislation, then Gay Marriage will always lose at the ballot box, just like it did in liberal California.  And they know that emotional appeal drives votes.  Rational argument doesn't.

But for me, I recognize this subterfuge for what it is.  And I Pass On It.

[merce]

I've seen plenty of those billboards you describe in the beginning of your post.

I was wary at first but got used to them (and perhaps that is part of your suggestion that it stinks to high heaven).
THe shoe I had imagined to drop never dropped.....I thought.

Are you saying there is a follow-up ad that links these statements to heteronormativity directly?
Like ads in magazines that show one thing on one page and on the next the ugly duckling rendered beautiful by Major Beauty Buy?

I don't have a TV so I haven't seen the "Aha!" commercial. Did you just have an epiphany or is it linked to the billboards somehow intertextually (rather than both made by same family)?

I don't get the logical leap from promoting character like Jackie Robinson's to promoting the Idea or Model of character in the style of Jackie Robinson and from there the leap to promoting heteronormativity.

So now I wanna see this ad! The blog you posted asked wwyd with your next billboard sighting.
I guess I'd focus on Rosa B. Parks and the inspiring word.

[lolar2]

It's official: I loathe these ads.

http://www.blogher.com/am-i-too-cynical-better-life

I had always been suspicious these ads from The Foundation for a Better Life were either a slick ad campaign from a cult (e.g., Scientology) or some right-wing PR firm (think the Arthur S. DeMoss foundation that assaulted our sensibilities with cute-as-the-dickens mostly white kids in the 80s as part of their swell "Life, What a Beautiful Choice" anti-choice ad campaign).

Taken from the "Might Have Known" file, it very much turns out to be the latter.  The ad campaign is the brainchild of one Philip Anschutz, oil magnate, corporate raider and bigot. 

Actually it appears to be both. Last year I got some junk mail (as in junk snail mail! very retro) from the Foundation for a Better Life, and it was quite clear that it was about Scientology-- stuff about L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics and all that. Of course Scientology is anti-gay as well, though that isn't a huge part of their image.

[glowdart]

Merce, if you follow the link to the blog that pf mentions, then the blogger has a link to all of the ads on the cult/company/thing's website.


Clearly, I do not watch mainstream middle class TV, since I've never seen any of these.  Either that or we're all irredeemable heathens where I live.  Close call, frankly.

[rowan1]

Either that or we're all irredeemable heathens where I live.  Close call, frankly.

Here is to the irredeemable heathens!  Go us!

But seriously - these kind of ad campaigns are frustrating because of how deceptive they are. 

step #1 - inspire and fill people with warm and happy thoughts
step #2 - create a branding - in other words people recognize the organization's name associate it with the warm and happy thoughts, no details
step #3 - place a political or social action ad
step #4 - due to branding people side with organization because actually thinking about the details of a political issue or social issue is too hard for most Americans and hey, they already have warm and happy feelings about this group therefore siding with them is easy and must be good - right?
step #5 - passage of laws or election of representatives that are inline with the organization, then people go - "hey wait I don't support that, how did that happen?"  Its is the combination of the slippery slpe and basic laziness of our participatory system.  these ads play right into that.

So, they are legal, brilliant, and powerful.  makes me nuts.

[plebeian]

I'm not clear on why you're singling out heteronormativity. I think you're right on the marriage ad, but beyond the usual heteronormative representation in the media, the other ads seem unremarkable. The campaign seems to be more than hetnorm: the optimism ad, for example, toes the line between "don't give up too easily" and "I have terrific delusions of grandeur and what do you mean the banks are failing? They're not failing! We're great! We're great and we're fine!" Gross optimism is all about denial, it quells public unrest, and it's easy to sell; it's a spectacular political tool. (But I'm a big damn cynic. The ads do make me smile, however.)

So why heteronormativity? What am I missing?

[glowdart]

So why heteronormativity? What am I missing?

Ad titles:

Clearly Heteronorm:
Breakaway
Never Too Late
Concert

Traditional Gender Roles are All We Do:
Wet Cement

And I can't keep watching that drivel, sorry.  That's the first two rows of ads.  http://www.values.com/tv-spots

I'm not saying that there aren't a ton of other things going on, but for an ad campaign that is clearly trying to be inclusive of race, ethnicity and class, however problematic those attempts might be, they're obviously not touching non-traditional families. 

In Breakaway, there's one image of a well-dressed older guy skipping with an umbrella folded over his shoulder that might be read as subversive, but I expect that's unintentional and instead is supposed to be "look, old people acting young!" since the next few images are all of little kids acting running about.   The only other option is two people in that same ad who are on a hiking trip.  The one closest to the camera is not clearly male or female -- hair cut is more female when the head turns toward the end, but it could be two guys on a hiking trip or a guy and a thin woman.

[hegemony]

Okay, they're not including non-traditional families, but does that mean it's deliberately and specifically about resisting gay marriage?  That that was the secret agenda all along?  I don't see it from the evidence you've presented.  To me it looks like a series of Traditionally Wholesome Leave-It-To-Beaver-type sentiments, like those "Teamwork" corporate motivational posters (which also don't feature non-traditional couples).  So I don't see the evidence that they've been lulling us into a sense of false security, only to exclude non-traditional relationships and thereby convince all of us to vote against gay marriage.  Is there actually one that says "Traditional Marriage Only -- Pass It On"?  If so, I see the point.  If not, I don't see that it's aimed at this single issue.

[rowan1]

I think you are missing the point - they are not clearly or specifically about gay marriage.  They are about creating a positive branding associated with the organization  - no clear political agenda is presented.  However, when the organization comes out supporting a political candidate or a constitutional amendment or law, they have built up a following - here is where the inherent laziness in the American political system comes into play - people vote by association - if this organization creates such a happy warm fuzzy feeling and they support the politician, amendment, law it must be good.  remember also that it is often the case, especially with amendments to constitutions (I am talking state here) or other proposals that there is so much double talk in them it can be hard to determine what you are actually voting for unless you make an effort.

It is not about being direct.  That is the point.

[notaprof]

This reminds me of the Archer Daniels Midland company "Supermarket to the World" commercials that used to come on five or six times during each Meet the Press program.  There was no reason for them to be advertising that I could see except to get a warm fuzzy connection to their name to counter any future side-effect yet to be discovered to one of their products.  I always felt they already knew something and were preparing for the day it was discovered.  But then, I have always had a bit of a conspiracy theory mindset when it comes to big corporations.  

California and their admendment system is a great example of what Rowan is talking about.  I study the propostions carefully but I am still concerned that I might vote exactly opposite of what I intended.  I feel safest just voting no on  them all.  Even ones that sound reasonable at first, often have unintended consequences that no one predicted when they were passed.  The latest one was called something like the Freedom to Vote act which would have made it possible for the will of one third of the voters to win the day.

[t_r_b]

I think you are missing the point - they are not clearly or specifically about gay marriage.  They are about creating a positive branding associated with the organization  - no clear political agenda is presented.  However, when the organization comes out supporting a political candidate or a constitutional amendment or law, they have built up a following - here is where the inherent laziness in the American political system comes into play - people vote by association - if this organization creates such a happy warm fuzzy feeling and they support the politician, amendment, law it must be good.  remember also that it is often the case, especially with amendments to constitutions (I am talking state here) or other proposals that there is so much double talk in them it can be hard to determine what you are actually voting for unless you make an effort.

It is not about being direct.  That is the point.

I agree with you about the indirectness. I disagree with you that all this is just laying the groundwork for future political endorsements, etc. The day that the Foundation for a Better Life puts its brand behind a specific candidate or political cause, that brand will lose all its associations with the warm fuzzy intangibles and come to be seen instead as an advocacy group. The ads are effective precisely because they distance themselves from any concrete policy platform. You don't pour all that money into big time ad buys to cultivate this apolitical image just so you can then throw it all away on political endorsements.

More likely strategies include:

- the ads draw sympathetic people to the website, and create a virtual community of folks concerned about "values" (and let's face it: who isn't?)
- the web site solicits contact information ("for more inspiring stories, just enter your address") and thereby generates a really high quality mailing list for "values" candidates and causes - but no political mailings will ever be endorsed directly by FBL, or indicate where they got the address.
- the web site and/or the mailing list help identify likely recruits to a scientology-like cult.

Alternatively, maybe the simplest explanation is the best: the people sponsoring the ads want to encourage their audience to live a good life (as they define it) and appreciate others who do the same. Of course, that idea of a "good life" happens to reaffirm lots of consumerist, individualist, and - yes - heteronormative values that happen to serve the sponsors' political and economic interests. But that's true of plenty of other "feel good"-type ads for specific products (just think of MasterCard's "priceless" campaign, or all the jewelry store ads I hear on the radio). The direct effect is to get people thinking more about family, about romance, about values. An indirect effect is that some of them will then buy stuff that they wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

Thinking about that makes me wonder... If I were in advertising and had a really big budget to work with, one interesting strategy would be pairing up two seemingly separate campaigns: one warm and fuzzy and totally unaffiliated with any specific product, and the other a more traditional product promotion bit. Then match up the ads: have the explicitly commercial billboards appear just down the way from the warm and fuzzy ones. Have the broadcast ads run sequentially, or during the same commercial breaks. The warm and fuzzy ad gets you thinking about family and love and so forth, and then the jewelry store ad reminds you that you've got an anniversary coming up and can do something to express those warm and fuzzy thoughts.

In other words, it might be interesting to examine the context of the FBL ads: are there other ads (commercial or political) running parallel to them whose effectiveness may be boosted by the warm fuzzies they induce?

[prytania3]

The neo-Norman Rockwell ads are corny.

[rowan1]

TRB -

I think you have clearly identified the other aspect of these types of ads - and if the organization does endorse a candidate or policy it will not be as directly as I implied.

The suck em in and mind control them effectiveness of such campaigns really get to me - but then I like it when people are straightforward in what they are out to get.

[merce]

So, I watched some of the videos.


The "Traditional Gender Roles is all we do" for example. I don't see it. There is one guy laying cement. If they had 100 guys laying cement in different scenes then maybe I'd wonder why there weren't any women anywhere. Of course, I've never scene a woman do that particular job before in real life either.


The Kenny Chesney and Kelly Clarkson videos just seem to follow their lyrics literally.
THOUGH the Break Away does bring the song back into the fold so to speak. While the original video has a subvideo of the Princess movie with Julie Andrews (which I never watched, after my time, but I think was a rejection of Cinderella theories) the values.com video shows a just-married couple implying getting married is breaking away for the 2 people. I don't like that idea.  I also don't like the "here are some foreign people" that happens in some of these.

I think the videos are very similar to what country lyrics of a certain subset do. (caveat:  I like country music)
They turn on a conceit within a context of nostalgia.  Songwriters don't want to return to  those days of yore, they want to tap into what their audience feels.  I think that is what these videos are doing. Trying to guess at and target the feelings of the good, the right, the just, and the beautiful.

I've expected there to be a conspiracy-theory thriller bomb following these billboards but it still hasn't dropped for me. It would have to come without seeking it out as we're doing here. I think t_r_b is right that they cannot be explicit about a policy platform (that would be the bomb dropping in my scenario).

What grosses me out aside from the exotic south Asians in one of these, is the talk of "values" we can all appreciate. Anyone says "our values" and I get the heebie geebies. So the values.com already creeped me out.
Still not quite the bomb I was expecting. I fear this would not make for a good movie plot--- yet.

These ads remind me of the 7th day adventist or mormon or something ads of the 80s or 90s-- I loved those, of course my dad always pointed them out. Little did I know that he was a bigamist and had an ulterior motive to try and get us to like the ads to convert to the religion so that he could....


Merce, who cried at  AT&T commercials and a few of these.

[post_functional]

It's official: I loathe these ads.

http://www.blogher.com/am-i-too-cynical-better-life

I had always been suspicious these ads from The Foundation for a Better Life were either a slick ad campaign from a cult (e.g., Scientology) or some right-wing PR firm (think the Arthur S. DeMoss foundation that assaulted our sensibilities with cute-as-the-dickens mostly white kids in the 80s as part of their swell "Life, What a Beautiful Choice" anti-choice ad campaign).

Taken from the "Might Have Known" file, it very much turns out to be the latter.  The ad campaign is the brainchild of one Philip Anschutz, oil magnate, corporate raider and bigot. 

Actually it appears to be both. Last year I got some junk mail (as in junk snail mail! very retro)

Killin' trees too.  Jerk.