The Best TV Ad of the Campaign
by Patrick Ruffini :: September 28th, 2007 11:15 pmThis is the winner of Mitt Romney’s ad contest:
In my humble opinion, this is the best television ad for any candidate of any part so far this election. And it was created not by some big media consultant by Ryan Whitaker, a 23-year old student from Provo, Utah.
The raw footage, music, and speechifying was provided by the Romney media team. But it’s mixed together better than anything the campaign has released so far. It’s also head and shoulders above most of the other entries, showing that Ryan has a real eye for this kind of stuff — something that only an initiative like this could have brought out.
This is the spirit of crowdsourcing taken to a new level. Most organizations do user-generated content to get some free press or motivate supporters — but don’t expect the end product to be anything they can use in any strategic way. This is different, and a bar-raiser.
Tagged: mitt romney 
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Wow! That literally gave me chills, and I am not really a big Romney supporter. A powerful message and presentation will do that to me everytime, even if it is somebody saying something I totally disagree with…so I agree this is the best ad so far; quite frankly that is probably the best ad for a political campaign I have ever seen. While not relying on an emotional connection to make a decision about a candidate, I definitely want to know more about Mitt Romney after seeing this, and that’s what it’s all about in “getting the message across.” I say if he puts out ads like this over the course of this campaign, not only will he crush his Republican opposition, but he will crush Hillary Clinton.
When I first saw this ad it was a powerful message. It made me feel proud to be an American and I wanted to know more about the candidate.
I’m very impressed with Romney’s campaign offering this type of contest. What a great way to get people involved.
Patrick,
You hit this one right on! It is GOOD!
It actually felt inspiring…I loved the imagery of the rolling up of the sleeves. I loved the sequence of Model T Fords through modern day stuff and the language that went along with it. Yes, I’ve been lukewarm about Mitt because of the religious right pandering he’s been doing but his life is one of accomplishment and I certainly wouldn’t mind if he got his hands on the federal government. This ad makes me feel he could make a difference.
A funny detail is that Crowdsourcing is also used to keep Romney from presidency. The site ‘My Direct Democracy’ called upon all its users to look for dodgy details in Romneys Financial disclosure data.
I’ve blogged about it at: http://www.crowdsourcingdirectory.com/?p=58
Ryan is a humble now 24 year old recently married college student at BYU. He has been writing and making movies starting at home when he was 10 years old. Ryans’ ad “Ready for action” has gotten great reviews and articles from several national papers and some TV. He has a gift for putting these things together. If I were on Mitts crew I would pay Ryan several thousand dollars to make some more commercials which could make a big impact on Mitts Election.
[…] chrisl wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThis is the winner of Mitt Romney’s ad contest:. In my humble opinion, this is the best television ad for any candidate of any part so far this election. And it was created not by some big media consultant by Ryan Whitaker, … […]
[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today on The Best TV Ad of the CampaignHere’s a quick excerpt […]
[…] Erg Amerikaans, maar wel bijzonder strak en winnaar van de “Create Your Own Ad!” competitie van Amerikaanse presidentskandidaat Mitt Romney (vergeet ook niet dit item van The Daily Show with Jon Stewart te kijken), bovenstaande creatie van Ryan Whitaker, een 23 jarige student (lees ook de positieve comments van o.a. TechRepublican en Patrick Ruffini). […]
[…] Erg Amerikaans, maar wel bijzonder strak en winnaar van de “Create Your Own Ad!” competitie van Amerikaanse presidentskandidaat Mitt Romney (vergeet ook niet dit item van The Daily Show with Jon Stewart te kijken), bovenstaande creatie van Ryan Whitaker, een 23 jarige student (lees ook de positieve comments van o.a. TechRepublican en Patrick Ruffini). […]
[…] Erg Amerikaans, maar wel bijzonder strak en winnaar van de “Create Your Own Ad!” competitie van Amerikaanse presidentskandidaat Mitt Romney (vergeet ook niet dit item van The Daily Show with Jon Stewart te kijken), bovenstaande creatie van Ryan Whitaker, een 23 jarige student (lees ook de positieve comments van o.a. TechRepublican en Patrick Ruffini). […]
[…] Tomorrow morning, I’ll be heading down to St. Petersburg for the Republican Party of Florida CNN/YouTube debate. I’ll be blogging, vlogging, and Twittering throughout the event. After the debate, I plan to head into over to the spin room and hopefully catch a few words with the candidates and top staff, and turn the camera on the media types. It’s been four months since the big Save the Debate fight, but a lot has changed since then. With 36 days to go till Iowa, this is now one of the last big debates of the cycle and could easily serve as a turning point, rewarding the candidate who is quick on his feet and attuned to the new media environment. Had the candidates simply accepted the September 17th date, the “Internet debate” wouldn’t have been anywhere near as crucial. Watch for this to be the most watched primary debate so far this cycle. Already, YouTube users have submitted more questions for the Republicans than for the much-hyped Democratic debate. Four months ago, there was a real danger our candidates would get left permanently behind when it came to the dominant medium of the 21st century. The YouTube snub seemed to symbolize an indifference to competing with Democrats in a key strategic battleground. Today, our candidates are getting it. Mike Huckabee is reinventing his campaign and surging in Iowa with help from his bloggers. Fred Thompson did get it for a while… until he sacked key new media savvy staffers like Mark Corallo and decided to run an uninspiring cookie cutter campaign. Mitt Romney crowdsourced admaking with results better than his traditional media team. And let’s not forget rhymes-with-Pon-Raul. Republicans meet in St. Pete at the cusp of real success online. I for one am hoping they all do well tomorrow night. […]