MoveOn Launches Obama Ad For MTV And Comedy Central

MoveOn.org has launched a new pro-Obama ad targeting young voters that will air on MTV and Comedy Central.

The ad is the first campaign advertising to run nationally on Comedy Central. Tony Fox, a spokesman for the network, told the New York Times "he did not know why the cable channel had not accepted political advocacy advertising before, but said of the decision to do so now: 'Political advertising in an election year is good business.'"

He also said that this particular spot, produced by members of MoveOn.org Political Action, the liberal action group, was humorous and would be a good fit with Comedy Central's young, politically sophisticated audience. It is entitled "It Could Happen to You" and features Rider Strong, the former star of "Boy Meets World," and Amber Benson of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

MoveOn will spend $150,000 to run it for one week on Comedy Central and MTV, which had not accepted political advertising for more than a decade but reversed that policy a month ago. Both MTV and Comedy Central are owned by Viacom Networks, which has generally weathered the current advertising downturn better than some of its competitors.

Here's the ad:

More from MoveOn's press release:

"It Could Happen To You" was the winner for "funniest video" in MoveOn's recent "Obama in 30 Seconds" ad contest. The ad was produced by and features Rider Strong, former star of "Boy Meets World." Also in the ad is Amber Benson, best known as Tara Maclay on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

MoveOn's ad is in part a response to the airing of an anti-Obama ad from a conservative group last week, also on MTV.

"Young people are naturally progressive, tech-savvy, and hopeful people, so it's no wonder they are becoming MoveOn members" said Peter Koechley, a former editor of the Onion and co-director of MoveOn's youth outreach efforts. "In the next 99 days, MoveOn.org is going to spend a whole lot of time and money making sure that the trend we saw in the primaries of doubling and tripling turnout among young voters continues into November for Barack Obama."

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MoveOn.org has almost a million members under 35 and aims to add another 500,000 through the course of this election. MoveOn's young voter outreach efforts include:

-- Developing a new model for online advertising focusing on persuasion. With TV capturing dwindling numbers of young people, MoveOn is committed to advertising where young people are: on Facebook, MySpace and other sites popular with young people on the internet as well as through search ads.

-- Developing a new suite of online political tools to continue to lead the way in on-line organizing.

-- Developing a new social network canvassing GOTV model. Young people are harder to target using traditional methods of knocking on doors, making phone calls, and sending mail. MoveOn will leverage online social networks to turnout young voters. We're building online tools to allow our members to register and then turnout out their friends and peers (for example, www.votepoke.org).

Here's the conservative ad that's already running on MTV:

Comments

[walk0nwalls]

And to think we'll now have these in between the Axe and beer commercials.

[Brettster]

Fantastic way to discourage the youth vote...run lame McDonald's type commercials "targeting" younger people.

Honestly that conservative one was a much better style...although it's filled to the brim with lies and hate. "Both ways" Barack? Good way to target all the homophobes too.

[TommyObama]

People! Calm down a bit! It's a single, solitary political ad. Not designed to change the world, or even to (by itself) win the election -- just maybe to remind us that we were a happier people, once upon a time. Have we completely lost touch with satire and spoof?

Love the ending -- perhaps we're not terminally fried after all.

[RatgurlSD]

If the way our country has been governed for the past 8 years doesn't invoke some sort of "feeling" inside you, you are way past numb, therefore way past hope.

A lot of people are regaining their positive feelings about their country - this ad is a mere portrayal of it.

[The5thW]

Networks should require an dditional discloure statement: "Bashing my opponent does not prove anything about me is good. To the contrary , it merely says, I think if I tell you what I am FOR, if I even knew, you wouldn't like it."

[JoePomp]

Wow. That will surely convince the Hillary democrats to vote for Barack. What a colossal waste of money. Plain and simple, unless we start attacking McCain, we will not win in the fall.

McCain said some of the most ridiculous things of the campaign last week and we have an ad that says your brain on hope looks like a baby chicken? What the hell does that even mean?

How about this. John McCain was supposed to visit an oil rig in Louisiana last week to prove how safe offshore drilling is. He cancelled the trip due to the hurricane. Hmm, you don't think that the tanker crash that caused 419,000 barrels of oil to spill in the gulf had anything to do with the cancellation do you?

John McCain is trying to completely redefine the definition of the "surge" and no one is saying anything. He still hasn't told us what victory in Iraq looks like and no one is pressing him for that answer.

John McCain is sounding dumber than George Bush and we have an ad about HOPE with a baby chicken?

WTF?

[RatgurlSD]

Hey Joe, lighten up a little, will ya? It seems the electorate is growing weary of the attacks. Injection of a little humor seems to be a nice alternative - I cracked up the first time I saw the ad... and the chick is cute.

Not all campaigning needs to be negative!

[Freesia2]

Well, the ad was geared for the MTV crowd (youth vote) and for Comedy Central (a channel people tend to turn to when they're tired of things like.....attempts to sell them on off shore drilling when there's just been a 419,000 barrel oil spill in the gulf.)

And don't fear, there is going to be plenty of opportunity to go after McCain. He's giving us reason on almost a daily basis. And besides, it's not like he's going to give us a choice.

You need a baby chick. It would cheer you up. Give you hope. :-)

[LaFilleEnRose]

Could Moveon have found the perfect voice finally? This is great. I've watched it several times and still get a great giggle at the end. Great stuff.

[grayday81]

its MTV people for crying out loud!!!! Seriously! Get over it.

This is the channel of everything that is wrong with our generation!! Its the home of the Real World, The hills, Cribs, its shallow and petty- so at least there is a political ad on there at all!! This move on ad is fine for Mtv.

Now the McCain ad- WTF? I follow politics and am up on the daily bs of it all but this one just doesn't make any sense! Its like they "hope" that we aren't paying attention and believe their BS

[barackobama4prez]

This was kinda weak! I saw at least 5 others on the site I liked better. :( I hope they run others, better ones.

[merle7]

I got from the ad that one with a brain can always hope,in fact it is in our nature to hope. But when that hope becomes a reluctant hope,tentative hope,even doubtful hope' then it presents a problem. Nothing can ever change if one does not have the audacity or courage to hope for something better than just being satified with the status -quo, which we have had for the last 8 years. I thought the Ad was very good Thank You MoveOn.Org

[unity08]

Not crazy about this ad. It seems a bit wimpy and leaves itself wide open for parody. I think the republicans might have a field day with it. Bleh!

[Strywever]

Curious: How old are you?

[likeicare]

What a dog! Liberals just cannot do political ads without going into overkill -- what's with the egg analogy? Dumb.

Maybe MoveOn should some young people to create their ads in the future. The people doing them now suck.

[khargushoghli]

A perfectly awful add. It reenforces the idea that Obama is all about a vacuous slogan, "hope", and has nothing concrete to offer.
What the heck is MoveOn.com thinking?

[Ramirez]

You don't sell the steak. You sell the sizzle.

[RatgurlSD]

... you VOTE for the steak!

[IowaKid]

I'd prefer to spend money with moveon.org pushing back at the ugly McCain ads and there slanderous language.

[mandalaina]

Loved the ad; it is creative, intelligent, humorous and true.