The first panel shows a boy and a girl skipping and flying a kite down a sugar-sand beach, with cool calm blue ocean behind them. The second panel shows an oil-drenched post apocalyptic hellscape of gigantic tar-gobs washing ashore, a foetid, smoggy industrial nightmare. Vote for me and your children will frolic, joyously and carefree in the surf . Vote for my opponent and you will end up in a burnt-out wasteland fighting off gangs of cannibal-zombies for the remaining fresh water, on a desert planet where the living envy the dead.
Open it up, and this glossy brochure features, down the left page, pictures of a smiling Candidate surrounded by a group of young people, a hard-hatted worker installing solar-panels, and another picture of a bright-blue ocean, with no oil rigs as far as the eye can see. The second page features a smirking picture of the Opponent, another Giant Oil Slick, a Large Pile of Money, and a pig. (Another recent mailer by the same candidate featured a cow. Are farm animals really a salient image in this largely urban and suburban district? More research may have to be done)
In the text: Our Candidate lets us know there will be Jobs. Green Jobs. The Opponent, however, is associated with Big Oil.
This flier works as an excellent example of a contrast ad. A vision of two different worlds is set up, one which has a Leader who will ensure a utopia of beautiful, solar-powered beaches where we all work together for carbon-neutrality, and the other a dystopia of political corruption and environmental degradation where all of our beaches will be covered in petroleum forever because the villainous Opponent could not keep hands off the neatly stacked bundles of crisp U.S. currency provided by a relative's connection with a government agency. Two narratives are delivered, each with an emotional reaction that will, the maker of the ad hopes, resonate at the voting booth.
Message Discipline gives this attack ad a A-. Points lost on: Piggy Bank Stock Photo too cute. Some kind of Sinister Piggy Bank would have worked better.
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