Thursday, July 20, 2006

The Steve Huffman Ad

Steve has posted his current television ad Here is my review:

First, it is good to see Steve finally become engaged with the race, he has a lot of ground to make up, and he needs to get started if he wishes to compete.

The ad is professional quality and looks like he has spent some money in production, however I believe that it has quite a few flaws that will need to be fixed in future ads.

1. The ad is too rushed. Steve has plenty of money to spend, slow down a little and allow what is being said to sink in. The ad does not need to be an infomercial, but at the same time, allow a follow up sentence after the bullet points. Get half of your issues with this ad, then get the rest with the next ad. The pace is further hurried by the constant cutshots and camera refocuses. Leave the fancy camera work to "24," slow down, and interact with the audience. There are even a quite a number of triple split screen shots that last less than two seconds. This is strictly production vanity and doesn't add to the overall feel of the ad.

2. The so-called "voice of God" is way overused. Let Steve speak. Part of Steve's perceived weakness is that he is too aloof. He needs to bring down that wall a bit and properly introduce himself.

3. The Kolbe quote is blurbed, but you would have to be looking for it beforehand to see who it came from. Identify the source of the quote, and if you can, film Kolbe saying it. The endorsement is pretty big for Steve, yet it felt like part of a list of things that had to be included in the time allowed.

4. Finally Steve needs to have the word "Republican" added somewhere in the spoken dialogue, perhaps multiple times. The only mention of Steve as a Republican that I saw was the quick corner banner at the very end of the ad.

Overall this is not a very strong ad and is unlikely to generate the results that he is looking for. A more personal ad with Steve speaking or with perhaps Kolbe introducing him saying "This is Steve Huffman, and this is why I am recommending him for my job. . ." would have been a far better initial ad.

The good news is that Steve has more time and money to keep the ads coming, and that he resisted the urge to go negative right out of the gate. I just hope that he didn't tie up to much money with this initial effort.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Framer,

You missed the part about all the factual inaccuracies.

Different candidate my a++. Steve is a clone of Kolbe.

Respected for statesmanship. More like feared for going negative.

Runaway government spending. Like the $600,000,000 million for Rio Nuevo.

Protecting Arizona Families – not the unborn members of the family. This guy is pro-abortion.

Secure the border. Steve please tell us about your record on the border while in the legislature.

Devoted father, yeah so devoted he missed a big chuck of the legislative session. If Steve was devoted he would stay home, live with his family and work in the Tucson area.

Anonymous said...

Looking at Steve's add one might think he has a strong rating from groups like the Arizona Federation of Taxpayers. The fact is for 2005 Steve got a grade of 55% with a note home saying "needs improvement" (The best score was 89% and the lowest 14%) At best Steve was average.

Copy the link below for the rankings.

http://www.aztaxpayers.org/afta_scorecard_Legis.htm

Anonymous said...

anonymous,

You left out Huffman's grade from the Goldwater Institute. In their latest report he got a 54% on fiscal issues.

One good link deserves another -

http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article.php?/731.html

Anonymous said...

A moderate like Steve would loose to the more qualified and eloquent Giffords.

x4mr said...

Are you suggesting Hellon or Graf would do better?

Anonymous said...

Hellon and Graf would at least present a view different from Gabby. Steve and Gabby are so close on the issues Huffman would have trouble distinguishing himself. Mike and Randy would not have that drawback.