'Advertising Age': RNC 'RATS' Ad 'Damaging' to the Bush Campaign
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Certainly going to talk about the buzz today, which has to do with the RNC...</s>DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The ad.</s>HEMMER: ... and the ad about what's now being called the "rat" ad.</s>KAGAN: Right. And if you haven't been watching us all morning or other people's media coverage or political coverage, there is an ad that the RNC has been running. And once again, there's the graphic where you can send your e-mail questions to: CNNLive@CNN.com. But getting to the "rat," with this ad -- it's an RNC ad talking about George W. Bush and his prescription coverage and his issues -- there is a subliminal message, whether it's there on purpose or not, but the word "rat" comes up for one frame, one-thirtieth of a second. Should we show the ad one more time?</s>HEMMER: Absolutely.</s>KAGAN: Let's do it.</s>HEMMER: Roll it now. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, RNC AD) ANNOUNCER: Under Clinton-Gore, prescription drug prices have skyrocketed and nothing's been done. George Bush has a plan: add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.</s>GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every senior will have access to prescription drug benefits.</s>ANNOUNCER: And Al Gore? Gore opposed bipartisan reform. He's pushing a big government plan that let's Washington bureaucrats interfere with what your doctors prescribe. The Gore prescription plan, bureaucrats decide. The Bush prescription plan, seniors choose.</s>KAGAN: OK, maybe you saw it, maybe you didn't.</s>HEMMER: Maybe you didn't.</s>KAGAN: If you didn't, we slowed it down so you can see it a little more easily. Here's the slow-mo version.</s>HEMMER: And what you're seeing here in this advertisement here is something, again, that was picked up by a retired Boeing worker in Seattle who says he contacted the local Democratic Party reporting that. A interesting reaction. Nothing too firm yet from the RNC. Gov. Bush was on the air this morning on another network, and he was also speaking in Florida a short time ago. Here is the governor's response about 90 minutes ago, again, in Orlando to what's happening right now surrounding this ad.</s>BUSH: It's coming out of the rotation, Dave. I mean, it's not going to be around. It's scheduled out of the rotation. I want to make it clear to people that, you know, the idea of putting subliminal messages into ads is -- it's ridiculous. We, you know, need to be debating the issues, talking about the merits, And the idea of one frame out of 900 hardly, in my judgment, makes a conspiracy.</s>QUESTION: Governor, you've seen the ad. Is that correct?</s>BUSH: I saw it on a computer, and I didn't see "rats" when I saw it, though. I didn't.</s>QUESTION: You didn't see the frame of "rats"?</s>BUSH: When I looked at the ad? No, I didn't. Did you?</s>QUESTION: I thought I did.</s>BUSH: Oh, come on. Wait a minute.</s>QUESTION: Governor, why do you think this is unintentional? How could something like that happen?</s>BUSH: You know, I just can't imagine the -- I'm taking the guy who made the ad's explanation.</s>QUESTION: Who is that?</s>BUSH: Alex Catillano (ph).</s>QUESTION:  (OFF-MIKE) BUSH: No, but I read in the newspaper what he said. But we don't need to play games. What we need is a debate on the issues.</s>HEMMER: Ari Fleischer, who -- the spokesperson for the Bush campaign, had an interesting quip. He said earlier today: "I'm told if you play it backwards it says 'Paul is dead,'" a reference to a Beatles album released in the late '60s. I want to bring in Scott Donaton now by telephone. He's in New York City. Scott is with "Advertising Age" magazine. Scott, good morning to you. Can you hear me?</s>SCOTT DONATON, EDITOR, "ADVERTISING AGE" MAGAZINE: Yes, I can, Bill. Good morning.</s>HEMMER: Big deal here, or are we making too much of it?</s>DONATON: No, I think it's definitely a big deal. I think this kind of thing is -- it doesn't happen in the advertising business very often and it's definitely worth calling attention to.</s>KAGAN: Scott, you know how these commercials are produced and how production works. Is it possible, as we heard one explanation, that this was just a bad edit, that if you look at the word rats, that's just the end of "bureaucrats" and it was just an editor's mistake?</s>DONATON: You know, it's possible, but it's highly unlikely. In a political campaign especially, these ads are produced on a much shorter schedule than they are with a traditional advertising campaign. But at the same time, there are a number of people in the editing room who are going over the ads frame by frame and should be very aware, before the campaign -- the ad goes into final form, what's in every frame and what the finished product is. It's really unlikely that this got in without someone knowing it was there.</s>HEMMER: But speaking in terms of advertising, do these ads work? What's the proof based on history?</s>DONATON: Well, there is no proof. We don't know whether or not -- if it was in there intentionally, whether it got any message across that's somehow going to influence anybody's behavior. It's impossible to know that. But what really the more damaging thing is that this got out there now, the fact that it is in there. I think whether or not people believe that their views were somehow impacted by this message, I don't think they're going to be very happy to find out that somebody was trying or possibly trying to manipulate their views this way.</s>HEMMER: Yes, here's my question just to follow up, but apparently the ads were on 4,400 times in 33 different TV markets. They spent $2 1/2 million so far running this buying the advertising time. If you look at those numbers and only find one person in Seattle, one may conclude that it doesn't work because nobody else picked up on it?</s>DONATON: Well, again, if, in theory, it was meant to be a subliminal message, you're not supposed to pick up on it consciously, you're supposed to somehow pick up on it subconsciously, even if it was meant to be an inside joke for someone, sort of like we've had these Disney tapes where suddenly you'll find out that there's a scene in there that's not seen by someone watching the tape at the regular speed, but it exists. Again, it's really more the point that somebody thought this was funny or did it. It's going to be a damaging thing to the Bush campaign. It's one more stumble, I think.</s>KAGAN: So is this the kind of thing within an advertising agency that heads roll?</s>DONATON: I would say that if this happened to a traditional advertising company and a traditional advertising agency, heads would definitely roll over.</s>HEMMER: All right, Scott Donaton there live by telephone there from New York City, "Advertising Age" magazine. Thank you, Scott, appreciate it. And certainly want to make it clear to our viewers again, this was something that came from the RNC and not directly out of Austin and the Bush camp, though. But certainly we will see if it has legs, huh?</s>KAGAN: We will. And I'll be there will be some interesting discussions between those two groups.</s>HEMMER: You're right, you got it.