Listen, this ad uses ASMR to sell Kamala Harris’ record on healthcare
Listen, this ad uses ASMR to sell Kamala Harris’ record on healthcare
Plus: These super PACs bought ads on the Weather Channel before the hurricane hit Florida
Hello, in this issue we’ll look at…
Listen, this ad uses ASMR to sell Kamala Harris’ record on healthcare
These super PACs bought ads on the Weather Channel before the hurricane hit Florida
Scroll to the end to see: the ultimate MAGA hat for the MAGA hat fan who has everything 🧢
Listen, this ad uses ASMR to sell Kamala Harris’ record on healthcare
ASMR videos are everything political ads are not. Soft and soothing, they’re a sensory experience listeners say they like for relaxation, insomnia, and stress relief. By contrast, political ads tend to be loud, obnoxious, and unavoidable when you’re forced to watch and listen to them during commercial breaks.
There’s now some overlap in the Venn diagram between ASMR and politics, though. The creators of an ad in support of Vice President Kamala Harris applied the techniques of ASMR to political persuasion for a spot that quietly sells Harris’ record of lowering healthcare costs.
The ad, from the political committee ProgressNow AZ-Federal, shows hands with brat green nails tapping an inhaler. “The Biden-Harris administration capped the cost of inhalers at just $35 for millions of Americans,” the narrator whispers. “Kamala Harris will continue to take on Big Pharma and lower costs for everyday Americans.”
The rest of the ad shows hands bejeweling the inhaler: The tiny jewels rattle as they’re shaken in their bottle, then tinkle as they’re poured in a bowl. The end card reads “Vote For Kamala Harris” in a pink serif font.
Casey Clowes, policy and research director at ProgressNow AZ, tells me she got the idea for the ad “after rhinestoning my own inhaler.”
“My inhaler is something I carry around with me everywhere, so it might as well be cute,” Clowes says. “As someone with chronic illnesses and a lot of medical supplies, I am always looking to make them feel less clinical. The Biden-Harris administration’s work to cap inhaler costs is a big deal for lowering costs for Americans.”
ASMR has grown in popularity since the term, for autonomous sensory meridian response, was coined by Jennifer Allen in 2010. Today on YouTube and social media, videos of clicking, whispering, and brushing can draw millions of subscribers and followers.
That the style and sound of ASMR has found its way to presidential campaign advertising represents a new mainstreaming of the phenomenon, but it’s not the first example of political ad makers turning to quieter ways to sell their candidates this year. Make America Great Again, a super PAC supporting former President Donald Trump, began airing ads this summer modeled on YouTube’s “Enjoy The Zen” ad breaks.
Instead of ASMR-style whisper narration, like in the pro-Harris ad, these pro-Trump ads use white noise as their soundtrack to argue for Trump’s competence without uttering a word. The combined sights and sounds of scenes, like a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle driving over gravel alongside a quiet border wall, or a U.S. warship sailing through calm waters, are used to suggest that returning Trump to office will make the U.S. and world affairs more stable.
Not everyone likes ASMR, just as not everyone who lived through the four politically tumultuous years under Trump will find the underlying argument of MAGA’s “Enjoy The Zen”-style ads convincing. Still, the muted approach these ads take is creative. Sometimes, a whisper can speak louder than a shout.
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These super PACs bought ads on the Weather Channel before the hurricane hit Florida
It’s an unfortunate coincidence that Election Day in a country prone to getting hit by hurricanes falls at the tail end of hurricane season. Hurricanes in the U.S. have upended plans for major party conventions before and forced politicians of different parties into bipartisan coordination efforts and photo ops. Little wonder outside groups are making last-minute ad buys on the Weather Channel.
The presidential campaigns have found themselves sucked into the fallout from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and super PACs are airing ads as viewers tune in. The pro-Trump Right for America PAC placed a $150,000 ad buy on the Weather Channel for seven days beginning Tuesday, according to Medium Buying, an ad tracking firm, while the pro-Harris FFPac has placed a $200,000 ad buy on the Weather Channel for six days beginning Wednesday. Their spot is about Trump promising to give tax breaks to the wealthy while Harris will “make billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.”
As President Joe Biden’s administration gets hammered from the right by criticism and misinformation about the federal response to the storms, the Harris campaign is taking a proactive approach to hurricane politics with “Withold,” a 60-second ad starring former Trump administration members who say his response to disaster relief as president was partisan. The digital ad, first reported by CNN, will air online and social media in battleground states.
“[Trump] would suggest not giving disaster relief to states that hadn’t voted for him,” says Kevin Carrol, a former Homeland Security senior counsel under Trump. Following a wildfire in California, Olivia Troye, a former Trump White House Homeland Security adviser, recalls that Trump “wouldn’t send relief because it was a Democratic state, so we went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas to show him these are people who voted for you.”
E&E News, an environmental policy outlet owned by Politico, reported that as president, Trump either hesitated to send disaster aid to places he considered hostile or called for special treatment for places he considered friendly on at least three occasions.
The ad juxtaposes footage of Harris handing out food and speaking to the press with some of Trump’s most controversial hurricane moments while in office, like editing the path of a hurricane on a map with Sharpie and throwing paper towels to people in Puerto Rico after it was hit by Hurricane Maria.
While partisan politics have come to feel inevitable following a disaster, getting enough federal relief to handle the latest hurricanes could require bipartisanship. And fast. The federal government has spent about half its annual disaster relief budget just eight days into the fiscal year, according to Politico, and that figure is expected to rise rapidly as costs continue to pile up from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Have you seen this?
Harris' political operation crosses $1 billion raised for the 2024 election. The figure includes money raised by the campaign committee itself and by a campaign-affiliated joint fundraising committee that also collects cash for the Democratic National Committee and state parties. [NBC News]
Trump’s small-dollar donor fundraising is beset by confusion and fatigue. Fewer than a third of the Republican’s campaign contributions have come from donors who gave less than $200 — down from nearly half of all donations in his 2020 race. The dip has forced Trump to rely more on wealthy donors and groups backed by them, a shift that cuts into the populist message that first propelled him to the White House. [Associated Press]
The Trump campaign is selling a hat with a MAGA hat on it. Yo, dawg, I heard you like MAGA hats so I put a MAGA hat on your MAGA hat. [hunterschwarz/X]
Inside Trump’s push to win over the “bro” vote. The question the Trump operation faces is whether it can turn out a subset of voters his allies concede are uncertain to cast ballots. [Politico]
History of political design
“Our Friend” poster (1944). The poster, by artist Ben Shahn, shows then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a champion of the people as he ran for an unprecedented fourth term.
A portion of this newsletter was first published in Fast Company.
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