Ad Analysis Ehrlich "One Shot"

Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich's (R) re-election campaign has placed the issue of education among the top concerns for voters in 2006. The Governor has remarked that he believes education will be the issue that decides the entire election (Green, 2006). In taking on education, almost always seen as a stock Democratic issue in state elections (Green and Fritze, 2006), Governor Ehrlich has constructed strategic attacks against his opponent, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley (D). Appropriately, Ehrlich's first negative ad, “One Shot,” attacks Mayor O'Malley's perceived negligence in administering Baltimore city schools. “One Shot” is the second ad in Governor Ehrlich's campaign to tackle education exclusively, preceded by the positive spot, “Improving Education,” an ad using testimonial “interviews” from teachers and parents about the Governor's education record. “One Shot” also uses a testimonial, person-on-the-street format, but focuses obliquely on how Mayor O'Malley thwarted Governor Ehrlich's attempt to step in and address the school situation in Maryland's biggest city.

The person-on-the-street political spot has become a hallmark of political advertising, designed to boost a candidate's credibility by having “real” testimony from people that viewers can identify with. As Paul Messaris (1997) writes, the person-in-the-street interview in a political ad provides us with a visual index that “can serve as a guarantor of that evidence's authenticity” (137). Governor Ehrlich's education-centered “One Shot,” represents the familiar person-on-the-streets genre, taking a swipe at Mayor O'Malley's perceived neglect of the schools in his city, even though the Mayor is not mentioned directly in the advertisement. “One Shot” chooses urban Baltimore as its milieu, telling a story about a troubling development in the inner city from the point of view of people who represent "authentic” Baltimore residents.

“One Shot” tells a story of struggling inner city schools from the perspective of those living within the school system. The narrative is familiar, both in terms of its visual and auditory arguments. The story commences with the notion that the city schools are in trouble. Yet, a hard-working, quick-thinking leader (in this case, Governor Ehrlich) comes in to fix the problem. Ultimately, though, the hero's plan is thwarted by evil “politicians” and “lawmakers” who undermined his plan. The ad ends by assuring us that there is no time to waste and that our children only have one shot left to succeed.

The narrative of the tough inner-city school in trouble, attended primarily by persons of color, has become a dramatic marker in our culture that has its own built-in storyline and visual cues. Television shows such as Boston Public and movies like Dangerous Minds or Stand and Deliver, where inspiring teachers and tough kids with hearts of gold fight urban blight and institutional failure, represent a familiar storyline. This inner-city school narrative assures the viewer that if someone, often just one person, with guts and heart, shows selfless leadership, then our children can reach their potential and the future will be bright. In a sense, “One Shot” uses these generic markers to masquerade as an issues ad featuring an acute social problem; its underlying message, however, is that Ehrlich's role as paternalistic savior has been blocked by sinister politicians (i.e., Mayor Martin O'Malley). Governor Ehrlich himself is never seen, so the ad connotes that the issue transcends the political back and forth of political campaigns. Additionally, Governor Ehrlich softens the backlash against his campaign by using surrogates to deliver the condemnation, an often-seen device in negative political advertising (West, 2005). And, despite being a negative attack ad, “One Shot” implies that hope is on the way, as long as swift action is taken. Ultimately, the ad perpetuates the storyline of a troubled inner-city school that is so pervasive in our culture.

“One Shot” uses three women of color, three men of color, and three white women to recount its tale of an urgent need to save Baltimore schools. Why does the ad choose this particular collection of people? Throughout America 's history, education has traditionally been viewed as a woman's issue (Reingold, 2000). The person-on-the-street narration in "One Shot" comes, then, primarily from women. All shots are external, and place the characters either in front of a school or in an obvious urban environment. These visual markers serve as cues indicating that the story is being told from inside Baltimore by people who are directly involved in the school system. The female characters can be seen as concerned Baltimore mothers or dedicated teachers fed up with the system, as we often associate the role of teacher with women in our culture. The inclusion of men of color completes the urban school picture, as the men serve as worried dads or possibly teachers familiar with the neighborhood.

The absence of certain characters in the ad is as important as the inclusions. White males are conspicuously unseen in “One Shot.” The ad portrays white women and people of color as disempowered, pleading for help and trapped within the confines of the inner-city. Governor Ehrlich, a white man, is the (currently unrealized) hope for change. The ad reflects larger narratives about race and gender that have been largely accepted by our political culture. In addition to the lack of white males, the presence of children is also strangely muted for an education ad. While the ad is essentially about giving kids their “one shot” at education and a good life, the only times we see them are in blurred, distant shots, either on a playground or outside a school. We do not see children up close or in any classroom situation – a device often used in education advertisements to personalize the claims. Here the children are detached and distanced. The focus is on the gritty brick and concrete school buildings, furthering the feelings of malaise over the children's future in the face of mayoral incompetence and bureaucratic red tape.

In addition to the choice of who is used and targeted in the ad, the way these characters are framed by the camera is particularly important to the ad's creation of the inner-city school narrative. For one, the characters address the camera directly, a device used to allow the characters on screen to pull us into their space and cut the distance between subject and viewer. Such visual strategies allow the viewer to feel invested in the story and even responsible for what has happened in Baltimore (Parry-Giles and Parry-Giles, 2005). In addition, the camera frames each subject with close-ups that, in almost all cases, cut the tops of their heads out of the frame. As Joshua Meyrowitz writes, the emotional impact of individuals on television increases in intensity as the camera moves closer (Meyrowitz, 1986). Within "One Shot," the choice to use extreme close-ups and direct address, where the subjects of the ad look back into the camera, forces the viewer to focus less on policy-oriented arguments and become more enveloped in the emotional characteristics of the advertising drama.

Between personal testimonies in the ad, the camera provides us with gritty panoramas of Baltimore schools' exteriors. Just like the person-on-the-street theme, this use of “real” neighborhood images in “One Shot” reinforces authenticity and emotional connection. Empty and unkempt school parking lots filled with weeds, blurred images of empty playgrounds, busted blue school doors, and hard-angle shots of crumbling concrete and brick promote the feeling that Baltimore schools have been abandoned.

Even more pervasive, is the uses of fences in frame after frame of the advertisement. Many of the shots of schools are taken from behind chain link fences with the camera peering through holes in the fence at the evidence of Mayor O'Malley's mismanagement. Other shots have the fence in the foreground, while still others place the person-on-the-street testimony in front of these fences. Appearing at the end of the ad, our only clear shot of children in the advertisement, shows them walking into a school that is behind a fence. The camera presents a chain-link curtain between the viewer and those trapped in Baltimore . The ubiquitous fenced-in shots create a sense of distance, arguing subtly that someone else was responsible for these disasters and the first step in aiding Baltimore is to tear down the fences erected by the villains and free our children before it is too late. Ehrlich's recent ad “Crime” can be read as an extension of the argument presented here: if our children are not given their one shot at making good on their education, the inevitable result is a life of crime. Read together, these two advertisements paint a bleak picture of O'Malley's Baltimore as a fenced-in urban nightmare with residents locked on a fixed path from early childhood to a dreary future and possibly even a life of crime.

Finally, “One Shot” suggests that the need for quality education in Baltimore is urgent. Visually, the ad accomplishes this urgency with almost constant camera movement. The person-on-the-street testimonies remain stationary, but the exterior shots of schools feature the camera panning and zooming quickly within shots. Scenes move from one to the next at lightning pace, even including a few snapshot-style flashes to keep the viewer transfixed. A constant volley back and forth from person-to-person also characterizes the ad, with each new character continuing the last person's sentence in rapid-fire.

The auditory arguments build on the visual stimulus to reinforce the ad's urgency. In key spots, one character will say something, immediately repeated multiple times by successive characters. The phrase “right away” is repeated three times, the phrase “we applauded” (in reference to Ehrlich's attempt to save Baltimore schools) is recounted twice, as is the phrase “that's a shame” (discussing how a “few politicians” thwarted Governor Ehrlich's heroic rescue attempt). Most importantly, the phrase “more time” is repeated five times at the close of the ad, with each testimony escalating in outrage at the fact that Baltimore politicians like O'Malley sat on their hands while schools suffered. The viewer is left almost breathless by the avalanche of condemnation. These repeated phrases, in a sense, tell the entire story of the ad, so that even if a viewer misses details in between, the message is clear that something needs to be done now. Even the closing line— “our kids have only one shot to get it right”—stresses time as the overriding factor.

The key message of the ad's rapid editing, pace, and the repetition of the “needing more time” theme is to show the Governor as a man of action, and a leader in contrast with endlessly deliberating Democrats. An older white woman testifies that Governor Ehrlich worked with “the independent Board of Education” to “immediately” fix the lagging Baltimore schools. Such a seemingly small detail is important to note about the ad's overall creation of meaning—that Governor Ehrlich rises above petty, party politics independently and fast, in order to do what is right for Marylanders. In addition, by transferring the blame to a few rogue politicians, Governor Ehrlich is diverting any institutional responsibility he may possess (Edelman, 1988).

Person-on-the-streets testimonials against a backdrop of chain-link fences and an emphasis on urgency construct a number of audiences for the ad's reception. On one level, the ad speaks to voters living in Baltimore about the state of their school system and the welfare of their children. On another level, with the characters in the ad seemingly trapped inside Baltimore , pleading for help from their fellow Marylanders and talking directly to the camera, it seems that “One Shot” may be especially poignant for viewers who live outside Baltimore . Viewers outside Baltimore watch at a safe vantage point yet are asked to judge the education records of the candidates, at least implicitly. As pointed out early in the ad, Maryland schools (Ehrlich's responsibility) are some of the best in the country, but Baltimore schools (O'Malley's) are the some of the worst. The ad leaves unanswered, of course, why Governor Ehrlich should be responsible for the success of all schools in Maryland except for Baltimore . The ultimate message to the voters is that they should do whatever possible to keep Governor Ehrlich in office to protect education and to prevent Mayor O'Malley from doing to Maryland schools what he's done to the educational system in Baltimore.