MoveOn Readies Team To Produce Democrat Ads
- by Mark Walsh @markfwal, May 7, 2008
Organized by MoveOn's public relations agency, Fenton Communications, executives joining the effort include Jonathan Cranin, formerly worldwide chief creative officer at McCann Erickson; Ernest Lupinacci, a founding partner and former creative director at Anomaly; Bennett McCarroll, senior vice president and director of broadcast production at Grey Advertising; Tor Myhren, chief creative officer at Grey New York; and Paul Christopher Hicks, until recently creative director for Hasan and Partners in Helsinki and previously with McCann in San Francisco.
Cranin is serving as the chief recruiter for the as yet unnamed "advertising network" looking to add to its line-up of creative talent.
David Fenton, CEO of Fenton Communications, said the effort is modeled on the Tuesday Team of ad experts organized by Hal Riney for Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign. That group came up with the "Morning in America" and "Bear in the Woods" ads that helped Reagan gain the presidency.
Fenton said the initial batch of MoveOn ads would appear in the next four to six weeks and would target presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. "The first effort will be to let people know more about John McCain, especially because right now there's so much going on the Democratic side that there hasn't been a focus on McCain and he's gotten a free ride so far," Fenton said.
The spots will run across media including TV, the Internet and print and MoveOn will rely on donations from its 3.2 million members to fund media-buying.
MoveOn formally endorsed Barack Obama in February but the newly conceived ad group has no plans at this point to develop ads specifically for his campaign.
Those involved in the MoveOn advertising initiative will be paid, though not necessarily what they're used to making on Madison Avenue, according to Fenton.
MoveOn will also retain longtime ad agency Zimmerman and Markman for strategic and creative work
