• by John Capone , April 2, 2008

How many industry execs does it take to make a bland one-minute "user-generated" video that, much like the candidate it purports to support, is long on style but says little of substance? The answer: three.

Though the video could probably have been cobbled together by most any teenager with a Macbook and iMovie, according to a release promoting the video as the "Latest Obama user-generated video" sent by DiGennaro Communications in New York, the clip was created by Deutsch LA president and chief creative officer Eric Hirshberg and Deutsch's head of integrated production, Tom Dunlap, with marketing and distribution support from Josh Warner, president of la-based video seeding company Feed Company.

The video goes for a roots-y feel with grainy black and white footage and a slowed down "This is Our Country"-type guitar riff with snippets of speech from the candidate at seemingly random intervals. Now, I say "purports to support" because the video plays like a parody of political doublespeak - whether or not that parody was intentional, the case remains, it could easily be one. Sample Orwellian sound bites: "We are choosing hope over fear." Also "We are choosing unity over division." And then there's "Change is coming to America." The tagline, "Hope Changes Everything" really ties it all together.