Trump’s attack on Ontario’s Reagan ad helped amplify its reach
By Danielle Bochove Bloomberg News In the global portfolio of political ads that changed history a handful stand out Related Articles Trump aims to start his Asia trip with dealmaking in Malaysia Yes on Prop campaign vastly outspends opponents as Ballot Day nears Letters Vote yes on Prop to foil Donald Trump s policies Letters No guarantees no spending cuts no on Measure A Pentagon accepts million donation to help pay the military during the governing body shutdown In the UK the famed Labour Isn t Working poster of has long been credited for helping Margaret Thatcher s Conservative executive sweep to power the following year Before that the Daisy political ad created for U S President Lyndon B Johnson s campaign against Barry Goldwater was pulled from the air for fear-mongering in but also deemed tremendously effective And late Thursday night a -second spot from Ontario Canada based on excerpts from a radio address by former U S President Ronald Reagan caused President Donald Trump to end all transaction talks between the two nations The move threatens to further damage a bilateral trading relationship worth approximately billion annually Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared Friday afternoon the province would stop running the ads but only after they aired during the two opening World Series baseball games this weekend The move seemed to do little to placate Trump who explained reporters later Friday he was satisfied with the current transaction arrangement with Canada and had no plans to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney during summits in Asia over the next week While it s too early to gauge the lasting effect of the campaign its immediate impact was dramatic Online views of the ad spiked even as efforts to suppress it grew a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the Streisand Effect As of a m Friday in Toronto the original social-media post from Ford containing the ad had been viewed times over eight days Five hours later that figure was a million By Saturday morning it had reached million The funny irony here is that in the wake of Trump s post now the whole world knows what Reagan disclosed about tariffs as opposed to this just being targeted ads by the Ontario administration mentioned Bank of Nova Scotia economist Derek Holt When the province publicized the C million million ad spend it noted it would air on stations including Fox NBC CBS ABC ESPN Newsmax and Bloomberg Television Seventy-five million dollars is a pretty sizable number especially for a Canadian advertising budget commented Brian Wieser a former advertising executive who now works as a Wall Street analyst covering advertising companies There s more money spent on political advertising alone in the United States than spent on all advertising in Canada But what matters bulk is having a clear media strategy including knowing who your target audience is he explained What was the goal The goal is to reverse American plan I guess he reported Were they intending to needle Trump I don t know if that was literally part of the brief Ford has revealed the ad was meant to target Republican-held districts in the U S and that he hoped the Reagan Republicans would win against the MAGA group in the debate over protectionist contract policies The -second spot unveiled by Ford on Oct is a lesson in simplicity It opens with the instantly recognizable voice of Reagan also a famous Hollywood actor over shots of bucolic American farmland but then takes a darker tone as he outlines all of the reasons he says protectionism is dangerous The images shift to boarded-up businesses grocery bills being scrutinized and American families forced to move out of their homes In a nostalgic tug Reagan delivers his last sentence on an old-fashioned television screen America s jobs and rise are at stake he warns dressed in an everyman plaid shirt sitting in a cozy paneled room at Camp David Maryland The ad ends with the words Ontario Canada superimposed over a shot of the Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor Ontario and Detroit Michigan The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Institute reported the advertisement used selective audio and video clips and Trump complained it was fake While the Ontario ad left out the context that Reagan was explaining his decision to add tariffs to certain Japanese goods he described it as a special event and overall extolled the benefits of free contract In the coming days and weeks the validity of the maxim there is no such thing as bad publicity is set to be tested as Canada waits to see if the U S will resume agreement talks The two nations had been progressing in negotiations on lowering steel and aluminum tariffs potentially in exchange for greater U S access to Canadian power Judging the effectiveness of an advertising campaign is an art form announced Wieser It is the story of the hour It remains to be seen how much durability this story has With assistance from Mark Bergen Bloomberg L P Visit bloomberg com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC
