It’s difficult to imagine that there are still undecided voters out there, but polls insist that those highly coveted ballot casters are still up for grabs.
To try to sway them, agency Walrus teamed with Emmy-winning filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, Emily Wiedemann, founder and executive producer of Greencard Pictures, and a handful of actors and comedians for a multi-pronged campaign.
Winning over undecided voters might be difficult, but the ads, which feature state-of-the-art sex robots that won’t get you pregnant, “brand new, beautiful healthcare” that doesn’t cover sick people or gross things, animated talking birth control pills, and a spot-on Donald Trump impersonator as a not-very-confident pilot, hope they can change minds.
Deacon Webster, co-founder and chief creative officer at Walrus, had worked with Jarecki previously when Moviefone was a client, and Webster said that he was the mastermind behind the idea.
“We wanted to do something that didn’t feel like political advertising, to try and talk to undecideds,” Webster told ADWEEK, adding that Walrus looked to get creative Hollywood people together to make ads that didn’t talk at people or cram messaging down their throats. Instead, they decided to use humor.
The idea came about after watching president Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June, then kicked into high gear when Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee shortly after.
“The strategy was to provide a different way to approach a stubborn electorate, using great creative around issues that could work across the aisle, and appeal to undecided voters who care about democracy, but were tired of the usual finger wagging tone of political messages,” said Jarecki in a statement.
Calling the doctor
Most of the short videos are dark comedic takes on key issues concerning the public, including healthcare, birth control and women’s reproductive rights, the climate, and the chaos of a possible second Trump administration.
The first idea tackles healthcare, seizing on a statement by Trump that he wanted to repeal Obamacare and replace it with “brand new, beautiful healthcare.” To bring that to life, the agency envisioned former Saturday Night Live star Chris Parnell resurrecting a version of the inept doctor he played on 30 Rock, Dr. Spaceman.
Walrus came up with several scripts, punched up by director Sergio Cilli, and quickly got down to filming them, casting Parnell as the spokesdoctor for Donald Trump’s Brand New Beautiful Healthcare—“Healthcare for Healthy People.” The series of spots shows Parnell running through many health instances that aren’t covered, and calling everything from a hunting arrow wound to being old called a “preexisting condition.”
One of the most popular and re-posted spots from the campaign is “I’m Just a Pill,” using the Schoolhouse Rock favorite “I’m Just a Bill” as inspiration, but demonstrating how birth control pills may be outlawed in the future. The spot was directed by Zac Stuart-Pontier and the music was recorded by popular band Lawrence.
“I’m just a pill” has been re-posted by celebrities including Alicia Keys, Octavia Spencer, and Kerry Washington.
Actor Grace Gummer is the star of a comical “Sex of Tomorrow” video, done with production company Imposter, which has clunky robots filling in for humans so they don’t get pregnant, since birth control in the future has been outlawed.
Jeffrey Ross took Walrus’ concept and wrote it as a snarky stork who gives out babies to everyone because his business is booming, thanks to the government sticking its beak into everyone’s reproductive rights. The spot also features appearances by Jodie Sweetin, Jerry O’Connell, Samm Levine, Charlotte McKinney, and Rob Morrow.
In fact, the stork became the handle of the social channels where all the content for the campaigns live on TikTok and Instagram, @storkworks.
One of the newest spots is “Airplane,” which imagines Donald Trump as a pilot blaming others for the malfunction of a passenger plane. It’s tagged with “In turbulent times, you need a good pilot.”
“Airplane” came from filmmaker Tom McCarthy, who directed the Oscar-winning film Spotlight.
“He thought it’d be an interesting idea to juxtapose important moments in life where you need strong leadership,” said Webster.
The campaign also features a series of three non-comedic shorts shot in documentary style addressing voters’ concerns about not knowing enough about Kamala Harris’s background.
Pro bono for the cause
All the talent, along with the directors, agency, and production crew did the work pro bono in a very short time period, with support from NowThis, the largest social media publisher among Gen Z, with over 74 million followers.
The scripts, Webster said, took two weeks to pull together, with two more weeks for the production, meaning nearly everything was produced within a month.
The first videos garnered over 5.5 million organic views in the first three days, without any paid media behind the effort.
Webster and the crew are hopeful that the videos are having some effect on undecided voters, as nearly all 18 spots are now out in the world.
“I truly believe that creative content can make a difference in the world, and this election couldn’t be more important. So, when Andrew, a true force of nature, asked me to join the team, I knew I wanted to be a part of it,” added Wiedemann in a statement. “It’s not often you produce 18 spots in a matter of a few weeks, but everyone we talked to was all in. Everyone’s attitude was the same: ‘What do we need to do to make this happen?’”
Read it all here.
