Thursday, November 12, 2015

In Denial

This anti-Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ad is both brilliant and pointless.
Aesthetically I am super amused by it. I love the banners with Cordray and Warren on them. The rubber stamps are kind of awesome in that 1984-meets-Brazil sort of way.


If someone can tell me what the white cylinder (not the coffee cup) on the desks is, I'd appreciate it.
The compositing is beautiful. I have to presume that the first three rows of workers are photographed against blue/green screen and that they're either duplicated or they were on a stage where they could just move them back. Because the keying and roto work are simply top notch.
The stairway all the way upstage is beautiful too. I love the little lamps on the desks. And I feel pretty confident we all know what everyone who actually works for the CFPB will be wearing for Halloween next year.
But even American Banker magazine thinks the ad will backfire. It's obvious the ad is absurd, the CFPB only talks to consumers who have been ripped off by financial institutions and helps them, they don't "deny" anybody loans. And the fact is that consumer credit is really cheap and readily available right now. No Citizens are feeling the squeeze of the CFPB.
The joke is that the outfit that produced this ad is made up of people being actively investigated by the CFPB.
But even more than that, this ad was done for another purpose entirely. It's a money grab. There are rich idiots who will pour millions of dollars into PR agencies like the American Action Network. And this ad, while arguably helping the CFPB and liberals, will be touted by them as a great success thereby bringing in more cash.