WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT WHAT YOU GETPoliticians learn from business because they hire the same public-
relations firms that business uses. Mr. Kemp hired B.B.D.O. Inter-
national of New York, the same firm that created the Reagan
commercials.
What we see in these commercials is an unusual distancing.
The candidate no longer needs to project his or her own subtext.
Instead, a series of video pictures projects it. The pictures make
us smile, nod in agreement, and end up with a catch in our
throat. Put the candidate's name after the pictures, and even his
or her image is not necessary. It is subtext once removed.
How many commercial ads have we seen that employ the same
technique? How about ads for cereals that show a hazy early
morning in Anytown, USA, a kitchen bathed in golden sunlight,
smiling, happy people—a warm, kind America eating breakfast
cereal. Or on a stronger note, consider ads depicting beautiful
women, handsome men, and sleek new cars. Women and cars,
men and cars, cars tearing along at speeds we can never reach
on the highway: What are they telling us? Advertisers hope viewers
will respond to the subtext of power and sexuality rather than to
any facts about the car itself. Recently, a subtle television ad
for a new car used only subtext with not even a picture of the
car. Images of breaking waves, lightning bolts, and other natural
phenomena denoted power and harmony, then the name of the
car was whispered with awe. The subtext does it all!
Turning to politics again for another lesson, consider the way
President Reagan used the setting of the White House. In 1986,
a newspaper reporter wrote that Reagan would emerge from behind
a closed door, stride purposefully down a long, red-carpeted corri-
dor, then fairly bound onto a platform. The subtext was communi-
cated before he spoke: vigor, authority, and ease.
A clever executive can walk into a conference room with that