the year is 1964 JFK has recently been assassinated Cold War tensions are rising and the threat of nuclear war is looming large in the minds of every American this is also an election year the incumbent president Lynden B Johnson is very popular but he faces opposition from Republican Barry Goldwater it's during this election on the evening of Monday September 7th that lbj's campaign aired the now Infamous ad that has become known simply as Daisy this is the story of how a 60-second ad cast the shadow of nuclear Annihilation into living rooms across the country and brought into Vivid Focus America's darkest fears so before we watch the ad in full it's important to get in the headspace of its audience the television had only recently become ubiquitous in American homes and there were only three major networks the Cuban Missile Crisis was still fresh in people's memory and the US was becoming increasingly involved in v Vietnam's escalating Civil War which itself was a proxy for the larger ideological conflict between the west and the Soviet Union Barry Goldwater was seen by many as too hawkish on nuclear weapons having suggested that they could be used tactically against the North Vietnamese and that the decision to launch should be up to the generals rather than only the president his campaign slogan was in your heart you know he's right Johnson's campaign replied with their own slogan in your guts you know he's nuts and it was in the spirit of casting Goldwater as a reckless War Monger that Daisy was conceived the ad aired at 9:50 p.m. Eastern Standard time during the broadcast of a movie called David and B Sheba a Biblical epic that was considered a family movie and this was a strategic move as it was believed that young children would have been put to bed by this time leaving parents and older siblings to absorb and contemplate the meaning and implications of the ad shortly before going to bed themselves so when the movie went to commercial break this is what they saw 1 2 3 4 5 7 6 6 8 [Music] 9 9 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 these are the stakes to make a world in which all of God's children can live are to go into the dark we must either love each other or we must die vote for President Johnson on November 3rd the stakes are too high for you to stay home the ad was never shown a second time on television except when parts of it that were rebroadcast by news networks in the ensuing controversy Walter kronite accused the ad of crossing the line and Goldwater himself called it a disgrace to the political process but despite the controversy or perhaps because of it Daisy was a huge success and LBJ won in a historic Landslide now regardless of your views on the ethics of this ad you can't deny its Effectiveness in telling a story and I think there's some instructive lessons in the creative decisions made by its producers you know ads are fascinating little case studies and storytelling because they're by necessity extremely focused owing to their short runtime so there's a resourcefulness in advertising that you don't always find in other formats this ad like so many ads reduces storytelling to its basic form in this case the shocking jux position of contrary ideas childlike innocence and apocalyptic destruction this isn't an intellectual argument about the risks of nuclear proliferation or American foreign policy it bypasses rational thought and Taps into the viewers subconscious fears and you can discern that intent in its creative choices the first 20 seconds is a dolly shot of a young girl she's picking the pedals of a daisy and adorably making mistakes as she counts up to 10 and these mistakes were not scripted the child actor Monique celus was 3 years old at the time of filming and had not yet mastered counting to 10 this was a critical casting decision because it enabled the crew to capture the authentic innocence of a child it isn't until around the age of five the young kids begin to grasp the concept of acting so even though the scene is staged the girl isn't performing I just want to highlight how important that is as a viewer you know intuitively that this girl is not acting and that's critical to the story's emotional setup 5 7 6 6 she looks up and we get a freeze frame along with an aggressive zoom on the girl's pupil which cuts to nuclear test footage and these two are real images so the message is clear the threat of nuclear war is a reality the ad is also remarkable for its unique sound design there's no music in the ad and that's so the viewer can focus on the three distinct audio sections in the story first the sound of birds chirping then the sound of the control room countdown and then the 15 Megaton explosion Tony Schwarz the sound designer and Med theorist who worked on the ad wanted the viewer to be lulled into a sense of peaceful calm in order to maximize the ad's psychological Whiplash the voiceover is Johnson's own voice and his words were inspired by a poem by wh aut we must either love each other or we must die this is a common tactic in speech writing called rhetorical antithesis the repetition of opposites in parallel grammatical structure we must all learn to to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools this kind of literary flare gives the ad a sense of gravity not common in advertising and disguises the bluntness of the bargain actually being proposed to the viewer vote for me or everyone you know will die now I have to believe that the Ad Agency that created the ad do Dan and bernbach was fully aware of the psychological weapon they were wielding with these images advertisers are masters of persuasion especially by appeals to base emotion but I think this ad stands out for the way it bypasses not only our rational mind but also our emotions and Taps into even deeper subliminal anxieties the unconscious fears and desires that motivate us on a level that we're not even aware of Daisy is culturally significant in ways that you might not be aware of and which are difficult to trace but I think its Legacy was to reveal the incredible persuasive power of visual storytelling in the 20th century and especially the format of short form TV spots I know Daisy isn't a famous book or play or movie but considering it in the full view of history and especially media history it certainly deserves its place as one of the most compelling stories ever told and given how consequential that period of History was it just makes you appreciate the power that storytellers really have I think I'd like to explore advertising a little more on this channel so get subscribed if you're into that you can check out my patreon if you'd like to support the channel thanks for watching and I'll see you on the next one for