Welcome to today's deep dive. We are looking
at one of the most famous and honestly, I think,
most relentlessly analyzed political advertisements
in the history of the United States. Oh, absolutely.
Unquestionably. Yeah. We're talking about the
1984 campaign commercial officially titled Prouder,
Stronger, Better. But if you follow politics
or marketing or history even casually, you probably
know it by its universal nickname. Right. Morning
in America. Exactly. Morning in America. And
our source material today is this really comprehensive
Wikipedia article that details the ad's creation,
the exact script that made it so potent. It's
enduring cultural and political resonance over
the decades. It really is just a fascinating
piece of media. I mean, it is not an exaggeration
to say that this single 60 -second spot fundamentally
shifted the gold standard for what a political
message could and perhaps should sound like.
Yeah. We are literally still seeing the ripple
effects of this one minute of television in modern
campaigns. Which is wild to think about. And
so our mission today is to uncover the mechanics
of that legendary advertisement. echoes are still
being heard in elections decades after it first
aired. Right. Decades later. Yeah. And we really
want to help you understand what makes a message
truly stick in the minds of the public. If you
are sitting there listening and you have an interest
in marketing or history, or if you just want
to decode the DNA of modern political messaging
without suffering from massive info overload,
you are going to get a lot out of this. Oh, for
sure. There's a lot to unpack. We are aiming
for those real aha. Moments. And just a quick
note before we jump in. We are looking at this
strictly through the lens of marketing, history
and rhetoric. Yeah, that's an important distinction.
Right. Because while our sources cover politically
charged content spanning from Ronald Reagan to
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, we aren't endorsing
any political figures, parties or parties mentioned
today. We are just an impartial analysis of the
mechanics. We are just conveying the ideas contained
in the original source material. Which is really
the most productive way to look at this stuff,
because the mechanics of this ad are just a masterclass
in persuasion. When you strip away the partisan
layer, you are left with this brilliantly engineered
piece of psychological communication. OK, let's
unpack this. The year is 1984. OK. It is the
presidential campaign of the Republican candidate,
the incumbent Ronald Reagan. Out comes this 60
-second ad, and it just completely captures the
national attention. Let's look at the visual
strategy first. What is actually on screen when
this ad plays? Well, when you watch Morning in
America, the visuals are striking specifically
because of what they lack. What do you mean?
There are no explosions. There's no dramatic,
you know, red -tinted filters of crime scenes.
No shouting politicians pounding their fists
on a podium. You are simply seeing a montage
of images showing everyday Americans going to
work. Just normal people? Right. man backing
a tractor out of a barn, a teenager delivering
newspapers, a taxi cab moving through a city
street, just regular people starting their day.
And the use of the word morning serves a very
deliberate dual purpose here. It operates on
a literal level first, right? Matching the physical
reality of a morning routine. People are heading
to their jobs, commuting, starting their shifts.
Exactly. But then it operates on a much deeper
metaphorical level. Morning stands for national
renewal. A fresh start. Yes. It implies a new
beginning, a washing away of the dark, and the
start of a bright, fresh chapter for the country.
It signals to the viewer that the long night
is over without explicitly demanding that they
feel relieved. The visuals just do the heavy
lifting of establishing a mood of calm and safety.
So we have this soft, highly evocative imagery,
but it doesn't feel like empty fluff. How did
they ground that emotion so it didn't just float
away into pure sentimentality? They used hard
data. Right. This is where the script elevates
the ad from a nice montage to a devastatingly
effective political weapon. The ad script explicitly
states that the economy had improved since the
1980 election, but it doesn't just say the economy
is better. It bakes incredibly specific statistics
right into the poetry of the voiceover. The numbers
they chose to highlight are so fascinating to
me. The script points out that today, more men
and women will go to work than ever before in
our country's history. A huge claim. Right. Then
it pivots to the housing market, stating that
interest rates are at about half the record highs
of 1980. But it doesn't stop at the macroeconomic
level. No. It immediately translates that macroeconomic
data into human terms. It says that because of
those lower interest rates, nearly 2000 families
today will buy new homes. 2000. More than at
any time in the past four years. Notice the phrasing
there today. It makes a broad economic indicator
feel immediate and tangible. I'd even go a step
further and point out how they handled inflation.
Oh, the inflation stat is brilliant. It really
is. The script notes that inflation is at less
than half of what it was just four years ago.
And what does that mean for the average person?
The script says, this afternoon, 6 ,500 young
men and women will be married. They can look
forward with confidence to the future. They took
a concept that usually makes people's eyes glaze
over inflation rates and turned it into a highly
emotional, relatable milestone. 6500 young people
having the confidence to start a family today.
What's fascinating here is how the ad perfectly
balances those cold, hard statistics like 6500
marriages or 2000 new homes. With this overwhelming
sense of emotional warmth. It isn't a dry economic
report, but those numbers give the optimism an
undeniable foundation to stand on. It's proof.
Exactly. It tells the viewer you aren't just
feeling better. The math proves things are actually
better. And then it builds to this masterful
clincher at the very end. A pivot. The pivot.
After presenting this incredibly rosy, statistically
backed picture of the present, the ad asks the
voters a rhetorical question. It asks why they
would ever want a return to the pre -Reagan policies
of Democrats from less than four short years
ago. It's such a gentle but devastating way to
close the argument. It really is. It basically
says, look how beautiful today is. Why would
you ever risk going backwards? It frames the
election not as an ideological battle between
two competing philosophies of government, but
as a simple choice between a beautiful sunny
morning and returning to the dark. It is persuasion
by contrast. but done so softly that the viewer
doesn't even realize they are being aggressively
pitched to. Which brings up a huge question.
Who actually came up with this? Because you would
think it was a massive committee of political
scientists and pollsters agonizing over every
frame. But the ad was actually written and narrated
by a legendary ad man named Hal Reine. Hal Reine
was a pivotal figure in this era of political
advertising. If you study political rhetoric,
you definitely know his work. He also wrote and
narrated Reagan's Bear in the Woods ad, which
was a very different, much more tense geopolitical
ad about the Soviet Union. And he did the answer
to his back ad as well. He had an incredible
range. But for Morning in America, his specific
vocal delivery was the secret ingredient. The
source material highlights how critical his voice
was to the ad's success, describing it as, Rich
and avuncular. Avuncular is the perfect word
for it. Right. He had that tone like a trusted
uncle talking to you over the fence. He didn't
sound like a slick political operative trying
to sell you a candidate in a 30 -second window.
He sounded like a neighbor just casually observing
how nice the neighborhood was looking lately.
That projected an immense sense of wholesomeness
and authenticity. We shouldn't give Rainey all
the credit. He wasn't alone in crafting this.
Right. There was a whole team. The art director,
Bernie Vangren from How Rainey and Partners,
and the director who actually filmed the ad,
John Pitka of Levine Pitka Productions, were
essential in creating that cohesive cinematic
vision. They are the ones who made sure those
visuals matched the gentle authority of Rainey's
voice. Speaking of that cinematic vision, the
ad feels like it encompasses the entire quintessential
American experience. You watch it. And you assume
they must have sent camera crews all over the
heartland from Ohio to Kansas to the deep south.
You would think so. But here is a great piece
of trivia from the source. This ultimate piece
of Americana was actually filmed entirely in
Petaluma, California. That is amazing. It speaks
volumes about the power of their filmmaking.
They didn't need geographic accuracy. They were
aiming for emotional truth. They capture the
essence of the idealized American nation in one
specific location in California. Yeah. And the
advertising and political industries absolutely
recognize the brilliance of what Reine and his
team pulled off. The advertisement swept up numerous
industry awards. The source includes a really
telling quote from Republican strategist Dan
Schnur about why this ad was so highly praised
and why it stood out so starkly from everything
else on television. What did he say? He said
of Reini's work, most political advertising hits
viewers over the head, while his work makes just
as strong a point, but in a less confrontational
and a more soothing manner. That word soothing
is the key to unlocking the ad's legacy. Think
about the political ads we are bombarded with
today. How many of them would you ever describe
as soothing? Almost none. It is incredibly rare
in a media landscape that relies almost entirely
on anxiety, urgency and outrage to drive engagement.
Morning in America proved that you can make a
devastatingly strong political argument by actually
lowering the audience's blood pressure instead
of raising it. Here's where it gets really interesting.
Because an ad that famous, with a tone that specific,
eventually stops being just a political tool
and becomes a piece of ingrained pop culture.
Absolutely. And when something becomes that universally
recognized as a symbol of pure, wholesome optimism,
it becomes the absolute perfect target for subversion.
That is the inevitable life cycle of iconic media.
Once a piece of art or advertising achieves that
level of cultural ubiquity, it gets turned inside
out. Which brings us to Super Bowl XXX. During
that massive broadcast, Hulu aired a trailer
promoting the third season of their series, The
Handmaid's Tale. And they completely hijacked
the legacy of Morning in America to do it. It
was a brilliant and genuinely chilling piece
of marketing. The mechanics of the parody relied
entirely on the audience's subconscious familiarity
with the 1984 ad. If Morning in America wasn't
already hardwired into our cultural memory as
the baseline for optimism, the Hulu trailer would
have completely fallen flat. The execution of
it is wild. They started by mimicking the original
commercial almost perfectly. They use a very
similar saccharine soothing style of narration.
The music had that same gentle waking up quality.
Right. But they slightly shifted the focus of
the script to specifically highlight women and
their newborn children, adapting it to the themes
of the show. So it lures you in with that exact
same sense of warmth and those reassuring demographic
statistics. And then they violently interrupt
that soothing montage with horrific scenes from
the series setting the totalitarian Republic
of Gilead. Just a massive tonal shift. Huge.
The contrast of women stripped of their rights
against the mourning in America aesthetic is
jarring. It uses the visual language of safety
to introduce a nightmare. It builds up that familiar,
cozy optimism just to shatter it. And the punchline
of the whole trailer is delivered by the lead
character, June Osborne, also known as Offred.
She looks directly at the camera and states,
wake up, America. Morning's over. If we connect
this to the bigger picture, this Super Bowl trailer
proves something incredible about the original
1984 ad. It shows that mourning in America is
so deeply ingrained in the American psyche as
the unquestionable symbol of good that it serves
as the absolute perfect baseline to contrast
with a dystopia. Wow. Yeah. The parody only works
because Hal Rennie was so incredibly effective
at establishing what optimism looks and sounds
like in the American consciousness. It's the
ultimate compliment in a weird, twisted way.
But the echoes of more. Morning in America aren't
just found in pop culture parodies on Hulu. They're
constantly surfacing in actual modern political
races. Politicians have been trying to bottle
that 1984 lightning again for decades. It's the
holy grail for campaign managers. Let's look
at the 2016 presidential election. Candidates
across the spectrum were actively trying to harness
the magic of that specific ad. During the 2016
Republican primaries, both Marco Rubio and Ted
Cruz heavily referenced. mourning in America
rhetoric. They were actively trying to reflect
the politics and the spirit of Ronald Reagan
to appeal to their base, positioning themselves
as the heirs to that specific brand of optimism.
Marco Rubio actually ran a television ad titled
Mourning Again in America. He went all in on
recreating it. He featured a montage of everyday
American life, showing both cities and suburbs
trying to capture that same Hal Reine magic.
But there was a catch. A huge catch. The execution
failed spectacularly in one specific way. The
very opening shot of this tribute to everyday
American life was actually stock footage of Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada. A critical error that
completely shattered the illusion. It highlights
how difficult it is to authentically recreate
the genuine feeling of the original ad. You can't
just slap a title on stock footage and expect
it to resonate the way Reini's meticulously crafted
piece did. Obviously not. Ted Cruz, on the other
hand, used the concept slightly differently.
He didn't try to recreate the ad visually. He
used the phrase itself as a continuous rhetorical
drumbeat throughout his campaign. The source
notes several instances of Cruz using it, often
right at the climax of his speeches to whip up
the crowd. Years earlier, back at the 2014 Conservative
Political Action Conference, or CPAC, he told
the crowd, we will bring back mourning in America.
That's why we're here, and that's the future.
And he kept using it as a victory cry. After
winning the Republican caucus in Iowa on February
1st, 2016, Cruz declared, Tonight, Iowa has proclaimed
to the world, morning is coming. Morning is coming.
And shortly after, when competing with Rubio
in South Carolina on February 20, he declared
again, We can bring back morning in America.
He was leveraging the nostalgia of the phrase,
using it as shorthand to tell voters that he
could resurrect that 1984 feeling of safety and
prosperity. But it wasn't just Republicans trying
to claim the phrase. Hillary Clinton actually
used it as a weapon during the 2016 campaign.
In her Democratic nomination acceptance speech,
she referenced Donald Trump's own acceptance
speech from the previous week. Oh, this is a
very clever rhetorical move. She said that Trump
had taken the Republican Party a long way from
mourning in America. to midnight in America.
It's a very sharp rhetorical judo move. She accused
him of wanting the public to fear the future
and to fear each other, directly contrasting
his tone with the famous optimism of the Reagan
ad. Flipping it back on them. Exactly. By doing
so, she was trying to claim the mantle of optimism
for herself while using a reviewed Republican
touchstone to criticize a Republican nominee.
She was essentially saying, you have abandoned
your own gold standard. Fast forward four more
years to the... 2020 election, and the echoes
of 1984 are still bouncing around. But this time,
they took on a much darker twist. The Lincoln
Project, a political action committee, released
an ad that directly riffed on the famous title.
They called their ad Mourning in America, but
they spelled it M -O -U -R -N -I -N -G. Mourning,
as in grief. It was a direct, highly critical
response to the conditions in the country at
the time. The themes of this Morning in America
ad focused heavily on the deaths from the COVID
-19 pandemic and what the creators viewed as
the debatable inaction of President Donald Trump.
It completely inverted the original premise from
a celebration of life and renewal to a lamentation
of loss. They didn't just release one generic
version either. They targeted it heavily. They
released state -specific versions tailored for
key battlegrounds. Morning in Iowa. Morning in
Florida. Morning. in Pennsylvania and mourning
in Ohio. And they even released a specific version
called Mourning in Republican Party, which lamented
the change of direction the party had taken.
This raises an important question. Why does this
keep happening? Why does a single 60 -second
television ad from 1984 remain the absolute gold
standard for measuring the political mood of
the country? Whether it is being used by Ted
Cruz as an ideal to strive for, by Hillary Clinton
as a standard that has been lost, or by the Lincoln
Project as a tragic pun to highlight grief, they
are all still orbiting around a narrative created
by Hal Reine over 40 years ago. It's incredible.
It suggests a profound hunger in the electorate
for that specific brand of unifying, calm optimism,
even if politicians are currently struggling
to deliver it. So what does this all mean? Let's
bring this all together. We went on quite a journey
today. We started with a soothing 60 -second
spot that was filmed in Petaluma, California.
It was narrated by an ad man with an avuncular,
trusted voice who simply listed some positive
economic statistics over footage of people going
to work. And somehow, that specific combination
managed to permanently define the rhetoric of
American optimism. It is a testament to the power
of tone, the brilliant integration of hard data
into an emotional narrative, and the profound
impact of lowering the temperature in political
communities. So my takeaway for you listening
right now is this. The next time you are sitting
on your couch being absolutely bombarded by aggressive,
loud campaign ads designed to make you panic,
watch out for that powerful blend of hard data
and soft emotion. Look for that soothing approach.
It is rare, but as we've learned today, when
it is executed perfectly, its impact doesn't
just win an election. It lasts for generations.
It is a high bar to clear. And I'd like to leave
you with a final lingering question to ponder.
We've seen that morning in America worked so
brilliantly because it successfully defined a
shared national present as a dramatic improvement
over a shared past. It relied on a collective
experience. The shared reality. Exactly. But
as we move further and further into a hyper fragmented
digital age where everyone consumes different
news, lives in different media ecosystems and
experiences a different reality, is it even possible
to create a single. unifying metaphor for an
entire nation's experience anymore? Or are we
destined to only ever have mourning in our own
personalized algorithms?