The Dinner Table

This is a very powerful ad.

The ad is titled “Dinner Table” and features a recently unemployed father trying to eat dinner with his worried wife and two kids. The only sounds that can be heard are the tinkling of utensils as the family unnervingly pokes at their food. It is a scene that has been played in real life in millions of homes across America during the Great Recession and the so-called recovery.

After 23 seconds, the ad, which was created, written, and directed by Jon Kahn, then fades to a black-and-white question on the screen: “12.1 million Americans unemployed. Isn’t it time to try something different?"

“Our latest ad hits you right in the gut,” said AFP Director of Marketing Mike Harinstein. “Too often, job statistics and rhetoric gloss over the gritty reality of American families who are suffering in this economy.”

...After the ad gets the viewer’s attention, it makes a visceral appeal and enables the viewer to feel the pain, anxiety, fear, and heartbreak of the family of four at the dinner table before making a powerful point about the country needing to “try something different.”

Tim Phillips, President of AFP, said the “big-government policies of this administration have left more Americans out of work for longer than under the last 11 Presidents combined.”

Here's the ad:



It is time to try something different.

Millions and millions of Americans are struggling.

Obama's policies aren't working.