The Occupy Wall Street Movement has been suffering from something of a PR problem, because Tea Party folks, Republicans, and rich, old people without the ability to spare a little empathy haven’t gotten the message despite over 1000 “Occupy” groups sprouting up virally across 87-plus countries. To address this lack of understanding, Occupy Wall Street has actually managed to create an ad that will air nationwide.
We first saw this video on MSNBC last week, and searched YouTube for it, to no avail. (I think “ad” and not “commercial” was where we went wrong!)
Chris Bowers, the Campaign Director for Daily Kos — who can easily boast a rich resumé of liberal activism — shared this on his Daily Kos blog yesterday, and we found it via Andy Towle’s Towleroad last night. Bowers writes,
“Conservative groups are currently running ads on cable news accusing Occupy Wall Street of anti-Semitism. Right-wing media, and even the Republican National Committee, are piling on those attacks.”
He adds,
Business Insider has some background:
Last week, we wrote about Occupy Wall Street’s commercial, which features a montage of protesters explaining what they would like to get out of the movement.Since then, we’ve been contacted by the commercial ‘s director, David Sauvage. He told us that the commercial was on track to air nationally, thanks to the efforts of a San Francisco-based digital advertising start-up called LoudSauce. […]
Occupy Wall Street started its LoudSauce campaign last week with little fanfare and a goal set for $5,000. Thanks to mostly word of mouth (through Twitter and Facebook), the goal was met by Friday. They’ll be wrapping up the campaign at the end of this week, and the commercial should be on TV in the next few weeks (they said most likely on ESPN).
This may well be the first time a protest movement will air a positive branding ad.
There you have it. Frankly, to all the haters out there who are ridiculing the Occupy Wall Street movement, you have no idea what you’re talking about. And, for that matter, you probably don’t have the cojones to spend a month camping in downtown Manhattan, either.
Oh, and by the way, the vast majority of Occupy Wall Street supporters and protestors do have jobs.