Hello, and welcome to this uh workshop on all things political. Now, why should you put your focus on being good at political commercials? Well, because there's a lot of money to be made. Wait till you hear how much money is being spent in this genre alone. Okay. The 2026 elections, they're on track to become the most expensive midterm cycle in U.S. history, driven in large part by massive increases in political advertising. According to Ad Impact's Political Projections report, uh spending on political advertising is estimated to reach 10.8 billion in the next cycle. That's over 20 percent higher than in 2022. And while some of the projected increase can be attributed to uh just advertising costs going up, uh. media technology is growing so quickly. You're gonna hear this term over and over again called connected TV. And basically what that is is it's hyper-focused local advertising. Fundraising for congressional elections surged in the most recent elections, ranging from $8.9 billion to $9.5 billion. That is a massive leap from the $5.7 billion raised in 2018. So, according to analysis from Open Secrets, uh, the Wesleyan Media Project and the Brennan Center, more than $1.9 billion of that $9.5 billion spent in 2024 was dedicated solely, ready for this, to online advertisement. What? I'm not kidding you. There's there's there's just tons of money to be made. I've made over $100,000 just in this genre each of the last two years. The 2024 spend, which was, of course, obviously the presidential election year, that cycle hit a record. $16 billion in spending, and literally hundreds of new digital first agencies came into the market to handle this connected TV surge and all of the social media advertising that's now also coming into this genre. The American Association of Political Consultants, the AAPC, uh, they're the primary trade association for the industry. We currently have a little bit over 2,000 members. That includes both individual consultants and firms. And while not every political ad agency is a member, it's widely considered this is the the best indicator of the number of professional entities that are actually operating in this space. So basically, there's about a thousand of these companies out there competing for the political spend, and they vary in size and they vary in style. There are specialized political agencies, firms like GMMB or Axiom Strategies, they focus exclusively on politics, and that's it. Then there is hybrid commercial agencies, these are standard ad agencies that also have created an interior political wing, if you will, uh that will operate for a few months to capitalize on that billion-dollar spend. The big players, uh, there's a group of about 50 to 100 elite firms, FP1, Precision Strategies, GMMB, Jamestown. Um they handled the vast majority of federal spending for the presidential and the Senate races. Uh and then there's uh what they would call the common vendors. A 2021 study identified that I think it was 70 firms were responsible for the majority of all the crossover work between uh candidates and super PACs. So why it's so important to know what political advertising is by definition? Because if you understand the goal or the mission of what you're doing, you can craft your acting for that genre better. Political advertising is a very specialized field of communication. It's different than regular commercial stuff because what it's designed to do is influence someone's behavior, influencing voter behavior. We're not selling a product, we're not selling a service, we're influencing behavior. We're trying to get someone to vote a certain way. So there's different style, there's different types of commercials that exist within this genre. They generally fall into three broad emotional categories. Positive, these are the ones that build candidates up, the negative, these are the ones that tear candidates down. And then there's contrasting, which does both at once, sometimes calling somebody out and saying, hey, this is the better one and why. So let's go over a list of the most common political commercial styles used in modern campaigns. Next. There is what they call positive and biographical styles. Okay, these are ads that are designed to introduce a candidate, build trust, establish a brand or a personality. Um you've got what's called the introductory ad. This is the first ad of a campaign. It introduces the candidate's face, their name, their basic background to build simply name recognition. Then there's a biographical ad, which focuses on the life story of the candidate, their military service, their humble beginnings, their family life, et cetera. There's what they call the Saint ad, which is a purely positive ad that portrays the candidate as a hero or a champion of the people. And that is sometimes really sort of crafted using soft lighting and uplifting music and just making it feel very ethereal. There's Man on the Street Spots, testimonial type things, features real people talking about the candidates. And then, of course, there's endorsement ads, like a high-profile figure, such as a former president or a local community leader who's on screen vouching for the candidate. Now, obviously, you're not uh you're not going to be up for any of those endorsement ads. But that those are all the ones that exist within, say, the positive and biographical styles. Now, on to the negative attack styles. These styles aim to uh increase the dislike factor of an opponent, often by creating fear, doubt, or ridicule. There's the attack ad, direct strike on an opponent's character, record, or personal life. There's the flip-flop ad, uses old clips of an opponent saying one thing and then newer clips of them saying the opposite to basically make them seem as if they're untrustworthy or they're opportunistic. There's the fear-mongering style, which uses high-stakes imagery like explosions or sirens to suggest that the opponent's victory would lead to disaster or war or economic collapse. There is the Guilt by Association Ad, which links the opponent to an unpopular figure of some kind, some sort of politician or controversial lobbyist that you just wouldn't want to be attached to. And then there's the Empty Chair Ad, which points out an opponent's absence from whatever, their job, the debates, their failure to show up for key votes. There's contrasting and issue style spots. These are more educational, but they're still strategically biased to favoring whoever's sponsoring it, right? So there's there's the contrast ad, which often is sort of split screen. One side will show the right position, the correct position of the candidate in color. And then the other side, the wrong position, will be in black and white, because black and white is bad. There's an issue-based ad, which focuses entirely on just one topic like health care or taxes or crime to appeal to a single specific voter demographic. And then there's the Talking Head ad, which is simple, low production style, the candidate looking directly into the camera, speaking seriously about a policy or some sort of project that they're working on. And generally in commercials like that, you'll just come on at the end and kind of like tag these things out. There are man, there's so much stuff to talk about. The political ad space, it's very much like the promo and the news world, where stuff is produced so lightning fast, you gotta be available and you gotta be ready at a moment's notice. Sometimes even getting the script literally moments before the session, that happens all the time, where you're sitting here going, where's the script? Where's the script? And boom, they're jumping into the session and uh literally they're sending you the script then. So what do you need to do? Okay, if you're gonna get into this political ad space, you need to learn how to sort of determine what your next step is gonna be when you get a script. First you've got to figure out which kind of spot it is. Okay, is it a positive, is it a negative, is it a hybrid ad? And then as you go through the the script, what I do is I just simply highlight in red anything that feels negative. I'll actually change the text color. I won't even highlight it. I change the text color to anything that feels negative gets turned to red. And then I will do the same thing in green for the positive lines. And you'll know pretty fast what kind of spot it is and what your focus needs to be on. But the key part there is being able to make that transition, that shift on the fly from something that sounds and feels ugly and nasty and the wrong choice to something that feels absolutely positively this is the candidate for the job. So you gotta know who are you building up? Who are you trashing? Why are you trashing them? Um same thing that I teach in commercial. Look for the adjectives. Look for the party terminology. Okay, that th those are the type of things that make it easy to act. Every single time they say liberals or right wing or far right or extremist, those types of party terminology, those are opportunities for you to lace some sort of uh an emotional choice. And remember that you have one of two jobs to either admire and be a wingman for that candidate, or to be repulsed by and hateful of them. There really is no in-between, which is why your ability to act those feelings out is absolutely crucial. So, you know, the best thing to do is to visualize somebody that you respect and admire and be talking about them. Or you're doing the exact opposite for someone that you despise and loathe, whoever that is, right? And here's the thing: if you're not a nasty person, to be in political, you're gonna you're gonna have to find your nasty. You're gonna you're gonna have to find that thing that ticks you off, that thing that that gets under your skin and makes you verbally, visibly everything angry, because that's part of this job. So don't get into political if you don't have that bone, right? Uh don't even think about trying to just, oh, I'm just gonna do positive spots. Well, here's the problem. They may find you and love w what you do on a positive spot, but then they're gonna send you a negative one. And you've got to step up and you've got to be ready. And if you don't, you're gone. And they're gonna move right on to the next person. So what do you say we move into working uh on some scripts and kind of giving you an idea of how these things play out? Um let's go ahead and switch cameras here, and we're gonna go to uh my script package here. Where the where the heck are my scripts? Uh they are right here. Okay. So we're gonna start with um let's just start with a positive script first, okay? So we'll pull this one up, make the screen a little bit bigger so that you can see the whole thing. So this is the way uh scripts come in. Um you're gonna see video on one side, audio on the other. Um I don't ever really look at the video side of things because it's it's really not meant for us. It's really mostly just meant for the people who are producing the commercial. So all of our stuff is over here on the right-hand side. Um you'll see that in the upper left, they're gonna tell you what it's for, what race. This is for the governorship of Kansas. We know that it's a TV ad. We know that it's 30 seconds. Complete and total is the theme of this commercial. So when those words come up at some point in this script, you should probably acknowledge them if they do. Uh in this case, believe it or not, President Trump is gonna say those words. Uh by the way, if we haven't talked about this yet, it's probably a really good uh thing to come back to. So let me let me shift the camera here again here. And let's just have a quick talk. In political, you have to decide to play for one team, Democratic or Republican. You can't do both. If you do, you could very much piss somebody off. Um you can very much uh if if if you're if you're doing a a governor of Kansas spot and then a mayoral spot comes up for Kansas City, and you're the voice of that, but you're playing for the Democratic side, and but on the other one, you're doing the Republican side, somebody catches wind of that, and not only are you going to be out of work on that spot, uh, you might be out of work in the genre, you know, because it's it's it's it's that integral, that important that you realize that you pick a side and you play for it. Now, many years ago, um I chose to do Republican commercials. Okay, I did that for a business reason, because I felt as if I probably had a better chance of succeeding uh being a voice of Republican spots because there's less Republican actors than there are Democratic actors. So, like why do I want to compete against a thousand people when I can just compete against 20? That was a business decision. It's turned out to be really well for me. And it doesn't matter what my political opinions or beliefs are in this world. Um, this is about acting. And that's a job, right? And so there's there's people who who understand that it's a job, and then there's there's certain people who uh can't make that work for them. And then it becomes very emotional when you hear that like, you know, one of your idols, one of your friends, uh one of your colleagues um plays for the other team. Well, you know what? I I got I got kids to feed, I got I got horses to put through college. No, I I got you know what I meant to say. The point is, um it doesn't matter w which way you lean when you're doing political work. What matters is that in the moment when you're reading the script, you sell it. Okay. So uh I don't really tell too many people which way my vote goes. Um but I will say that um you know I'm not happy with the way things are right now. And I'm I'm really hoping for some change coming up. Now, with that in mind, let's go back and let's party with some scripts. Shallst we? Okay. So let's look at this one. Uh at the right side here it says announcer, that's you. Okay, and you're basically setting up the president. President Trump has endorsed Ty Masterson for governor. Trump's gonna say, you have my complete and total endorsement. Going back up to complete and total. That is the theme of the spot. You come back on. President Trump said Masterson is a champion for Kansas values. See how I went big on champion? In the State Senate, what are we gonna do now? We are literally going to start talking about the things that he's done awesome. That's why this is a positive spot. In the State Senate, Masterson delivered tax cuts for families. And as governor, Masterson will stand with President Trump to keep our southern border secure. That's number one. Two, keep biological men out of our girls' sports, that's two, and cut taxes for working families. Three. Those are the three things that he's going to do. Now, you're wrapping it up, you're putting a bow on it, and you're saying, vote Trump endorsed Ty Masterson for Governor. Always spend a little extra oomph on the name. Vote Trump endorsed Ty Masterson for governor. I do that purposely because I've heard it time and time again. I need I need you to give me some more love on uh on the client's name. Now, if I was working on this script, um what I would do is I I would go up here and I would change everything to a green color so that I know that this is an entirely green spot. Everything is positive. He's a champion. He's delivering this, he's doing that, he's protecting this, right? So this is this is a championing commercial. Okay. President Trump has endorsed Ty Masterson for governor. President Trump said Masterson is a champion for Kansas values. In the state senate, Masterson delivered tax cuts for families. And as governor, Masterson will stand with President Trump to keep our southern border secure, keep biological men out of our girls' sports, and cut taxes for working families. Vote Trump endorsed Ty Masterson for governor. Now that's how I would read it. Okay, and by the way, every script that we're working on today are actual spots that I booked and voiced. Okay, so I'm coming from a place of um absolute 100%. I know what the fuck I'm doing. So that's this one. Okay. Now, instead of hitting pause and having you work on it, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna jump right into the next positive script. You can come back and you can you can pause if you want to, um, but I'm gonna go into the next script now so that we can just sort of keep moving. Um this one is for uh a female candidate by the name of Holly Novolecki. Now, name pronunciations are huge, and the best way to make sure that you know that you're doing it right prior to a session is to go and uh do a YouTube search for any previous commercials they may have done or interviews with local TV stations. That's the best way to find the correct pronunciation of their name. At first I thought it was Novoletsky, but no, I I uh once I did my research, I was like, oh, it's Noveletsky. All right, cool. So on this one, you notice the audio is on the left, the videos on the right. And again, this is this is a this is a completely positive spot. However, however, um there are some negative parts of this. Um so let's just let's just break it up. Okay. Um The title of this is Buy Hire, Protect. Doesn't help me much. Pro-Trump conservative Holly Noveletsky. Novolecky's tough as steel, a second generation steel fabricator, an Army Reserve veteran. So right from the top, giving you her qualifications. She fights for Trump's America first agenda. Buy America so this is the agenda. Buy American, hire American, protect America. Next bullet point. American manufacturing, defend it. Dangerous illegals, deport them. Boys and girls sports, ban them. Scrolling down next page. The only America first choice for Congress. Pro-Trump conservative Holly Novolecky. Buy American, hire American, protect America. Now note, every commercial for the most part has some type of a disclaimer. You're either going to do it or the client is going to do it. In this case, Holly's going to come on and say, I'm Holly Novolecky and I approve this message. If you haven't done my lesson yet on disclaimers, you should. Because the disclaimers at the end of these sometimes are obnoxious and involve you having to hyper-speed read PO box numbers. And it's challenging as fuck. So it's one of those things that you need to like start working on, start doing, so that it becomes easy for you to do that. Now, let's look at this commercial and let's break it down the way I normally do. Okay? So it's all positive until we get down to dangerous illegals. So I'm going to highlight all of this, right, and change it to green. And then I'm going to change dangerous illegals to red. And deport them to red. Again, boys and girls sports, ban them. That's a negative thing. So we gotta make sure that we're putting a a little bit of ugly on that, okay? Then going all the way down, the rest of this is all positive. So again, this is how I would attach how I would attack this commercial. Pro-Trump conservative Holly Novolecky. Novolecky's tough as steel. A second generation steel fabricator, an Army Reserve veteran. She fights for Trump's America first agenda. Buy American, hire American, protect America. American manufacturing, defend it. Dangerous illegals, deport them. Boys and girls sports? Ban them. The only America first, the only America first choice for Congress. Pro Trump conservative Holly Novolecki. Buy American, hire American, protect America. Timing is a big deal in these spots. If you get the script prior to, make sure that you can try and get it into as close to, say, if this is supposed to be a 30, uh 31-ish. They can cut all the breaths out and usually get uh a 31 read to 30. However, in a spot like this, we have to we have to read, we have to leave time for Holly's disclaimer, which is most disclaimers are usually going to be about three seconds long when they're coming from uh uh an actual client like that. Okay? So our read needs to come in at 27. And so, you know, that that's the best part about harping on getting the script early, is so that you can go ahead and you can work on that timing and still be able to do the acting that's gonna be required of you. All right. Now let's switch on over to um some of the negative stuff. Let's do do do do do this one. This is a quick 15. Okay. And we are shaming this guy, Alan Wilson, the attorney general. Okay. There's only 32 words in this script, and they are all negative. So I'm gonna change it all to red. I'm gonna move it all up here together so that it uh it just feels more cohesive to me. Okay. So this guy, now I gotta think about somebody that I absolutely loathe. Ugh. With Alan Wilson as our attorney general, our crime rate is one of America's worst. What did Wilson do? Gave taxpire gave taxpayer funded contracts to his campaign donors. Alan Wilson. More crime, more corruption. Disgusted with him, right? The only way to do that is acting. You have to physically be like, ugh. It's like almost as if you're throwing up when you're saying his name. I don't even like hearing, feeling Alan Wilson's name in my mouth. Ugh. So let's do it again. With Alan Wilson as attorney general, our crime rate is one of America's worst. What did Wilson do? He gave taxpayer-funded contracts to his campaign donors. Alan Wilson. More crime, more corruption. Okay? There's not a ton that I can do with that. You know, um, and just know that my job is to just make him sound like a piece of shit. So when you go back and you listen to your take, you go, all right, well, does it really sound like this guy's bad? And if the answer is no, then you need to go back to work. Okay? This is not rocket science. I'm not going to pretend that it is. Let's go to let's let's do something, let's do one of the mixed commercials now. One that's both positive and negative. One that um this one, this one is called Criminally Liberal, and it's a 60-second radio spot. Okay, this is a longer one. So liberal Rob Adkerson has quite the record. So from the beginning, we know that this is this is this is negative stuff. All the way down here to wrong for Georgia. This is all one act, and it's all negative. I know this because I booked it. That's why. Um then it changes. Here in the middle of this spot, it then that's this is usually how they'll be 30 seconds of you're a piece of shit to 30 seconds of here's the guy you should vote for, or girl, for that matter. So then the bottom half of this spot, we're talking about this person. We're we're we're basically setting them up to introduce themselves. So I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna change all of this to a green color. So I know that that that this I need to be positive on this part of the script. Okay? So look at it. We got about 30 seconds that's negative, we got about 30 seconds that's positive. Okay? So let's go back up to the top. First, little throat spray. By the way, if uh if you ever get dry mouth like I do, and you ever get tired like I do in long sessions, VIX Vapor Inhalers are awesome for getting rid of um the funk in your head and um waking you up a little bit, charging you up. And this neutrobiotic throat spray, this stuff right here, this is what I recommend. I love this stuff. It's made with uh grapefruit seed extract. And I can't work without it. You can get it on Amazon. Okay, let's look at this commercial. This guy, this, this absolute piece of shit. Liberal Rob Adkerson has quite the record. Atkerson was arrested for assault and battery. Worse, Adkerson was arrested for stealing from a Home Depot. When caught, Adkerson admitted he stole the items with the intent to sell them and buy drugs. Atkerson stole so he could buy drugs. That's the same Rob Atkerson who called President Trump a liar and a fraud. Liberal Rob Adkerson, criminally liberal, wrong for Georgia. Take a second. I'm gonna take a couple of breaths. I'm gonna put a smile on my face. Because now we're talking about the guy who deserves the job. So, the conservative choice for Congress, pro-Trump conservative Dr. John Cowan. Notice how I built him up there? Dr. John Cowan. It's like I'm saying Mick Freaking Jagger. That name just popped into my head because I just did a uh NBC Today show promo with his name. Um, okay. So back to the positive stuff. John Cowan, a brain surgeon, Christian, and pro-Trump conservative outsider, Cowan will fight to lower prices, ban congressional stock trades, and deport the illegals, and deport the illegals. Gotta put a little onk, a little ugly on illegals. But one of the things I want you to pay attention to is what I did here. Uh focusing on the word lower, focusing on the word ban, focusing on the word deport. These are the action words. This is what he's gonna do. So you gotta give those a little bit of emphasis. Cowan will fight to lower prices, ban congressional stock trades, and deport the illegals. Pro-Trump conservative, Dr. John Cowan for Congress. Big smile on my face, little bit of up inflection in there, paid for by friends of John Cowan, paid for by friends of John Cowan, paid for by friends of John Cowan, paid for by friends of John Cowen. Do like a two, three in a row on that if you're auditioning for a script. Give them a slow one, paid for by friends of John Cowan. A medium one, paid for by friends of John Cowan, super fast one, paid for by friends of John Cowen. You got to get good at that, because you don't know how long that was. I would say I was probably pretty darn close to the timing that it's supposed to be. But there you go. That is how you execute a 50-50 spot, or as I call them, the uh the mixed race spots, if you will, the ones that have a little bit of positive and a little bit of negative in them. All right, one more here before we sign off on the political lesson. Um let's do this one here for Rom Ready. This is a 30-second spot, and we're talking about the real guy. So basically, you're implying that what you know or what you think you know about this candidate is dead wrong. Okay, so you need to sleuth a lot of this stuff out. Um meet the real Rom ready. He's a big donor to woke museums. Woke is a word right there. So here's what I would do: I highlight or I bold the words that I need to pay attention to. So I just bolded the word woke, because that tells me that I need to put a little bit of sauce on woke. Because woke in the Republican world is one of those industry terms that I was telling you that you need to pay attention for. Um so what did he do? He moved to South Carolina, he built an illegal seawall at his ocean front mansion. So I'm gonna put, I'm bolding out illegal and oceanfront to make him seem like a rich asshole. Then guess what this guy does? He tries to get special government treatment to block public access to this beach. So he has a beach and he's trying to keep the the the regular folk off it. Oh, what a pe what a piece of shit. Who does this guy think he is? That's the subcontext of that line. So when you say it, it needs to be laced with that subcontext. Now, ready runs for governor. A lot of times you'll notice they they'll give you lines that sound like they should be a question, but they don't put the question mark there. You need to use your best judgment. Now ready runs for governor. Sounds all right, but doesn't it sound better to say now ready runs for governor? Says he wants the power to pick our judges and cozies up to the liberal political establishment. Shaking my head, physical acting, this guy. Total fraud, Rom ready. Definitely not from South Carolina. Definitely not conservative. Subcontext of that line, it's not one of us. Definitely not conservative. I'm saying not one of us, but I'm s but uh uh the feeling is there, but I'm saying the word conservative. All right, so let's go all the way to the top, but first, okay, let's let's let's highlight. Do I even really need to? Because this is a completely 100% negative commercial. So I would switch everything to red. There's nothing good in this whatsoever. But I do have some places to highlight. I didn't highlight our judges. Our judges. He wants to choose our judges. Again, down here we got liberal political establishment. I'm gonna underline some of these words to remind myself that this is where I get to play as an actor. By the way, I don't normally talk for as long as I've been talking straight. So my voice is starting to get a little vocally strained. It happens. So I'm kind of going into like a self-managed vocal management zone right now. But I can't do that when I'm performing. I gotta give it my all. Why? I'm the fucking star of this commercial. Okay? Because the guy who bought it doesn't have the balls to read these words himself. So I gotta. Okay? Ralph Norman, the guy down here at the bottom of this commercial, in the bottom right, paid for by Ralph Norman for governor, he doesn't have the balls to read the words. So I gotta read the words for him. So even though I'm sort of vocally managing myself right now, I can't do that in this performance. Can't let everybody in the recording process down. Gotta give it my all. So here we go. One take, killing it from top to bottom. Meet the real Rom Reddy, a big donor to woke museums in New York City, who moved to South Carolina, built an illegal seawall at his ocean front mansion, and tried to get special government treatment to block public access to the beach. Now, Reddy runs for governor, says he wants the power to pick our judges, and cozies up to the liberal political establishment? Total fraud. Rom Reddy. Definitely not from South Carolina, definitely not conservative. Ugh. It's like it's silly fun. It really is. And I gotta tell you, in the last couple of weeks, I've been doing a minimum of three to four, sometimes five to ten of these a day. So that is why A, I'm good at it and it just kind of rolls off the tongue. B, why you need to put a heavy emphasis on learning how to do this so that you can catch the attention of one of the production companies who does this, of these ad agencies that are out there, so that one day you can win those stupid read awards that I refuse to put money into. But I'm not gonna poo-poo on those. I kind of just did, didn't I? Anyway, the point is uh there's there's a lot of money to be made. Um, and it's this is the type of work that if you can just get good at executing the basics, you can kill in this. You can kill in this. Like I said, I I've had back-to-back six-figure years just in politics alone. So that's why I wanted to do this lesson today. I know I'm doing it a little bit different. All the scripts are going to be there for you to play with if you'd like to. Um just, you know, go back in the video and you can hear how I do it next to how you do it, or just, you know, play with them on your own. Um, I'll add some more political scripts as well, um, just so that you have some more things to play with. Um, but if you have any questions about this or about doing political at all, feel free to shoot me a message uh through the VOLC talk feature on the app. And that is it for this. I hope you really enjoyed it. I know I did. This was fun, and I will see you in the next one. Until then, be awesome.