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Most ad executives who saw Wag the Dog, starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, probably chuckled at the political campaign “spots” running throughout the film.
They were created by Los Angeles-based Pollock Ginsberg Productions. Pollock assembled a team of account planners with experience in political marketing prior to creating the ads in order to make them as believable as possible.
The end result was a bit too real for director Barry Levinson, however. Company
principal Steven Pollock said Levinson “wanted [the spots] a little over-the-top.” Pollock noted that one of them (shown here) included two jockeys urging voters not to change horses in midstream. “I don’t think you’d see that” in a real campaign ad, he said.
You never know, though. The rest of the movie has already begun to resemble reality. -Laura Rich
