Role Models vs. Mirrors

Hillary Clinton's new campaign advertisement, Mirrors should have succeeded where Role Models failed to show the detrimental effects that Donald Trump could have on the future and the youth of America because of his poor character and the dangers of having a leader who does not lead by setting a positive example. The Mirrors advertisement ultimately failed because it did not show that Clinton is the positive role model that America needs.

The new advertisement, Mirrors might as well be a revised edition of the Role Models advertisement that she released in July. Role Models did not succeed because it portrayed Hillary Clinton as a positive role model in contrast to Donald Trump. This was not received well because in July, when the Role Models ad was released, only 28%-50% of the population had a favorable view of Hillary Clinton. Mirrors makes the same arguments as Role Models did, and follows the same format except that it shows only young girls, they are looking at themselves rather than Trump and Clinton does not appear in the ad. The most significant difference between the two advertisements is that Hillary Clinton is not included in the Mirrors ad. The most prominent complaint about the Role Models video was that it attempted to portray Clinton as a positive alternative to Trump in the last few seconds of the ad. This part of the video is somewhat hypocritical in that it is saying Clinton is a positive role model and a strong character-ed alternative to Trump at the end of an attack ad. The Clinton campaign's solution to this problem was to make a new ad in the same format but without mentioning Clinton at all. This decision only led to another failed advertisement. The Mirrors ad has no positive alternative to Trump's rhetoric which will draw unfavorable response not only from Republicans and independents but from Democrats and Clinton supporters as well.

The failures of these two advertisements to convince voters to support Hillary Clinton is evidenced by the viewer's responses on YouTube. The Role Models video has 1,283,781 views 11,424 likes and 13,322 dislikes. This puts percentage of viewers who liked the video at 0.890%, almost five times lower than that of the average YouTube video. The video's 46 to 54 likes to dislikes ratio means that it is in the most unpopular 4% of YouTube videos and is about 11 times more unpopular than the average YouTube video. Contrary to the intentions of the Clinton campaign, Mirrors performed even worse. The Mirrors video has 4,717,092 views, 27,042 likes and 45,156 dislikes. While Mirrors has bring in about four times the viewership of Role Models and therefore more likes and dislikes, its percentage of viewers who liked the video is 0.573%, about 1.5 times lower than Role Models and almost seven times lower than the average YouTube video. The video's 37 to 63 likes to dislikes ratio means that this video is also in the most unpopular 4% of YouTube videos and is about 15 times more unpopular than the average YouTube video. Therefore, Mirrors has had an audience response about 1.5 times more unfavorable than that of Role Models. This contributed to making Mirrors an even less effective advertisement than Role Models. Role Models gained 575 new subscribers for the Hillary Clinton YouTube Channel while Mirrors gained only 394 new subscribers. About 0.048% of unsubscribed viewers subscribed to the Hillary Clinton YouTube because of the Role Models video while only 0.0085% of unsubscribed viewers subscribed to the Hillary Clinton YouTube because of the Mirrors video. This means that Mirrors was about 5.6 times less effective at bringing in support to the Clinton campaign than Role Models.