Take two for McKee campaign ad, now free of sex and drug joke. What the experts say of the cleanup.

Gov. Dan McKee’s reelection campaign replaced a commercial with a new version Wednesday, wiped clean of off-color sex and drugs references in a split-second shot of a health insurance card graphic. 

McKee’s campaign spent another $66,804 to air the revised, 30-second ad 161 more times on local TV networks through June 8, according to filings with the Federal Communications Commission.

Gov. Dan McKee’s revised campaign ad was posted on YouTube Wednesday.

But the blunder, first flagged by Providence Journal reporter Kathy Gregg in a social media post on Sunday with a story published on Monday, hangs heavy over McKee’s reelection prospects, already marked by low approval in public polling and questions of competency raised by his opponents. 

“Details matter on every aspect of a campaign,” said Mike Raia, former communications director for Gov. Gina Raimondo, who now runs his own public relations firm in Providence. “It’s not just about getting the facts right for an ad, it’s about pitching yourself to voters. The voters deserve and demand that you’re being intellectually honest and serious with them.”

Foulkes’ healthcare record front and center in McKee’s inaugural campaign commercial

McKee’s campaign insists the initial ad, which flashed a graphic of a health insurance card listing the cardholder’s gender as “sex: yes” with a reference to a street drug, was unintentional. The commercial debuted on May 27, with $65,000 spent to air the ad 174 times across local networks. It was also posted on YouTube, but has since been removed. 

Sophie Mestas, a campaign spokesperson, said the graphic “slipped through review” by campaign staffers in an emailed response. 

The split-second image of the partially-covered Aetna insurance card in McKee’s campaign ad is easy to miss. 

The joke gained public attention after a longtime political observer tipped off the Providence Journal to the raunchy text, prompting reporters’ questions. Details on the observer’s identity or how they noticed were unavailable.

Even Helena Buonanno Foulkes, McKee’s Democratic challenger and the subject of his campaign attack ad, did not notice the gaffe until the Journal story ran on Monday, Angelika Pelligrino, a campaign spokesperson, said in an email.

But that doesn’t absolve McKee’s campaign from bearing responsibility for the mistake.

“Having the types of checks and controls and quality assurance to ensure you’re putting out something that is reflective of the seriousness of the role you are asking people to trust you with is essential,” Raia said.

The Foulkes’ campaign offered a harsher take.

“In his rush to attack Helena and try to save his sinking campaign, McKee lied about the facts in every claim in the ad and aired an ad with sex and drug related jokes,” Pelligrino said in a statement Tuesday. “His campaign is not ready for prime time and he does not deserve an unprecedented third term.”

The blame game 

It’s unlikely McKee’s campaign created the image in question. That work is typically done by an outside production agency, which uses a script from campaign staffers to come up with the accompanying visuals, according to a half-dozen campaign consultants and political strategists interviewed by Rhode Island Current, all of whom did not want their names used. 

AL Media, the Chicago-based political communications firm that produced the ad according to FCC filings, also did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The same agency also produced McKee’s popular 2022 campaign ad, “Motha,” starring his then-94-year-old mom, Willa McKee.

But, it is the campaign’s responsibility to screen the ad before it airs, checking for factual accuracy and that the images align with the message, consultants agreed. That’s how Raimondo staffers caught images of Iceland in a state tourism video days before its public release in March 2016. The mistake made the final cut anyway.

Perhaps more problematic than the error has been McKee’s campaign’s response. The initial ad was still available on YouTube as recently as Tuesday. And, the campaign never apologized, instead doubling down on the attacks against Foulkes for her tenure at CVS.

“A corrected version of the ad is live, but the facts are unchanged: Helena Foulkes raised insulin prices and pushed to cut Medicaid, while Governor McKee capped insulin costs and expanded coverage for Rhode Islanders,” Mestas said in an emailed statement Tuesday. 

Daniel Sheinin, a marketing professor in the University of Rhode Island College of Business, was unimpressed. 

“It’s a really bad look,” Sheinin said. “If they continue to have these kinds of non-responses, it will impact his reputation negatively.”

Sheinin, who has studied the rise of AI in brand marketing, could not tell from watching the initial commercial whether AI was used. Which was not surprising to him, given the increasingly sophisticated and pervasive role AI plays in media.

To Sheinin, the question of whether McKee’s campaign vendor used AI in its commercial is beside the point. 

“I don’t think it matters to anyone anymore what the source of the creation was,” he said. “AI is in the zeitgeist.”

But, he added, “that doesn’t mean they’re not holding brands responsible for what is in the communications. If the brand’s name is on it, it’s their responsibility.” 

A separate Foulkes commercial which debuted on local TV stations May 29 reframes her resume in healthcare around protections for residents, indirectly jabbing at McKee by promising to prevent another Washington Bridge “fiasco.”

The sitting governor’s six years in office have brought high-profile mishaps, from the structural failure of the westbound highway bridge in late 2023 to a cyberattack on the state public benefits system one year later, compromising the personal information of more than 644,000 people. A botched rollout of state government software this year has led to a series of payroll problems for government workers and temporarily prevented the state from successfully collecting federal Medicaid reimbursements. 

“You’re allowed one mistake,” Sheinin said. “For McKee, they really have to be much more proactive now at checking and double-checking every communication that is sent out. They can’t make another mistake.”