The Conservative Party have just launched a new advert to promote a policy announcement on international development. They continue to use this ‘Girl Effect’ style of advert; for an advert hack like me it’s feeling a bit tired now, but no doubt it’d be impactful for someone viewing a Tory advert for the first time – if they included a few bits of non-typed animation it would certainly jazz it up a bit.
I won’t go into any detail as to the content of the policy initiative, but it certainly seems like a new territory for The Conservatives. In terms of political marketing, releasing content around international development at the same time as Obama tours Africa is a really smart, capitalising move.
Just got back from a few weeks in Zanzibar on holiday (apologies for the short absence), so by way of a political advertising postcard here’s some campaigning activity by Zanzibar CUF secretary-general Maalim Seif.
I found these posters and stenciled slogans in Zanzibar’s answer to Speaker’s Corner, a place called ‘Jaws’ in Zanzibar town. Apparently it’s also a fantastic place to watch English Premier League football… in case you’re in the area and in danger of missing a clash…
The Conservative Party have released a new film entitled ‘Don’t let Brown take you for a fool’. It’s of a relatively high quality in terms of production values. The ‘Gordon says’ and ‘what’s actually true’ isn’t executed quite clearly enough. The choice of a jazz soundtrack is somewhat bizarre, I suppose it gives it a sinister undertone but it feels slightly Pink Panther.
Not bad, but not great; but at least they’re putting out content. A constant stream of content creates a narrative of what a party stands for. Whilst not many swing voters will be logging on and viewing the video, supporters no doubt will and it gives motivatation and ammunition for the door step.
Regular readers will be unsurprised that I side with Guido. I could add a number of others, but agree with all of his 3 guiding principles of:
“An ideological preference for freedom, the practical consideration that it would reengage the public, and that it would boost the competitiveness of the political market.”
Che Guevara’s daughter Lydia poses for PETA’s latest execution in their campaign for animal rights. She poses using carrots instead of bullets whilst mimicking her fathers iconic revolutionary image. It’s completely her call as to the honourability of her participation in the campaign using her relations equity; for me it seems cheap at best and dishonourable at worst.
The above advert is one of the better ones created by Conservatives for Patients Rights; an organisation spending millions of dollars in advertising to try and prevent Obama from passing sweeping healthcare reforms in the USA.
In the UK last week, our politicians were clambering over each other to stand up for the NHS – you almost never hear a politician damning the NHS. It’s rare to the extent that I found it quite shocking watching some of the adverts openly criticising the NHS, my guy British gut reaction was along the lines of “Now hang on just a minute old boy, you can’t say things like that around here”…
Just stumbled upon this party political broadcast for the SDP in the late 1980s. It’s a casual 10 minutes long, but it makes the argument for pragmatism over interest groups that the Liberal Democrats never seem to. Classically Cleese, it’s steeped in satire and, for a ppb, very amusing.
For my debut post on this blog I thought I’d post THE iconic piece of political advertising. Produced by Saatchi&Saatchi and credited to Tim (now Lord) Bell. The simplicity with which the poster attributed the blame of high levels of unemployment to the Labour government of the time is astounding. It worked because it was not overly aggressive and yet delivered a devastating blow on the record of the government. Too many ‘attack’ adverts in their aggression alienate the electorate, rather than influence them.
Picked up on this brilliant attempt by 7-Eleven to cash in the US Presidential Election on ‘Boy meets digital world’.
Coffee drinkers at 7-Elevens across America are casting their vote. Participants choose one of the two election coffee cups depending on their political preferences. The votes are being recorded and results of the favoured presidential candidate appear in USA Today as well as being tracked on the website. According to the site the 7-eleven voters have successfully predicted the result of the last two presidential elections.
This is absolutely hilarious. The momentum that Obama’s campaign has generated is unbelievable. There seems to be a never-ending amount of material emerging, quite independent from the official Obama campaign. However, reaching and influencing the audience that this spot is aimed at is incredibly difficult and I wonder whether having one’s grandchildren call up and condescend to you about politics is going to benefit the Obama campaign with this demographic. In the same breath, a nagging relative can be pretty convincing…
Google have recruited a host of high powered CEO’s to encourage their employees to take an hour out of their working day to go and vote. The idea behind the spot is that the #1 reason people gave in the last US election for not voting was a lack of time.
It’s (unsurprisingly…) well put together and it’s brilliant that these huge corporate organisations are being proactive in encouraging democracy. However, if there is a massive turnout for this election it won’t be down to this, or various other, ‘get the vote out’ campaigns. What leads to high turnout is a civically engaged population, educated in the issues facing them, inspired by a political message and given a clear choice at election time. The vehicles for ensuring such circumstances are active and funded political parties. Still, things like this can’t hurt.
How does your candidate / brand measure up online?
Measuring the success of one’s campaign is, obviously, rather an important aspect of advertising. A company called MotiveQuest has developed a way of measuring the online chatter surrounding a brand – they’ve dubbed it their ‘Online Promoter Score’. As a showcase for their measuring technique, they’ve developed a microsite to predict the outcome of the US Presidential election.
Using the websphere to develop hype around one’s brand is a key facet to a successful campaign. Having someone to measure your online buzz and suggest ways to improve it, is an absolute ‘must’ for any brand hoping to cut it these days.
Here in full, the Barack Obama 30 minute informercial that screened across three national broadcast channels last night. It features the stories of four middle-class Americans and is almost entirely focused on the economic challenges that face the US. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, of ‘Inconvenient Truth’ fame, it uses a combination of a sentimental narratives and hard hitting political documentary.
Running an advert this long during prime viewing time is not without risks: accusations of hubris, boring the electorate, interfering with regular programming, amongst others. Overall, I think the programme was successful in its’ aim to show the electorate exactly who Barack Obama is and what he stands for.
I appreciate this blog is getting fairly Obama heavy, but I just couldn’t ignore this one. A spoof on the brilliant Budweiser ‘True’ (2000) campaign, we see the guys from the Bud advert 8 years later (i.e after 8 years of Republican government). A brilliant viral for attracting the young, urban electorate. If there were as many virals coming out that got to the rural and socially conservative with same accuracy, Obama’s campaign could tell the chubby lady in the wings to put down the bargain bucket and start warbling.
In this spot we see McCain using footage of an Obama speech that praises the Republican candidate’s work on a piece of environmental legislation. The Republican campaign’s attempt to use the fact that people believe and trust in Obama to their benefit, by pointing out that he has ONCE thought McCain has done something correct, is a truly bizarre strategy. It comes accross like McCain is eager to seek the praise of his superior. A truly terrible advert.
A report today from Synovate likens the two US Presidential candidates to brands. Being very interested in brands in the traditional / non-political sense, this was of real interest. Synovate relate Obama’s focus on issues that are close to the hearts of the public - education, healthcare and economics – to Nokia’s ‘You, You, You’ approach. Whilst McCain set’s his stall out based on his own interests - war and Iraq – which is more similar to Apple’s ‘you come to me’ approach. Not the brands that I would immediately attach to the two candidates but it’s an interesting observation.
There’s been a load of articles in the last few days about the US Election being the first YouTube election. Here’s a particularly good one with reference to the situation in the UK by Noelle McElhatton.
UK political parties are so far behind their American counterparts in many facets of marketing, but particular with regards to digital. We’ve yet to experience a truly internet influenced election. I recently wrote a research paper on the online campaigns of candidates in The Labour Party’s Deputy Leadership election of 2007 (if you’d like a copy drop me a comment); essentially the findings were ‘could do significantly better’ . Use of video clips was minimal on campaign sites, YouTube was virtually empty of content and a few candidates sites were barely updated throughout the campaign.
I’ll be amazed (but delighted!) if, come the next general election in the UK, I’ll have a quarter as much content to be able to refer to as I’ve had for Obama vs McCain.
In this poster, put up in Manhattan on the eve of poll, Barck Obama is turned into a white man and John McCain is made black. The poster is designed to make the electorate focus on policy and not race. This style of photographic manipulation has been used by the ‘Kick racism out of football’ campaign in the UK and always powerfully relates the futility of those that judge people on the basis of their skin. A fantastic poster and hopefully an effectual one.
After the successful election of Obama and his campaign receiving the highest plaudits from anyone with a vague interest in politics or advertising, it was obvious that anyone seeking election across the world would try and borrow a few ideas.
I was wondering how far anyone would push it… Having seen Benjamin Netanyahu’s website, the answer is - REALLY QUITE QUITE FAR. Included in the rip-off are: the colors, the fonts, the icons for donating and volunteering, the use of embedded video, and the social networking Facebook-type options. They didn’t quite stretch to ‘yes we can’, but I’ll bet you a fiver it won’t be long until someone has the gumption to go for it.
This New Zealand Labour Party commercial ran in the week leading up to parliamentary election polling day on November 8th; the NZ Labour Party were incumbents and lost.
Mary is a voter considering voting for the opposition but who ‘just doesn’t quite trust’ the leader in these difficult economic times. A highly negative spot that says little about values or ideas of the incumbent, but plays on the fears of electorate.
The lighting is dark, the tone is downbeat and there is literally nothing remotely positive about it. It’s a last ditch attempt to haul back those being tempted elsewhere and far from a rallying cry behind a cause or idea. I hate these sorts of adverts, I’d love to see some research as to their effectiveness – can anyone enlighten me?
Sarah Palin is being used as a marketing tool for Travel Alaska! This is a very shrewd move both from the tourism board of Alaska as well as those keen for a Palin presidential push in 2012.
It’s good for Travel Alaska: in the month after her nomination was announced, response to direct mail was up 20%. And it’s very good for Palin because it’ll get her into households across America without any political baggage, and for free!
Travel Alaska keeping her as their brand ambassador post-election reminds me of Virgin Mobile keeping Kate Moss in their adverts immediately after the exposure of her white powder (not snowy Alaskan mountain tops…) indulgences. Such a public “we’re still with you”, done at the right time can draw a line in the sand and propel the ambassador and the brand to even greater heights.
The infamous Labour ‘Tax Bombshell’, that was first used by the Conservative’s to prevent Neil Kinnock’s seemingly inevitable election in 1992, is back! The poster, which has been reported on in most national newspapers, is also being printed onto vans that are driving around shoppping areas in London; as well as this 200,000 leaflets warning that government borrowing will soar to £100bn by 2010 will be handed out at commuter stations and target constituencies.
The poster isn’t simply relevant to (and a bit sentimental fun for) those of us sad enough to remember the political communication of the Conservative Party under John Major. The communication is a clever, seasonal way to hammer home the message that bank bailouts, VAT reductions and tax cuts don’t come for free.
Gordon can at least take comfort in the fact that once the holiday period is over, so will the relevancy of the poster, therefore it won’t hound him all the way to the next election. However, this is a brilliantly timed and well executed piece of political advertising that will strike a small but significant body blow to the government.
I just read a brilliant piece on ‘Talent imitates, genius steals’ (TIGS) about those who set out to create ‘a viral’. He rightly points out that the word ‘viral’ (when used in the context of communication) refers to a process by which people pass on to their friends stuff they like, find interesting and generally want other people to see. In TIGS’s words “Viral is a thing that happens, not a thing that is. If people pass your communication on, it’s viral. If they don’t, it’s not.”
This is a lesson UK political parties badly need to learn. Political parties seem to think that if they stick a standard party political broadcast on YouTube then it will become viral. It won’t, because if you send someone a dry, dull broadcast your friends will think that you are dry and dull. Social communication is a currency, people have a personal stake in what they choose to send on – it says something about them.
It is for this reason, as TIGS points out, that if you let people get involved with your content, personalise it and generally mess around with it, more people will send it on. The more it says about the individual who sends something, the more likely that person is to send it on.
The above Tony Blair / The Clash remix has over 20 times as many views as the most popular video on the UK Labour Party’s official YouTube Channel. Political parties need to encourage this sort of creative expression as much as possible in order to reach and engage with a mass audience.
The question is, will political parties in the UK have the guts (as well as creative capabilities) to allow the electorate to get involved in their oh so precious ‘message’? If they don’t, they will carry on “making virals” that about 5 people watch.
in a tight race every piece of communication counts
The above is a truly terrible piece of political communication for the following reasons: You can’t clearly see who the person in the photo is; you can’t read the message on the banner; the banner is poorly made / hung; the location of where the banner is hung looks run-down and unappealing.
I was turned off by the campaign even before I could be bothered to read into what it was trying to achieve.This is the sort of communication that constituency level politicians subject on their electorate all too often.It’s no wonder people at worst, don’t trust and at best, are disengaged with local politics when this is the level of engagement.
Now to give some context that will further damage the communication.The campaign, being orchestrated by Andy Slaughter MP (pictured), is raising concerns with the newly opened Westfield Shopping centre which resides within Andy’s constituency (Ealing, Acton, Shepherds Bush).Below is what his campaign is up against…
Andy Slaughter will soon be fighting for a very marginal seat in the next general election where communicating effectively will be essential to victory. This is just one example of how a local politician has let himself down with a poorly executed campaign. I know Andy is a hardworking MP and genuinly cares about the issues surround this campaign, but this looks lazy and complacent. When brands / politicians get lazy and complacent, they get overtaken.
The press has covered in detail the absolute howler that the Conservative Party made in their most recent party political broadcast so I won’t go over it again. The ‘real life people with real problems’ angle on political advertising is one of the classics, but as we saw with the infamous ‘Jennifer’s Ear’ incident in 1992, if you’re going to do it you’ve got to be one million per cent sure that your case study is water tight and gaff proof.
Other than this monumental balls up, the broadcast is simply incredibly dull. It’s my passion to spend time over-analysing political communication and I nearly switched over after about a minute. Politicians are constantly dumbfounded by why they’re percieved by the public as dry and tedious – one of the (many) reasons is because during one of the few times they are given a chance of direct, untainted communication with nation on TV, they bore the knickers off them.
[Apologies that this is a time after the broadcast, I've been on holiday. It was lovely, thanks.]
There have been two very interesting legal decisions surrounding political advertising in the last week that means the UK could experience 3rd party political advertising on TV similar to the above commercial screened in the USA this week (yes, i have used a cool ad to get you to read my thoughts on slightly dry EU law…).
Firstly, Channel S have been fined for advertising two Liberal Democrat candidates during this years London Mayoral and GLA elections.
This ruling in itself is not massively interesting, until one considers that the European Court of Human Rights ruled this week that Norway’s ban on political advertising on television was in breach of peoples’ right to freedom of expression – Article 10 of the Human Rights Act (for more legal detail see Ofcomwatch and Lex Feranda, both interesting blogs surrounding media and the law). I assume that such a ruling means that the UK will have to revisit legislation that bans political advertising on TV (I’m not a lawyer…)?
Even if it has no binding effect, perhaps it’s time to relax the rules anyway. The current legislation is designed to prevent wealthy organisations being able to buy public opinion on political issues / elections - an accusation which is levied at the USA which is relatively unregulated with regards to political advertising. Whilst I broadly agree with this principle, as online media consumption increases such legislation will become more and more irrelevant; that’s not to say that money = online success, but it certainly helps.
I will be very interested to see how this legal issue unfolds…
This route has been tried before (and largely failed) with the ‘Dave the Chameleon’ ppb of 2006. The reason it failed is that people might accept that David Cameron has changed his mind, but that does not mean they are willing to distrust him. People are irrational in this sense.
The aim of the ‘Dave the Chameleon’ advert and the above script is to get people to agree with the following two statements:
(1)”I think David Cameron has changed his position on various issues”
(2) “I don’t trust David Cameron”
Both the above script and ‘Dave the Chameleon’ would no doubt increase the number of people agreeing with statement (1) but I fear they would not lead to agreeing with statement (2).
The reason, is that statement (1) is a factual statement. Statement (2) is an emotional statement. To get people to change their mind on something factual is relatively simple: you show them compelling evidence. To get someone to change the way they feel emotionally about something, is much more difficult.
I’ll give you an example to explain this more clearly:
In the 1980’s Pepsi commissioned some blind taste-testing of Coca-Cola vs Pepsi. The results came in that Americans preferred the taste of Pepsi to Coca Cola when they were unaware of the brand. Pepsi ran a load of adverts to tell the USA that people preferred Pepsi. This was a very rational way to approach changing people’s minds from choosing Coke to choosing Pepsi. Whilst Pepsi ran adverts trying to ‘prove’ a ‘fact’ about their drink, Coca Cola made ads like this:
The problem with the above script is that the public don’t seem to distrust David Cameron and I fear to get them to do so would lead to ‘New Labour, New Danger’ territory. Gordon Brown needs to build his emotional appeal with the public on his own terms and that is what Labour’s communication should be trying to do. I’m not saying that having the public distrust the opposition is a bad tactic, it just seems that this tactic was tried – quite rightly – early doors but has been proven to be lacking.
Political campaign guru Evan Tracey has compiled a playlist of videos and analysis from throughout the Obama vs McCain campaign that is well worth a look at.
The above video came from Tracey’s playlist and is an example of the sort of emotive advertising, that I mentioned earlier in the week, was badly needed in UK political communication. Brian Donahue just a wrote a very interesting piece on political advertising and emotion that is definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in this stuff, the crux of this thoughts are that:
“Emotional appeals almost always trump rational appeals when attempting to gain political support or create negative views about an opponent. Voters are more apt to create positive or negative feelings about an issue or candidate through emotions and sentiments rather than rational or logical arguments”
The lesson, at it’s most basic, is that one can trigger an emotional response from an audience by showing / telling them something that they are familiar with – in order to build up an expectation – and then suddenly deviating from it, which creates a punchline or ‘message’. The above clip is a great example of such a technique in action.
We learn such emotive techniques from a young age with ’knock-knock’ or ‘why did the chicken cross the road’ jokes. We subconsciously learn that by using a familiar opening remark we can create humour by suddenly changing away from the expected conclusion.
Another example: if you consider successful comedy sketch shows such as ‘Harry Endfield and Chums’ or ‘Little Britain’ (amongst others), they have a set of characters with a relatively tight set of comic traits. These would eventually stop being funny if they simply executed them in the same way over and over again. The way in which they are kept fresh is by constantly inventing new ways of disrupting the expected narrative of a scene. The ultimate (if only political) example of this was Catherine Tait and Tony Blair’s sketch for Comic Relief.
The Budweiser / Obama spot did this fantastically, as did The Conservative Party’s Christmas themed ‘tax bombshell’ . Using this creative tension of expectation and punch line can provide a devastating political blow, as well as some interesting advertising!
It’s as if those kind people down at the Independent on Sunday felt like giving me a late Christmas present. The Independent on Sunday asked 6 advertising agencies to produce posters for a prospective 2009 General Election. Here are all 10, with analysis, starting with the worst and ending with the best:
0 / 10
This advertisement is so unoriginal I almost didn’t bother including it. What a complete rip off. And, not only is it a rip off (which is possibly forgiveable), but it is also irrelevant.
The reason why the orginal advertisement worked was that in the public’s mind whenever they saw William Hague they saw an over-enthusiastic ‘tory boy’ who still hankered for a Thatcher-stlye of government. No one wanted someone who gave a rousing speech to Conservative Party Conference as a 15 year-old, during a Thatcher government, to be their next Prime Minister. That’s why the original was clever, funny, poignant and relevant. Trying to link David Cameron with Margaret Thatcher, politically or historically, is a terrible, terrible strategy. And yet, this creative execution somehow manages to do a disservice to it.
As well as all that, if you’re a political party that has been in government for 11 years and you’re putting out advertising with copy that reads “things could be far worse”, the public aren’t exactly going to thank you for it.
1 / 10
If you were trying to sell a Mars chocolate bar, would you put as the headline on your poster “Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate tastes fantastic!”? No, you wouldn’t. Even if you had left plenty of space on the poster to then include a series of hilarious and incisive counter-arguments against the title statement, you would still sell less chocolate bars than if you had simply said, in big, bold letters: “Mars chocolate bars taste fantastic!”.
The same is true with ‘attack’ political advertisements. People spend a fraction of time reading a poster, and even less if the subject matter is politics. To dedicate that brief moment of interaction to telling them: “David Cameron’s got the X-factor” – with a big, full colour photo of David Cameron beneath it – is not going to leave them with a gritty determination to go out and vote Labour.
2 / 10
The main problem with this advertisement is that it quite clearly doesn’t answer the brief. A criminal error in adland. The brief was essentially ‘make a political advertisement for a general election in 2009′. Unless the election is held in December 2009, this is an absolute turkey. There are numerous other things wrong with this, but none that quite so bad as giving the client something they can’t possibly use.
3 / 10
Let me have a guess at how this execution got devised…”So…the Labour government has borrowed lots of money… and there was also a fairly average film a few years ago called ‘The Borrowers’… so why don’t we replace the faces of the characters from the film ‘The Borrowers’ with the faces of leading figures from the Labour Government!”
Not many people saw, remember or liked the film ‘The Borrowers’. And certainly not enough people to justify using it as the spearhead of a political strategy to get a party elected who have never governed this country before.
4 / 10
This poster tries to liken Gordon Brown to a benefit thief. It’s not very obvious why he’s like a benefit thief; I suppose the substantiation is that “Gordon Brown’s [percieved] various failures have unfairly taken from the public purse – like that of a benefit thief”. Not exactly the easiest cognitive leap. ‘Difficult’ advertising – like that of The Economist – can be very powerful if the message is worth the intellectual ‘get’. In this case it’s not.
The advertisement also relies on people having seen, ‘got’ and remembered a previous advertising campaign for a different cause. Like a bad dinner party guest, this poster asks for a lot and gives very little in return.
6 / 10
This poster makes two points. 1) We’re in a recession. 2) It’s Labour’s fault.
The image of Canary Wharf with the lights out is a powerful one. It resonates strongly with people’s fears that the UK economy is in a very bad way. The title copy ‘Recession. Proof.’ cleverly makes a mockery of claims that Gordon Brown made, not so long ago, about ending boom and bust economics.
The copy at the base of the poster is overly long-winded. Something shorter and snappier like ‘Labour’s turned the lights off on the British economy’ (deliberate reference to THAT Sun headline) would be more commanding.
6 / 10
Alastair Darling’s eyebrow/hair colour combination is very funny. Putting it on a massive poster and taking the piss out of it would certainly win you some votes. I think this poster would be helped with a bit of substantiation, mainly as I’ve never listened to Alastair Darling for long enough to know what he’s promised us in the past… not that I think it would match up with what the economy’s doing now… it would just make the poster that much more powerful.
7 / 10
This is another amusing piece of mickey-taking. It likens Brown and Darling to the accident-prone comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. Brilliantly simple copy writing and the image encourages a gentle, albeit morbid, chuckle. A nice simple way to link in people’s minds the Prime Minister and the Chancellor as a couple of hapless jokers who you wouldn’t want running your country.
8 / 10
A simple idea, executed very cleanly. It definitely couldn’t be a poster but would be very powerful as a newspaper insertion.
It communicates to people that tax cuts don’t come for nothing, particularly in our current economic circumstance. The reducing size of the text also highlights the relatively minor amount of VAT that has been removed. The fact that the ‘we will tax you for it in the future’ is in the smallest print reinforces the message that the government might try and recoup losses using much publicised ’stealth taxes’.
9 / 10
Brutally simple. For a change the Conservative Party are harnessing the intense, raging properties of the Labour red to help hammer home their message that the blame for the recession resides with the Labour Party. This poster encapsulates a lot of the anger some of the population will be feeling towards the government and it gives the impression that the Conservative Party understand such sentiments and are on their side. A fantastic poster.
As Israel is undoubtedly the topic of the day, here’s the latest Obama electoral parodoy to impact the Israeli elections. The video is a version of ‘Obama Girl’ and is in support of front-running prime ministerial candidate Tzipi Livni. However funny / cringeworthy the video is, such content will be colossally overshadowed by communication that tries to frame how candidates have performed during these grave events.
It’s slightly worrying that I’m already looking forward to singing and dancing ‘Cameron Chameleons’ or ‘Boom and busting-a-move Browns’…
The Labour Party have just created an imitation of what a Cameron ‘Shadow WebCabinet’ meeting might look like.
The video takes the form of an msn-style messenger service and includes message entries from George Osborne, Oliver Letwin, Andrew Lansley, William Hague and David Cameron.
The main thrust of the attack is that the Conservative Party haven’t got a clue about what their position is on dealing with the financial troubles facing the country. Not only that but Cameron’s more concerned about being seen to be modern and cool rather than caring about the economy.
There’s some funny digs at Hague for being protective of his after-dinner entertainment and Cameron’s use of ’street’ language is quite witty. However, the continued attempt to link Cameron with Norman Lamont and the fall out of the ERM is misguided.
It’s not funny enough to go on for as long as it does and contains too many niche references for it to become ‘viral’. But in terms of giving the party faithful something to chuckle at, not too bad at all!
It will be interesting to see if it makes the news media tomorrow.
Just picked up on this video on Recess Monkey. The clip relates to the fact that many of Cameron’s Shadow Cabinet have refused, upon being asked by their leader, to give up their lucrative second jobs. Not only has Alan Duncan MP, the Shadow Business Secretary, not given up his nice little earner, but he has also opted to miss Cameron’s tour of the regions and go on a luxury skiing holiday!
The charm of this video is that it is clearly amateur and put together quickly and yet is very poignant and witty. It goes to show you that you don’t need lots of money to make a relatively powerful piece of political advertising. The levity of the tone, the humour of the copy and the curtness of clip means that it’s the exact sort of thing I’d send to a friend.
This is not political advertising as this edition of the comic was commissioned by Marvel not Obama’s team.
However, this is an example of what many advertising agencies are starting to think about with regards to their brands.As people become more difficult to reach through traditional means, making creative, fictional content which people will actively pursue (that features the brand in some respect at the core) will become an increasingly desirable avenue for advertisers (including political parties).
For example of a production agency who are doing just this sort of work for brands check out www.upset.tv
This is the latest campaign video from the Conservatives. It highlights the £17,000 debt that every child born in Britain today will inherit.
Some very powerful emotional cues here: a baby suckling on a bottle, a soft female voice accompanied with nursery style music.
Deliberately or not, the reference to Burke’s conservative mantra of government for ‘those who are living, those who are dead and those who are yet to be born’ is very clever.
It is a measured and considered criticism of the government with a positive message for change as the end line. A great spot.
The aim of this spot is to bring home to people (an opinion on) the reality of the consequences of the government’s spending – past, present and future. The clip aims to pin the blame, clearly and simply on the Labour government.
The brief: get our message across as clearly as possible whilst making it entertaining enough for people to sit through it.
Let’s get this bit out of the way first, this is a slight rip-off The Girl Effect campaignin the use of text art and the soundtrack progression. But as they say, talent imitates and genius steals.
The copy is simply, powerfully and convincingly written. The way in which the text comes together to make images gives the clip heightened interest at the same time as further emphasising the points made in the wording. In short, this execution delivers on the brief perfectly.
The soundtrack is well chosen (again… VERY similar to ‘The Girl Effect…’). The point where the key adjusts to a more positive tone, whilst simultaneously the visual messages begin to focus around The Conservative’s message of ‘change’ amplifies the impression of their being a clear choice between the two parties.
The black and red colours at the start of spot have negative emotional connotations. When the message changes to talk about the Conservatives agenda, they change to light blue and white, which ignites sentiments of positivity and Britishness.
This spot is like nothing seen before in British moving picture political advertising and represents a substantial raising of the bar. Quite simply: fantastic.
This is a witty (and rapid) response from a Labour Party supporter to the Conservative Party spot released earlier this week. The clip points out all the legislation that the Labour government has implemented since 1997 intended to benefit children which, according to the video, would not have happened under a Tory government.
It’s a shame there’s not a better endline. Considering the clip is referring to things that have happened (a while ago…) the line using the present tense ‘This is no time for amateurs’ doesn’t quite work. If it was referring to current or future initiatives it would have worked fine.
This video is pointing out that William Hague, since resigning as leader of his party, has made a load of cash. The clip is arguing that such a ‘part-time politician’ should not have been promoted to be the (effective) Deputy Leader of The Opposition.
The main problem with this line of attack is that people don’t mind that William Hague is a successful businessmen and after-dinner speaker.Most people’s major gripe with politicians is that they’ve never had a ‘proper job’ and they’re incredibly dull.The fact that Hague is very funny and successful is a plus point for The Conservatives in the eyes of the electorate.
On another note, why – as a Labour supporter – would you make a video which featured one of the leading members of the Conservative Party displaying his rhetorical confidence and charisma?
One of the reasons that William Hague failed as leader is that not many people knew how witty and engaging he can be (particularly in the House of Commons); trying to spread a video on the internet showing this (albeit with some irritating ‘cha chings’ over the top) is probably not the best way to go about increasing Labour’s support.
Just came across this amusing photo and video montage taking the piss out of the fact that recently George Osborne has been somewhat sidelined by Team Cameron in favour of William Hague.
This sort of quick turn around political advertising has really taken off in recent weeks, it’s very exciting that the daily election is now, genuinly, not only being contested in main stream media but also on web 2.0. I love all this material, but it has yet to reach and grab the attention of the vast majority of people. If web 2.0 is going to become the weapon that the political parties want it to be, the quality of the content needs to improve.
As can be seen with the above George Osborne attack (as well as webcabinet, if you want change, who are you kidding, going down hill and how many words) whilst there’s plenty of wit and intelligence on display, the level of executional excellence is very low. Hence, none of the videos have become truly viral.
Getting something out quickly is, obviously, very important. But as well as piss-taking rebuttle, the Labour Party need to insure there’s a steady stream of quality, positive material that people want to pass on to their friends and not just other people interested in politics. As we know, it’s the undecided swing-voters who decide elections. Undecided swing-voters won’t find these videos that needle away at the Tories very interesting, because they won’t get the jokes.
The above video is tagged as a Labour Party political broadcast but is in fact a very aggressive tirade against many of the governments initiatives, including amongst others: the smoking ban, health warnings on cigarette packs, community support officers, various taxes and identity cards.
The emotion that pours out of this video is raw, unadulterated anger; the pure hatred that the producer of the video has for the government is conveyed emphatically. There’s nothing particularly shocking in terms of the pictures or the voice over, no agenda that hasn’t been expressed in mainstream politics. But when taken as a whole, it makes for seriously uncomfortable watching.
Alastair Campbell promotes his campaign for a 4th Labour term. It’s a slightly dry ‘talking heads’ video reminiscent of an old school party political broadcast. The style of the political advert jars with the content of the message which refers to the fact that ‘the way that people interact with politics is changing’. This clip still feels very broadcast and the website isn’t functioning yet. I can’t understand why you’d seed a video promoting a website that isn’t even live. Basic error.
The quality of this political advertisement (about the number of the Conservative Party front bench that have a second job) is so low that it barely warrented inclusion. But it brings up an interesting question around how the Labour Party is going to use it’s new web platform for social media engagement – Labourlist.
If the video was published by a random Labour supporter, the general response would be:
“Even though the quality is low, you can’t help but admire the passion of supporters who have the will and energy to put together these clips – it’s just such a shame they sometimes insist on going for those high notes!”
The difficulty is, is that it has been published by Labourlist.
Does this mean it’s an official piece of Labour Party political communication? If so, something has gone seriously wrong.
If not, it is exemplary of the problems of trying to blur the lines between ‘official’ and ‘grass roots’. You can’t have engagement, interaction and creativity at the same time as having party lines, moderation and hierarchy.
The most important question of all about this video is: will it pip D-REAM ‘Things can only get better’ for the disco anthem of Labour Students Conference 2009? About as much chance as this video has in convincing William Hague to stick to one job.
David Cameron and John McCain at Conservative Party Conference
A few Labour bloggers have cleverly seized on the inauguration of Obama to remind people of the fact that the Conservatives are politically and ideologically linked with the Republican Party in the USA. The clip below makes the point in quite an amusing way. People like to back a winner, so in political advertising it’s always important to give your candidate, party or cause an aura of progress and success whilst linking your opposition with failure, bankruptcy and breakdown.
A pick of the best recent brand advertisments that use politicians in their communication. Not political advertising as such, more like advertising with politicians. First up, Ben and Jerry’s jump on the Obama brand bandwagon (thanks to Adam for this one):
Ben and Jerry's take on 'Yes we can'
On the day that George Bush left office, Veet (a hair removal product) placed this advertisment in the Metro to say goodbye:
Great copy and brilliant media planning.
Virgin Active try to lighten up Westminster:
It'll take more than a treadmill or two to lighten up Westminster
This is another standard (terrible) party political broadcast released recently. It’s wallpaper. There’s literally nothing of interest to it. It had under 100 views in its’ first two days. That’s not even everyone who works for the SDLP. Why politicians think people will watch and engage with a broadcast when they chunter on for 5 minutes over stock-looking footage is beyond me. Have they not realised that at the click of a mouse or a touch of a button they could be watching almost anything else conceivable.
US pollster Mark Penn conducted a survey of politico’s for some ‘readers awards’ for the 2008 US Presidential election. The winners were decided on the basis of 475 votes cast by the subscribers of Politics Magazine. Here are the tv political advertisements that won gold, silver and bronze in the catergory of Best TV Spot of 2008 in the US Presidential Election:
It sounds like some within the Labour Party are finally starting to get it! This upbeat from video Go Fourth is saying all the right things to try to re-engage their membership. Recognising that command control is outdated (and generally not much fun unless you’re doing the commanding) and promising a change of campaigning style is exactly what the members will want to hear.
This advert should serve as a wake-up to those in charge of the party as to the sort of communications they should be putting out every week. Compare this with ‘webcabinet’ and which would you prefer to watch?
Prescott’s video is upbeat, positive, inexpensive and engaging. I’m not saying this is a perfect piece of political communication, it’s just infinitely better than the dross that has been dribbling out of Labour Party HQ.
I picked up on this very slick new video by Iraq Veterans Against the War on The Spot today. The high spec animation combined with the matter of fact voice over gives this commercial a very rational feel to it.
The makers, Veterans Against the War, have cleverly realised that because of the media saturation of highly emotional ‘war-time suffering’ footage, there is a need for a different approach in order to get their message to cut through.
Picking the right tone for the right time is absolutely fundamental to political advertising. This spot has judged that the mood in the US is one for pragmatic action, not tugging at heart strings. The message the advert drives home is: “with the election of Obama the battle of ideas around the war is over, these…. are the reasons why we’re right. Now let’s get on with getting the troops home.”
I am DESPERATE for someone to make a mash-up piece of political advertising involving: Alistair Darling’s eyebrows, the state of the economy and the new Cadbury’s commercial (below).
If only I had the animating skills! If anyone out there does – there’s a bar of chocolate in it for you!
It seems that 2009 is the year that the Labour Party have decided to get their act together on the internet. The EPLP site is the third website launch in as many weeks (Labourlist and Go Fourth).
This is a video I’ve grabbed off the aforementioned EPLP website. The brief was obviously to introduce Labour’s MEPs and give people an idea as to what they do with their time.
It’s done in a very ‘corporate video’ manner. There’s no real story or Big Idea driving the broadcast. And, they’ve used the old (dull) trusty formula of “stock-footage, interspersed with Important Politician talking about their values”.
The thing to remember, however, is that this is not the leading piece of political communication for the European elections later this year. It is a video to give more information to those who are already interested enough to have made their way to the EPLP site. In that respect, this video is fine.
To get people out to vote Labour in the EU elections in June, the Labour Party will need something substantially more interesting.
I picked up on this very amusing little mash-up of John Prescott’s recent through the line media coverage on Recess Monkey. It’s an unashamed rip-off of the clip below but is very funny nonetheless. It’s good to see that Go Fourth are embracing the light side of political communication, they’ll be much more successful for it.
Compare the above commercial with the ‘Warning! Tory Public Spending Cuts’ political advertising that the Labour Party ran in the last general election and you’ll realise just how far the UK has got to go before our political advertising starts to regularly, genuinely change peoples’ minds about issues.
It was released last week by The Hospital Association of New York in response to budgetary cuts by their State Governor (thanks to The Spot for this one). The first person perspective and hysterical parents hammer home the brief: that you never know how much you value your local hospital until it’s not there.
A clever little video trying to show David Cameron as a statesman that is ready for government. The relaxed, informal atmosphere of clip makes him seem personable and approachable - two things the British love in their public figures.
Catherine Bennett has launched an absolute tirade against the Labour Party’s recent spate of website launching (Labourlist, Gofourth and EPLP) in the Observer today. The main point that the article makes is that the Labour Party can launch as many new platforms of engagement and interaction as they want, but without a core idea driving their overall communication it’ll be ineffectual.
With successful brands there is nearly always a single, central and all encompassing idea to the communication they put out. For Guinness it’s ‘Wait‘, for The Economist it’s ‘Join‘ and for Mars it’s ‘Play‘. The Conservative’s message is and will be ‘change’.
Until the Labour Party have decided what their message is, no matter how many websites or platforms are launched, the opinion polls will continue to be depressing reading.
You know you’re the coolest politician that has ever lived when you’ve got some of the world’s cutting edge DJs, artists and directors making a mixed media mash-up to celebrate and promote your inauguration.
I won’t rehash the arguments I made here about the problems with this script / video but I will extend them slightly:
To get the electorate to be suspicious of David Cameron, the Labour Party need to find something at the core of his character or agenda in which the electorate have genuine and fundamental doubts.In brand communication this observation and understanding of the target market is referred to as ‘an insight’; no successful advertising can be made without one.
The reason why the Labour Party haven’t been able to produce any successful negative political advertising is that they haven’t found an insight into David Cameron – character or policy agenda – which makes the majority of the British public feel uncomfortable.
Which is why these supporters have had to resort to picking out and rehashing quotes from speeches he made when first elected that didn’t work in 2005 and won’t work now.
I’ve just been made aware of this new campaign website launched for ‘The map of the gaps’ – a campaign run by End Violence Against Women and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The aim of the campaign as a whole is to push the government to make sure that every woman and girl who has suffered violence has the right to specialised support to enable them to create safety and rebuild their lives.
What was impressive about the site is how simply it made its message relevant for every person that visited and subsequently involved them in the campaign. There’s no point in dedicating a website to saturating visitors with general reasons for supporting the campaign. You’ve got to engage with people on a personal level and then make it easy to carry out a call to action.
Visitors are shown in a very clear, (relatively) visually interesting way exactly the spread of relevant services in their area and the rest of the country. Other functionality include being able to send a message directly to your MP simply by entering a postcode.
This is a great example of a simple, well executed and (one would assume) relatively cheap website for a political campaign. Now the key will be making fresh, interesting, interactive content whilst building (and engaging in existing) online communities to create a coalition behind the campaign.
Paid for political advertising is a rarity in print media in the UK and this is the first time I have seen a paid for party political banner impression. The creative is very basic, essentially a flyer for the campaign stuck on to a web page with a link. Whilst such banners, as featured above, are more restrictive than rich media online spaces, animation and a greater level of energy and engagment are certainly possible.
It is interesting that the Tories have used Message Space, the public affairs online media specialists. One might wonder why given that floating voters who might be persuaded one way or another by a banner advertisement are unlikely to be frequent visitors to websites such as LabourHome or Guido Fawkes.
The reason is that this part of their strategy will be to try and convert online supporters, who read and engage in the Message Space portfolio of political sites, into digital activists and advocates – online foot soldiers at the next election.
The above commercial for Peta was banned from being aired during the Super Bowl in order to avoid causing offense to the American public. Well it offended me, not because of its sexual nature, but because it is so completely crap.
If an organisation is serious about making people ‘Go Veg’, as oppose to grubby headline grabbing, there is any number of compelling rational and emotional messages to communicate. Saying ‘Veggies have better sex’ and then not even trying to back it up is so ridiculously pathetic that I can’t believe a supposedly serious organisation paid to have it made.
Kevin Coyne is having a go at using new media to promote his candidacy in the upcoming Unite Union General Secretary elections. However, like the worst sort of political speeches, it feels slightly ‘box ticky’; almost like it’s going through the motions. There’s no passion and enthusiasm emerging from any of the political advertising. You can use new media as much as you like, but the media will always be secondary to the style and inspiration of the communication – which in this case is lacking.
It’s like his campaign manager has gone to a ‘how to campaign like Obama’ event and gathered that in order to win an election all you have to do is: use the word ‘Change’ in your slogan, have a blog, make online donation easy, start a facebook group and have literature to download and pass on.
Don’t get me wrong, using these media channels is essential in an election campaign, but that doesn’t change the fact that the message you’re communicating via these channels has to be motivating and coherent as well as look appealing and attractive. You can use all the new media channels in the world, if you’re communication looks and reads as boring and amateur as this (below) nobody is going to want to engage with it.
now do you see why I put it at the bottom of the article.
Quite an amusing piece of political communication. It’s well put together, has a great soundtrack and gets the message across that Sarkozy doesn’t think much of recent economic policy very quickly and wittily.
They’re not helped by the fact that their campaign has no arresting visual material, online or offline. However I like the fact that they obviously decided this was a great campaign to run and didn’t hang around talking about or making it perfect, they just shoved it out there.
In political advertising the idea is everything, the execution – provided it’s not so shabby it’s painful to engage with - is very much secondary.
UPDATE: They’ve got a logo! The use of the ‘£’ to insight negative connotational cues is slightly misguided as, after all, RBS are a bank and ‘£’ are their business. But it’s a logo nonetheless and it will help the virility of the campaign.
Many people have issues with Labour List practically and conceptually, but only Raplog has used the medium of hip-hop to declare his (I picked this up on Iain Dale, cheers). Inspired.
I went to the Labour List launch event this morning which took the form of a ‘bloggers breakfast’; the above video was played out prior to Mandelson speaking.As well as Mandelson, there was a range of speakers all asserting the case for the Labour Party being the party of new media.
A more informal format that allowed the congregation of bloggers and politicians to converse would have been far more useful and exciting.What’s the point in gathering an element of the bloggersphere if you’re going to simply give them pastries and talk at them? It felt very broadcast and not very social.
Peter Mandelson highlighted that the most important factor in winning the battle of ideas in online political communication was having the most interesting / humorous / inspiring content.As has been pointed out on this blog before, the Labour Party have not produced any decent content since the advent of web 2.0.I have never forwarded on anything the Labour Party has produced to any ‘non-political’ friends of mine, as if I did, they would think I wasterminally dull.
This is the party’s biggest challenge: coming up with a big, compelling, believable idea which inspires party supporters to start producing diverse political advertising that people will be willing to send on to the ‘undecided’ masses.
A really interesting article about the thin line between advertising government legislation and the ruling party disseminating propaganda. In this particular case, Liam Byrne wants to promote the Government’s anti-recession measures in an umbrella campaign. Given the fact that there is by no means consensus on this agenda – it’s not exactly a drink driving campaign – it would be borderline to say the least.
No, you’re eyes don’t decieve you. This is the most tenuous bastardisation of Obama’s campaign yet. The advertisement for plumbing, guttering and decay repair (amongst others) came through my front door this morning. It is particularly amusing given the deployment of ‘Joe the Plumber’ by John McCain as an example of how Obama’s economic policies would be to the detriment of small business.
David Cameron has aluded to the tedium of the every political party, business, man and his dog trying to learn the lessons of Obama’s success. That having been said, on Thursday night I went to a really good event featuring Matthew McGregor (of Blue State Digital) and Tom Miller on the very subject of learning online lessons from across the pond, hosted by Compass.
They rightly highlighted that a central aim of political communication via the internet is to provoke an action from the reciever. Be it to donate money, time or simply to pass it on to a friend. The concept of advertising – political or not – being an active process is not a new one. But few organisations have genuinely internalised the fact that the internet enables immediate reaction and that therefore a siginificant part of any online message should be prompting such an instant response.
If you’ve reached this post via a search engine and are looking for a West London handyman, I’d hate for your first visit to be a disappointment:
West London Handyman, political chit-chat not included.
I just came across this poster for Put People First, an umbrella campaign for a huge number of organisations lobbying across a variety of policy issues. The campaign is trying to get people to march in London on March 28th ahead of the G20 summit on April 2nd.
There are any number of campaigns organising events that relate to the issues being addressed by this organisation throughout the year, but what makes this one stand out is the awesome poster design. The vibrant colours and the focus on people’s feet are particularly appealing.
The website is also clean, simple and effective – the only obvious thing lacking is the ability to sign up for email updates (that mind sound a bit 1998, but ask anyone in the travel industry – possibly the most competitive of all online markets – and they’ll tell you about the importance of email as marketing tool).
A very funny and compelling video promoting honest labelling of food, produced by the Conservative Party. They’ve followed the tried and tested formula of “something is much funnier when said in a Dutch accent”. It wouldn’t surprise me if this became popular amongst the foodie /farmer blogosphere.
It’s really impressive that with nearly every policy announcement and campaign the Conservative Party are producing original and usually fairly interesting political advertising. The more they practice producing political communication like this (that’s not meant to sound patronising, managing the making of videos / animatics is a skill which requires practice) the more adept they will be at putting out rapid response, high quality content when it matters – at general election time.
I’ve just seen this superb piece of ambient (ambush / guerilla) advertising. A green laser is being projected as if it’s smoke coming out of an industrial coal chimney in Helsinki. It is the work of an arts duo who go by the name of HeHe (cheers Stan Lee). The campaign was designed to get local residents to think about their own energy consumption, as well as influence the national debate around climate change.
There seems to be a bit of a revival of discussion around ambient campaigns in the advertising blogosphere and, ever the bridge builder (or ’sheep’ I hear you cry), it got me wondering whether there were many examples of in situ political advertising. There was the Labour Party’s classic “now wash your hands of the tories” (mock-up below…can’t find original) in toilets of pubs and nightclubs, but it seems this is a relatively under used communication tactic. If anyone can think of any others, I’d love to hear about them.
In terms of creative opportunity and impact on the audience, ambient advertising is hard to beat. It reaches people in an unsuspected way, without the clutter of the competition and can be strategically placed to be near where the consumer is in an active mindset. How about placing ambient political advertising on popular routes near to polling stations on election day?
This political commercial is for Scott Murphy in the upcoming special election in New York State to replace Senator Kirtsten Gillibrand. I like my extended family as much as the next guy, but I would never recomend – no matter how squeeky clean appearances might be – using over 30 family members as a platform for a first campaign ad.
It immediatley brings those family members’ lives within the realm of investigation and analysis when previously they would have almost certainly been ignored. Not only does this open up the risk for potentially harmful revelations, it also places a huge and unfair burden on the choices these family members make in their lives for the entire campaign and, to an extent, the tenure of office (if he wins).
Was anything more damaging to the Conservative Party’s credibility under John Major than the “back to basics” campaign?
The Conservative’s have launched another highly populist campaign to ‘Save the Great British Pub’. It’s not very creatively executed and if Jeremy Hunt hadn’t have been talking about pubs I would have stopped watching some time before the end.
However, now the Tories have launched this campagin their supporters have a policy area, with rich creative opportunities, to start making their own material and spreading the message to their friends.
If a mate of yours wanted you to feature in a sing-a-long outside your local for a video to be posted on the internet to help save it from closure, would you agree? Probably. Even if you detest the Tories, you still love your pub. And would all your wider friendship group end up watching it on YouTube? Again, probably. And so the message that the Conservative’s are the ‘party of the pub’ will spread.
This ‘pay 2 play’ iPhone application was launched last week and enables iPhone users to have a go at being a corrupt politician. It’s inspired by the recent corruption saga of an ex-Illinois Senator Milorad “Rod” R. Blagojevich (his name genuinly contains the word ‘blag’).
The game’s description in the application store:
“Ever wanted to be an Illinois governor? Well now you can! Pay2Play is the game of trading and danger. How much money can YOU make selling senate seats? Head all over Illinois trading your way to success! You have 30 days to pay back the unions, make tons of cash, and get out of town all before getting impeached!”
Making mocking iphone applications could be the political advertising ‘attack’ medium of the future. They can impart information in a powerful yet light-hearted and interactive way. Not only that, they’re free to distribute and are the sort of thing you’d willingly show your friends.
The latest addition to my political advertising reading list arrived today – ‘30 Second Politics: political advertising in the eighties’ by Montague Kern. The cover was so kitsch / stolen from a library in Dallas, that I had to share it.
The choice of music for a campaign, as anyone who has sat in a post-production suite for days on end will tell you, is an incredibly difficult and important decision. The whole mood and message take-out of an advert can be changed if one track is chosen as oppose to another.
Audio cues play such a powerful role in affecting mood and decision making. Getting ‘the right track’ for a general election campaign is absolutely fundamental in terms of rallying supporters and setting the tone for an electoral battle, but you never hear about who in the Labour Party decided to use, for example, U2’s ‘Beautiful Day’ in 2005.
Trawling through Last FM trying to find ‘that’ song to encapsulate everything that your political party is standing for in a general election must be every music-loving-politico’s idea of heaven. Any guesses / suggestions for what Clegg, Brown or Cameron will / should be walking down the rally carpets to?
Frank Shepard Fairey (the guy who created the Obama ‘Hope’ image ) was commissioned to create a poster promoting the WWF’s 2009 Earth Hour (more info on March 28th’s big event here) and above is the fruits of his labour.
I’m not sure the title of ‘Vote Earth’ and the call to action of ‘your light switch is your vote’ is as coherent as it could have been. The logic police would call you up on the fact that if ‘your light switch is your vote’ then the two options would be ‘on’ or ‘off’ (I suppose if you say ‘earth’ in a french accent it sounds like ‘off’) and not ‘earth’.
I can see what John Howard means when he says that: “being paid-for advertising, [it] lacks something of the simplicity, immediacy and purity” of the Obama piece. It was always a risk doing an ‘environmental version’ of the Obama piece; I think Earth Hour would have got the same PR if they had commissioned Shepard Fairey to do something completely different and it wouldn’t subsequently be judged to the same extortionately high standard as ‘hope’.
I know I write about Alistair Darling’s eyebrows quite a lot, but if anyone who has any ability to get in contact with him reads this, please for the love of god get him in front of a webcam and on to this website.
Cadbury’s have made an expandable banner advert for their ‘dancing eyebrows’ campaign, but with a difference! It allows visitors to film themselves dancing with their eyebrows, submit the video for approval, and then have their video appear on the MSN homepage. But for today only!
Amnesty International has launched a print and poster campaign that highlights the use of rape as weapon in areas of conflict. The objective of the campaign is to highlight the effects of war on women and girls.
The textured close up photograph of the bullet combined with powerfully written copy and clean and simple art direction makes for a striking and emotive piece of political advertising.
South Africa holds general elections this year on April 22nd. This will be the first election where political advertising has been allowed on TV in South Africa and this is the ANC’s (and South Africa’s) first political advert – produced by Ogilvy Johannesburg.
The music score is absolutely emphatic, the tone of the protagonist is pitched perfectly and the colours and the lighting used in the production are absolutely fantastic. The message of “we’ve done so much, but we can do more” is one (of very few) that governing parties use time and again – but it is very difficult to get right. Ogilvy have got it right for the ANC here.
It is particularly impressive that the ANC have been in power for 15 years but are still coming out with positive, aspirational communication. There are 3 more in the series and I’ll try and get them all up here over the course of the election.
It’s university students’ union election season at the moment and the internet is awash with unwashed ambitious student politicians trying to grab a few votes in as grubby a way is as necessary.
Students’ union elections are notorious for having the most pun-tastic slogans and rip-offs of popular culture. Ross Stalker thought “to hell with all those slogans and jazzy public relations exercises, I’m a man of substance and I’ll let my policies and manifesto do the talking”.
I just found this absolutely hilarious, hats off to you Ross Stalker, I hope you’re duly elected Academic Services Convener at Edinburgh University Students’ Association.
This is the latest in a string of attack adverts in the US by a labor-related group called Americans United for Change. The adverts are trying to cement in the minds of American people that Rush Limbaugh – an ultra-conservative radio talk show host – is the intellectual leader of the Republicans.
This commercial tries to portray the Republican ‘leader’ as trying to do everything he can to make Obama – and therefore America – fail. Opposition leaders always have a tough time in the early period of a new popular administration and being overly aggressive in your political communication can allow the government to label you a naysayer.
Gordon Brown has launched a campaign called “Real help now”. The above print has been running in national newspapers this week. The ‘Real help now’ campaign states its objectives as helping the British public through the recession.
The government advertising various measures that might help people through a recession is in itself, obviously, unproblematic. However, “real help now” is a slogan that Gordon Brown has been using regularly since the start of the economic difficulties and often as a rallying cry against what he has dubbed the “do nothing” Conservative Party.
To launch a government funded national campaign by the same / very similar slogan which you have been using to politically attack the Opposition sails VERY close to the proverbial propaganda wind.
I just got made aware of this fantastic widget produced by Apex Communications (part of Euro RSCG) for the Axe the Beer Tax campaign.
You enter the number of pints of beer you drink a week and click on the fruit machine lever to reveal on the fruit machines wheels how much tax you currently pay, per year, in beer tax. After another click on the lever it tells you how much you will pay if the government’s tax increases continue and finally, it encourages you to lobby your MP by clicking through to an online campaign postcard.
The widget looks brilliant, works well as a lobbying mechanic, can be easily shared and makes the campaign relevant to individuals in a fun, light-hearted but compelling way.
Amnesty International are organising a social media flashmob today at 13:10, to highlight the fact that 1 in 10 women in Britain experience rape or violence. The social media campaign calls on supporters to:
“Spread this message via online communities such as Facebook, Myspace and TwitterTODAY. Get others to pass it on, raising awareness and inspiring action on this issue for International Women’s Day.”
I will be really interested to see the online activity stats around this and see if it leads to any action from political representatives.
The Conservative Party have launched quite a cute new widget which enables users to customise what their ideal apology letter from Gordon Brown would be. The aim of the campaign is convince the electorate that the recession is the fault of Gordon Brown. It has some viral-enabling functionality and the image of Gordon as Elton is moderately amusing but I doubt this will make any mainstream headway.
The above poster is part of a new campaign by Roger Helmer MEP to try and make euroscepticism more relevant to the masses. By moving away from arguments around sovereignty and towards dustbins he hopes to capture the popular zeitgeist. And if that doesn’t grab anyone’s attention, they’ve only gone and stuck a topless girl on it.
I think it’d have been funnier and more effective if they’d gone with a topless chap, with a big gut hanging out looking sorry for himself. The danger of going with something overtly sexy is that it takes away from your message; I couldn’t take my attention away from the provocative tattoo on the small of the model’s back. Next to something like that copy around electricity bills seems even more dull.
[My recent abscence has been due to attending a residential training week. We worked on a mock-pitch for The Metropolitan Police; they have tough communication problems made more difficult by recent issues surrounding percieved politicisation. No, we didn't win.]
Bosworth Conservative Future blogger built a ‘logo creator’ to enable party faithful to tailor the logo for local branches, campaigns etc… However it was quickly picked up by the Labour online community and the piss-taking began. It’s not like people couldn’t mock up piss-taking Tory logos before, this just made it so much easier.
The person who built has taken it down but someone in the Labour blogosphere has quickly reinstated it. Some young Tory from Bosworth has learnt a hard lesson fast: political advertising can blow up in your face, even when you have the best intentions.
I just attended The Age of Stupid premier at Shepherds Bush Vue. There was, as promised, a satellite link up to Leicester Square, a few speakers before and after the film and a general spirit of activism (mixed in with a fair dosage of depression) from the audience.
The event was unashamedly political, featuring the film’s Director apologising on behalf of London to Ken Livingston for electing Boris Johnson before hounding Ed Miliband and declaring a campaign objective to oust the Labour Government if a new coal fired power station is allowed to go ahead in Kent.
It’s definitely worth seeing and has created / joined a campaign that will doubtless be featured on these pages regularly in the run up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.
The Party of European Socialism has launched its Europe-wide election campaign. One element of the campaign comprises of a photo competition that challenges supporters to take photos of themselves with ‘the manifesto cube’ (downloadable in every EU language from the campaign website) in front of a local landmark or with a local personality.
Here are some UK entries to the competition:
It’s a really fun, innovative and engaging way to launch a manifesto that enables supporters in a pan-European campaign to localise and personalise the campaign.
This is a brilliant social media campaign. By supporters sharing photos on their blog / facebook friends and potential supporters will see it, as well as other supporters who they have never met and live far away across borders; this creates a feeling of a united, international movement that will inspire activists to do more and potential supporters to join in.
When unemployment reached a psychologically significant figure, this poster was always going to updated and wheeled out again. I thought it would be user generated rather than centrally produced ( I understand Conservative HQ have comissioned this execution). The political and economic circumstances the poster has been reproduced in are very different and media sites across Britain have not been commandeered to broadcast it to the nation, so in that respect this poster will have a comparatively (and actually) minimal effect.
Whilst I doubt anyone in the Conservative Party intended this execution in any way to pretend to the crown of the original, a pastiche or second running of something great rarely lives up to the mark and that is certainly the case here.
The Labour Party have launched a new campaign around the G20 called ‘G20 – Be heard’.When the Labour Party uses the fact they are in government during big global events it must go down really well with membership; what’s the point of your party being in government if you don’t get to input into the most important political events?How happy other governments would be if they knew that the G20 was being billed as a meeting of the Labour Party leader and President Obama is another matter…
The headline slightly overplays the ‘Obama is God’ message, the title copy of ‘If I could say one thing’ reads like an advert for an Alpha course…
The Australian Labor Party have released this attack spot on the Liberal National Party Leader Lawrence Springborg. It’s not going to bring a tear to the eye or boil your blood, but it does make you question the sense of the bloke under examination. I suppose in that respect this advert (and others of their sort) is succesful.
That having been said I’m always slightly underwhelmed by political adverts that take snippets of a speech out of one context and stick it another. This isn’t the first, it’s not the best and it won’t be the last.
At ‘The Age of Stupid’ event I attended last week, Ed Miliband was proposing ‘clean coal’ as a significant part of the solution to climate change. The debate around ’clean coal’ is relatively muted in the UK but it is raging in the USA; here’s the latest spot from Reality Coalition. It’s really well done, very funny and is effective in positioning ‘clean coal’ enthusiasts as morons.
In the recent ‘Get Some Nuts’ campaign for Snickers, featuring Mr T, some direct response mobile advertising was conducted. In one text message, they asked the target audience (16-24 male) ‘Who needs to get some nuts?’. In order to visually represent the keywords used in the responses they amplified the size of the lettering depending on how many people replied using a given word… who says young people aren’t political?
Whilst the above is slightly childish, there is a genuine and interesting advertising context to it. I had a presentation this morning from mobile network and media owner Blyk. They are a pay-as-you-go mobile network who give £15 free credit per month to their customers in exchange for personal profile information (likes, dislikes, activities, interests etc…) and consent for the receipt of 6 text messages from relevant advertisers per day. The profile information allows advertisers to target consumers by age, location, interest, occupation, propensity to respond to advertising and many other metrics.
Whilst text messaging on polling day has been used in the past, Blyk offers the opportunity of highly targeted, relatively creatively rich, interactive and relevant political advertising.At the moment Blyk is only available for the hard-to-reach demographic of 18-24 year olds; however, they and other mobile networks will soon be rolling out across a wider range of the population.This media platform seems like a no-brainer for political strategists at the next election.
I just came across this piece of political advertising that has been put out by the BJP in India, in the wake of their recent terrorist attacks. The press ad is trying to blame the attacks on the incumbent government and is suggesting that the BJP and their leader Shri L K Advani would be tougher on terrorism if elected later this year.
In the wake of a national disaster it is never wise for an opposition party to try and score political points too soon or too boldly, as the chances of coming across as insensitive and opportunistic are extremely high. The above advert, in it’s use of blood and bullet related imagery is far too aggressive. Whether or not the government could be percieved to be at fault for making the country less secure, such a graphic and accusatory piece of advertising will almost certainly lose more support than it could ever hope to gain.
Lots of candidates that are elected on a wave of popularity pledge to bring their campaigning and organising frame of mind into government. Here is the Democrats and Team Obama attempting to fulfill that ambition. Not a great ad, but the sentiment of “we still need all ya’ll who helped get me elected” is just about carried through. The triumphant emphasis every time the word “President” is used is probably a bit much, but after 8 years of Opposition, I’ll forgive them that one.
It’s worth mentioning that getting lots of people to sign up to your agenda for government is democratic and ‘grass roots’ to an extent. But the challenge comes when you have to deal with a situation where a significant portion / majority of the public and your supporters disagree with the direction you’re trying to set and want to halt or change it.
Here is a better advert from Americans United for Change containing similar subject matter:
There’s no emphasis on grass roots activism, but it’s a much more compelling stand-alone piece of communication. It would be a REALLY interesting experiment if you could isolate the two campaigns mentioned in this post in different areas of the country. You could measure which approach – low budget TV ad with a small media spend but heavy organising activity v.s expensive animated TV ad and zero campaigning on the ground – is more effective in shaping peoples opinion.
I was just made aware of this new press insertion (cheers Matt) by Schweppes. It features Alan Sugar firing the G20 leaders and carries the headline ‘experience matters’. I get that Schweppes are meant to represent ‘experience’, but does that mean that Alan Sugar is more ‘experienced’ than the G20 leaders? Basically, I don’t really get this ad. If anyone does please enlighten me!
The Jury Team, who launched as a new political party of independent politicians over a month ago, have released their first piece of video political advertising. It is badly put together and the content is dull, dull, dull. It has a total of 45 views on YouTube and isn’t even hosted on their own site. There is a vaguely amusing flash advert on their homepage featuring a spoof of the mastercard ‘priceless’ campaign and Jaqui Smith’s recent humiliation; however the way they’ve built it makes it impossible to download.
There are numerous challenges to someone who wants to start their own political party that are hard to overcome, but Jury Team have failed at the very basics of online marketing, let alone everything else which is required for success. Brian Wheeler has recently written a fantastic article about the difficulties of starting and sustaining a political party.
The Sun is running a story that The Labour Party are planning to use the ‘Tory Toff’ angle of attack in some upcoming political advertising. The report claims that the campaign will feature “huge posters of those cringe-making student photos” of George Osborne and David Cameron carrying the copy ‘Do you want these men to run Britain?’
Most research around the effects of negative political advertising suggests that it is very useful for reinforcing impressions that people have about certain things. However, if you’re trying to change someone’s mind about something it usually turns them off.
Therefore the advertisement above would only get a positive reaction out of people who would already subscribe to the following statement: David Cameron cannot be trusted to run the country because he had a wealthy upbringing.
What percentage of the electorate would subscribe to such a statement? My guess would be very few.
I hope, for Labour supporters’ sake, that the Sun’s story is bogus.
A really well produced, funny and compelling piece of advertising by the Tax Payers’ Alliance. It features a Jamie Oliver doppelganger cooking up a recipe for disaster that represents the EU. I’m amazed this hasn’t had more views, seems like the sort of thing that the slightly disgruntled Daily Mail readers would pass on to their friends in an instant.
Another day, another ruling that banning advertising with political content from the airwaves is illegal. Adbusters – who made the above spot – has scored a great victory in The Supreme Court of British Columbia in Canada. In a case against Canada’s CBC and Canwest Global, the court ruled that the airwaves are a public property where freedom of speech must prevail (judges’ ruling here).
Individuals and organisations have spent just over $270 million on political issue advertising in North America since Obama’s inauguration.Experts predict that $1 billion could be spent in the USA on political advertising before the end of the year.
“If you look at what’s on the table — everything from how to unionize to how we’re going to get our energy to how we’re going to get health care to how big the government’s going to be and what role the government’s going to play — you have some interests with very big pockets that have an awful lot at stake”
Regardless of what’s causing it, political advertising contributes significantly to the American economy.Not to keep whingeing about media laws in the UK, but advertising and media industries (which benefit the rest of the economy) could really do with getting a substantial extra revenue stream.The moral argument has been clearly made for changing political advertising laws in the UK, perhaps it’s time for the economic one to be made too.
Above is a photo from the press stunt that was held in Westiminster recently to further promote the Axe The Beer Tax campaign. This campaign is begining to pick up steam, with major brewers adding their weight with in-pub promotions and poster sites on the outside of breweries.
With the Chancellor’s budget report happening tomorrow, this campaign (and others across the political and issue spectrum) will be waiting with baited breath for some good news. Given the grave economic times, it is extremely unlikely that the beer tax will indeed be axed, but I doubt this will prevent Pinty and the gang having a few brews tomorrow after Darling’s speech!
Great idea, simple and brilliantly written copy, beautifully shot, well laid out. This is a fantastic piece of political advertising from the Conservative Party, 10 / 10.
The ANC Youth League in South Africa have made threats of direct action and legal complaints against Nandos for the above advertisment. The major complaint is that it is a racist portrayal of ANC Youth Leader Julius Malema. Nandos are claiming that haven’t fallen foul of any legislation (pun shamefully intended).
The Conservative Party have release a new widget to launch their EU election campaign. It’s based around the argument that The Labour Party promised a referendum on the EU Constitution and this has, according to the Tories, not been delivered.
The word play around ‘U-turn’ and ‘EU-turn’ doesn’t really make sense – what is an ‘EU-turn’? It’s quite a basic widget and not that interesting, but they’ve made it INCREDIBLY easy to share so I imagine a lot of supporters will host it.
If it is plastered over the interent I imagine it will be quite effective, even if the copywriter would be arrested by the logic police.
Camilla Ferranit, pictured above, makes up one of many other glamorous faces that Silvio Berlusconi has unveiled as prospective European Parliamentary MPs for Italy.
If his candidates are political lightweights and don’t have an idea between them, this is a shameless PR stunt that will doubtless backfire. The vast majority of people take elections for who will represent them very seriously and any attempt to turn the European elections into a beauty contest will almost certainly be rebuffed.
However, if they are equally or more politically competent, driven and engaged with the population than a bunch of grey haired fella’s then I applaud Mr Berlusconi for bringing in to politics, in his words, “new and young faces”.
I just saw this UKIP poster featuring Winston Churchill on a site on the M1 motorway. Churchill was a member of both The Liberal Party and The Conservative Party, when exactly did he sign on the UKIP dotted line? This poster makes UKIP look more ridiculous than Robert Kilroy Silk on I’m a celebrity… get me out of here!
The take-away message of ‘you can’t cut your way out of a recession, you have to grow your way out’ was completely muddled by the sheer amount of stock-looking footage (the most often repeated and worst sin of party political broadcasts) and policy name-checks.
Don’t get me wrong, I get that it was all meant to show “Labour acting, where the Tories wouldn’t” but that message is too complicated and didn’t cut through.
The best bits – Showing Gordon hard at work, late into the night in a ‘behind the scenes’ style. Coverage of Gordon’s speech to Congress.
The worst bits – When it cut to Gordon in the garden and from a standing start he begins to walk for no apparent reason. Cringe. The bit where Gordon takes two steps towards Obama to shake his hand and stands awkwardly close to him, Obama offers only a lean. Double cringe.
Those two ‘worst bits’ may seem completely trivial, but it’s those tiny bits of awkwardness that turn people off Gordon. As Thaler and Sunstein masterfully point out in Nudge:
“A candidate who makes a bad first impression, or who tries to win votes by complex arguments and statistical demonstrations, may well run into trouble.”
In this party political broadcast Gordon makes a couple of really bad impressions and rounds it off with some relatively complex arguments and policy demonstrations. Not good.
Great broadcast. The message take out the Conservative’s are going for here is “David Cameron is honest, down to earth, approachable and ready for government” and they’ve nailed it. Cameron comes over really well in this video, he manages a gravity that matches the times as well as an optimism and levity about the future.
The hacks will claim there’s zero concrete policy announcments, which whilst being the case, does not matter. The electorate are not interested in detailed policy announcements, they want a broad idea about the style of government they can expect – which is exactly what is delivered here.
Here’s another overly convoluted advert by Schweppes. ‘Gosh we can’ is moderately amusing, but other than that this advert does absolutely nothing for me.
Schweppes are experienced in making tonic water. Fine. But what the hell has that got to do with David Cameron or Barack Obama? Are they both inexperienced? Or just Cameron? What role does Schweppes play in this advert?
This ‘political’ campaign that Schweppes are running is bizarre. Am I missing something?…Only too easily the case, so if I am, someone PLEASE point it out to me, to put me out of my misery!
Paul Burgin, who writes Mars Hill, asked me 20 questions as part of a series of mini-interviews of political bloggers for his website. I couldn’t quite allow myself the self-indulgence of publishing them here, but you can find the responses on Paul’s site.
The Liberal Democrats must have been pretty pissed off when they saw the Conservative’s most recent broadcast. The style and content is almost exactly the same. Clegg does not come across nearly as well as Cameron and the production values look lesser. Not at all a bad effort, but it’s made to look average because it looks like a ‘me too’ – even though obviously they would have produced it long before the Tories aired.
This could be forgiven for mistaking it for an ‘Injury Lawyers 4 U’ advert, which is about as damning as it gets. Nigel Farage could easily be the ’serious, qualified lawyer’ telling you to take you employer to court. Obviously UKIP budgets are not huge, so they are forgiven to a certain extent, but this really does look cheap. And it really is boring.
As some of the comments on here previously have pointed out (thanks Theo), political parties HAVE to fill over 4 minutes of air time. The result is long, boring, cheap looking content. The rules on political broadcasts and political advertising in this country are so out of date it’s ridiculous.
A very amusing website called ‘You Claim‘ has been created. Visitors select their MP, choose from a range of pre-set expenses claims – from hair highlights, to nose jobs, to a burberry dog gillet – enter how much money they’d like to claim and then send it.
I just read a fantastic article by media guru Peter Bazalgette about the need to abolish party political broadcasts. I couldn’t agree with him with more. He highlights their extreme unpopularity by quoting figures from the confidential ‘appreciation index’, which measures how much people enjoy a programme – rather than how many watch it.
The most recent round of party political broadcasts have been broadly lamentable. They can all be tarred with being low budget, lacking in interest, entertainment free and overly long. Why do we inflict these broadcasts on the nation?
The way in which political parties communicate with the electorate badly need to change and should be part of a route and branch review of how we fund politics in this country. The recent MPs expenses turmoil, ‘cash for honours’, a lack of quality candidates standing for election and these terrible, terrible party political broadcasts (amongst many other things) all lead back to the thorny issue of how we fund our democracy.
I went to a talk by adland guru Trevor Beattie last night at an event held by Monkey Shoulder Whisky. He covered everything from space travel, to the new very amusing Walls Sausages work but the main thrust of the speech was overtly political. Beattie, whilst at TBWA, was in charge of the Labour Party’s advertising during the last 3 general elections (example above) and his work has to be given an, albeit small, share of the credit for the party’s electoral success.
He lambasted the party political broadcasts that have been subjected on the electorate recently and stated that the Labour Party would need to significantly up their communications game if they want to succeed in the upcoming general election. However, Beattie no longer controls the Labour Party’s communications fortunes, as when Gordon Brown came to power he awarded Saatchi & Saatchi the account. However, I got the distinct impression that Beattie was itching to get back into the political advertising fold…
The second of The Labour Party’s political broadcasts in advance of the European Parliament elections. The apology over expenses was a good call, though David Cameron did this earlier in the week. Looks like a bit of a me-too. Quelle surprise (how continental of me…)
Refering back to the last Conservative government of over 10 years ago as a criticism of David Cameron makes the Labour Party look ridiculous. Just because Cameron is proving hard to pin down on policy, trying to link him with Thatcher and Major is pathetic.
They’ve still included that cringe bit of Gordon Brown on the lawn from the last broadcast, of all the bits to include, why the hell what you stick with that awkward 10 or so seconds?
The main problem with it is the voice over. It is a truly terrible read, lacking in any charisma or interest and the sound quality is appalling – it just sounds so tinny!
A classic ‘real people’ broadcast. It communicates their 2 messages, clearly and simply – 1) vote Green for European investment in our economy 2) Vote Green to help save the planet, for the sake of your kids.
It starts off quite slowly, but the emotional climax is brilliantly done. A nice music score and the light, pleasant, unimposing tone of the people featured in the video make it highly likely to evoke the reaction ‘this party understand my concerns’ and ‘this is a political party for me’ from floating middle-class voters who are disenchated with the more established parties.
On the basis of this broadcast, I wouldn’t be surprised if The Green Party do well in Ireland next week.
Clear Channel, the UK’s market leader in outdooor advertising, have been attacked for providing media space to the BNP. Searchlight, the anti-racist and anti-fascist organisation based in the UK, have been organising action against the company.
Clear Channel have claimed no wrong doing, stating that their company policy was to “allow legal and legitimate political parties to engage in campaigning and maintain free speech” and that it will accept advertising from such parties without “bias or favour, regardless of the company’s own views.”
The message in above piece of political advertising ‘punish the pigs by voting BNP’ is a classic piece of nationalist populism. Fascist nationalist parties throughout history have reaped success from public anger over establishment corruption and jingoism; in this respect the EU elections could prove furtile recruiting grounds for the BNP.
The anger and hate that flows from the communication might be attractive to an extremist few, but I image most people – even those deeply disenchanted by the expenses row – will find it alienating and forbidding.
Alastair Campbell has written an interesting article highlighting the lack of political advertising in the UK around the EU elections. He gives anecdotal evidence of Rome being plastered with posters and leaflets, whilst the only campaign materials he saw from his journey from Heathrow to his house was the ‘vote Labour’ poster in his front window.
Something has to change with regards to how this country funds political communication.
Libertas have launched the most interactive, innovate and ambitious piece of political advertising yet created for the EU elections. Supporters can choose a template for an advert, upload a photo and message and then publish it. Not only does it give you the option to send on the advert to friends and prospective supporters, it also serves the advert straight on to myspace.com.
See my example on the top left – don’t worry this is not a sudden diversion from this blogs politically neutral standpoint to plead with you to vote Libertas, but a demonstration of the ease with which one can personalise and use this application.
This is a real lesson in political advertising for the more mainstream parties. If a minority party can create engaging and exciting content why can’t those who aspire to gaining a plurality of votes from the British public?
The Labour Party have released an advert highlighting their action on lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans-gendered (LGBT) rights and seeded it on the Pink Paper. I’ve never seen a LGBT specific piece of political advertising before in the UK by a mainstream political party, though I’m sure there has been. This is a really nice, positive video that beats the pants off anything else that the Labour Party have produced for the EU elections. Great stuff.
This sort of scaremongering in political advertising would be inconcievable in the UK, but it’s a great spot nonetheless. The advocating politician, Chuck DeVore, is running for Senate in California in 2010 and his opposition Barbara Boxer is a keen environmental campaigner.
It’s a powerful video and the ‘if x happens the future will look like y’ is a classic route for political campaigns – intellects and activists alike have found futuristic ponderings a powerful form of persuasion.
Total Politics magazine has a really interesting feature article on 
No, you’re eyes don’t decieve you. This is the most tenuous bastardisation of Obama’s campaign yet. The advertisement for plumbing, guttering and decay repair (amongst others) came through my front door this morning. It is particularly amusing given 
Great idea, simple and brilliantly written copy, beautifully shot, well laid out. This is a fantastic piece of political advertising from the Conservative Party, 10 / 10.
