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!
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.
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.
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!
