Category Archives: Conservative Party UK

Better off with…?

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Guido Fawkes yesterday pointed out the similarities between the logo that Boris released yesterday and the branding device subsequently pushed out by Ken’s team.  Guido describes the story:

Boris launched his new “Better Off With Boris” logo with it adorning his Progress Report at Mayors Question Time this morning. Ken copied it with a “Better of with Ken” logo which looks remarkably similar. Alas Team Ken in their hurry to cobble it  together forgot to register BetterOffWithKen.com.which now links to the NotKenAgain.com website. 

As Boris Backer has pointed out, Ken’s logo looks like the work of an intern using MS Paint; Ken’s marketing team seem to have given up on any level of quality control and seem to be happy that their candidate comes across as a (low quality) student union hopeful.

The only thing of note with regards to the Battle of the Badges is that neither candidate includes any reference or nod to their party.  This should be applauded.  Both candidates realise that their political party has relatively little to do with this election and have kept it single-minded.

Not Ken Again – posters

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Anti-Ken Livingstone campaign group NotKenAgain.com have released a batch of posters. These aren’t just posters which are used for a press conference before being uploaded to a website, without ever genuinely ‘airing’ in the traditional sense.  These posters are live and are running on big billboard sites around London (in situ image below).

Now these are good, old-fashioned British attack ads.  The adverts, that have a tabloid look and feel, remind voters about the issues and scandals that dogged Ken Livingstone throughout his last London Mayoral campaign in 2008.

The posters are not branded by Boris Johnson’s campaign, nor are they branded Conservative.  In this regard they are reminiscent of US-style SuperPac attack advertising, as it is not clear who is funding the negative posters.

This is very unusual for British political advertising. Indeed, the last time I can remember seeing outdoor advertising campaign where a candidate or party is overtly criticised and the organisation paying for the sites doesn’t ‘claim’ them via a logo was the infamous ‘New Labour, New Danger’ by The Conservative Party campaign in 1997 (below).

BorisPledge.gif

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Boris Johnson’s team have released a series of .gif images for supporters to download and embed on their websites.  Yes, it’s slightly freaky seeing them here all lined up at once, flickering away.  But, outside this humble site, it’s a nice way for supporters to be able to pick and choose which policy they want to promote on their individual sites.

Boris Johnson for Mayor of London

Boris Johnson for Mayor of London

Boris Johnson for Mayor of London

Boris Johnson for Mayor of London

Boris Johnson for Mayor of London

Boris Johnson for Mayor of London

Boris Johnson for Mayor of London

Boris Johnson for Mayor of London

Boris Johnson for Mayor of London

Boris Johnson Posters – 9 pledges

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This morning I attended the launch of Boris Johnson’s 2012 election poster campaign.  The posters are very functional, not particularly engaging and it seems like a bit of a missed opportunity.

These adverts are by no means offensive and indeed, it’s good to see Boris’ team start the campaign off with some positive messaging.  However, they’re unlikely to generate any headlines or augment the narrative of the election in any meaningful way and they won’t be giving Team Ken any headaches.

The campaign hasn’t involved a professional ad agency, which is a mistake.   Any man and his dog can make an advert, but creating something that adds significant value to your political communication mix takes time, skill and effort.

Every single poster is an opportunity to knock your political opponent out of the park for the next week of a campaign, but this feels like a bit of a bunt.

(photos by @KirstieJBrown)

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New Year, Same Old Ken

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Boris Johnson’s re-election campaign team have released a new attack ad.  Johnson’s team were inspired to make the clip when:

“In a four minute interview last week he managed to make at least three false claims. And we don’t know how many potential broken promises.”

Negative ads that use a candidate’s own words against them are very often effective and this is no exception.  “Not again Ken” is a great line and one I think we can expect to see a lot more of.

Conservative Party dedicate political broadcast to East Africa

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What a very, very canny move.

The Conservative Party have created a satire of party political broadcasts (whilst at the same time delivering not-very-subtle partisan messages) before making a plee for the nation to donate to the East Africa Appeal, a charity helping those suffering from drought in the region.

The broadcast is clever in 3 ways:

1. It defends the Conservative Party’s commitment to increasing overseas aid with reference to a contemporary and worthy cause.

2. It shows the Conservative Party recognise the mendacity of most political broadcasts and as such makes them seem ‘in touch’.

3. The satirical approach enables them to deliver all the key messages, albeit more tongue-in-cheek, that they would usually.  e.g. Diverse membership of Tory MPs, economic decline under Labour gov, paucity of credible alternative etc…

(Hat tip: @Ciaranward).

Conservative Party Political Broadcast – October 2010

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A nicely balanced ppb from the Tories.  It follows a fairly standard format – assessment of what went wrong, justification of steps taken thus far and concluding with ambitions for the future.

Cameron’s performance is statesmanlike and confident.  The soundtrack brings the film to a nice crescendo, before the end frame – featuring a suitably stoic call to action ‘together in the national interest’ – draws things to a close.

Conservative ‘Big Society’ Posters

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In the weeks before polling day of the last general election, the Conservative Party ran a load of posters on phone boxes to promote their concept of ‘the big society’.

David Cameron’s Conservative Party Conference speech spurred a friend on the inside to send on the other executions in the series which never ran (I notice that the crass ‘Vote Conservative’ logo that ran in the original burst – which I criticised at the time – has been replaced with the Tory tree…).

Labour’s Legacy

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Last week the Conservative Party released a video entitled ‘Labour’s Legacy’ which set out to remind voters that the massive public sector cuts which are being inflicted by the coalition government are as a direct result of the Labour government’s actions.

There’s no hiding from it, the video is dull.  If you’re going to tease and (attempt to) build tension in a video for 1 minute and 15 seconds, the big reveal better be something pretty good.  Two words in 3D lettering isn’t exactly mind-blowing.

Legal action threatened over Conservative adverts ‘too edgy too air’

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Advertising industry magazine Campaign have this morning reported that they’ve got hold of 3 videos that were deemed too controversial and edgy to release.  The videos were, apparently, made to support the ‘I’ve never voted Tory before, but…’ series of posters.

The videos were sent to Campaign incognito and Euro RSCG, the agency who created the controversial spots, have subsequently threatened legal action if they are released.

I have heard previously that were a number of adverts that had been pulled and have since been desperately trying to get my hands on them.  Now that they’ve been anonymously sent to Campaign it can’t be long before they’re uploaded to video sharing sites… How exciting.