On the weekend I went to visit Propaganda: Power and Persuasion, a new exhibition at the British Library examining state propaganda, from its origins in the ancient world up until the present day.

If you’re interested in politics and communication it’s definitely worth a visit.  The exhibition space itself is very dark and feels slightly old-fashioned, but the quality of the content and analysis combine to create a very stimulating experience.

With over 200 exhibits, it has a good range of works; there are Napoleon-era paintings, posters from the Spanish civil war and Nazi films as well as modern day phenomena like tweets shown in a giant data visualisation installation.

Curated by Jude England and Ian Cooke, curators of Social Science at the British Library, the exhibition explores the different ways in which the state has used propaganda to influence the thoughts and feelings of a nation.

It’s organised by theme, rather than chronologically; there are sections on ‘internal enemy’, ‘external enemy’, ‘sport’ and ‘health’ amongst others.  Whilst there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this and it makes sense from an analytical point of view, it is slightly annoying that you can’t just pick a period which particularly interests you and immerse  yourself in the communications of the era.

There’s lots of video content (provided by the British Film Institute) and interviews with academics and commentators including Alastair Campbell, John Pilger, Iain Dale, Tessa Jowell, Noam Chomsky and David Welch, which all adds interest.  Slightly annoyingly there’s only ever one pair of headphones to a screen, so you have to loiter with sharp elbows at the ready to get an earful.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of events, including talks from political advertising luminaries such as Trevor Beattie.  Matt Forde, an old pal of mine, is also hosting a comedy night – Political Party – in honour of the exhibition on Monday 15^th July which should be fantastic. 

The exhibition costs £9 and is open daily until 17^th September.

Here is yesterday’s Campaign Magazine leader (the advertising industry’s trade magazine) by Editor Danny Rogers which is on the topic of the lessons advertising can learn from Thatcher.

The article name checks all of the legends of the political advertising game and so I am particularly irritatingly smug about being quoted.

The Guardian and BBH have released a fantastic piece of reactive press advertising featuring a jar of Marmite and Margaret Thatcher.

There’s a lovely bit of detail with the copy ‘contains iron’ on the base of the label.

The end line ‘One woman, a nation divided’ is also very nicely put.

Yesterday Argentina’s Prime Minister, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, placed an advert in UK newspapers demanding that the British Government abide by a 1965 UN resolution to “negotiate a solution” for the future of the Falkland Islands.

Today, The Sun newspaper placed an ad in response (written in Spanish but translated above) in The Buenos Aires Herald.

This is a great PR stunt by The Sun newspaper and will earn them a proverbial pat on the back from their millions of readers.

UPDATE: here’s the ad as it appeared in the Buenos Aires Herald >>

Argentinian President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, has placed an advert in the Guardian and Independent Newspapers demanding that the British Government abide by a 1965 UN resolution to “negotiate a solution” for the future of the Falkland Islands.

The advertisement has been very effective in bringing the issue back on to the political agenda in this country and is an impressive example of the power of political advertising in the UK.  As political advertising is so seldom seen in Britain, even a relatively dull letter rehearsing an argument that has been had time and again  for the past couple of centuries has the chance to cause a real stir in the media.

I hope that the famously gruelling process of getting long copy advertising approved and supplied hasn’t been distracting the Argentine President from dealing with double digit inflation, mass anti-government protests in Buenos Aires and the prospect of her country being kicked out of the IMF and G20.

A referendum on the political status of the Falkland Islands will be held on March 10th 2013.  The proposed question is ”Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?”.

Ladbrokes are offering 26 / 1 for anyone ‘loco’ enough to bet that the population will vote to become Argentinian instead of British.

Ohio, home to the US automotive industry, is one of the states that will decide whether or not Obama retains his Presidency.

The fact that Obama bailed out the car industry and saved it from collapse is one of the policies that his supporters point to as proof of the Democrat candidate’s economic leadership credentials.

This ad accuses Romney of campaigning to let the vehicle manufacturers crash and burn and will likely be plastered across the state’s local TV stations.

The bit where Romney is supposedly pleading guilty to this accusation in an interview has an untimely cut in it, which adds in a significant element of doubt as to the veracity of the claim.

The ad would have been more believably and convincing had it stayed positive and stuck to the fairly incontrovertible fact that Obama saved the car industry in Ohio.

It must be tempting to fling mud at every opportunity in such a tight race, but I fear in this advert Obama’s team might end up with some of it back on it’s own windscreen.

Team Obama have released a website where voters are promised the details on Mitt Romney’s $5 trillion tax plan.  However, like a classic schoolboy ruse, when users try and click on the button to ‘get the details’ it dodges your cursor and moves away.

Quick, simple and amusing sites like these – frustratingly for those of us who pour countless hours of work into elaborate creative content – are always popular and are sent around the web within hours of their deployment.

It’s a nice site to motivate the base and something fun for a Friday afternoon.

Stars of popular political TV series “The West Wing” reunited this week to film a campaign ad for Bridget Mary McCormack, a candidate for Michigan’s Supreme Court and the sister of actress Mary McCormack.

Unbelievably, given the dark green hue of my political anorak, I’ve never watched The West Wing, so this means absolutely nothing to me.

Here’s the organisations that are pouring money into the multi-million dollar advertising campaigns that Obama and Romney are running respectively.  

Romney can’t easily deny that if he wins the election he won’t owe Wall St a scratch on the back or two…