The Argentinian government have released a piece of propaganda in advance of the London 2012 Olympic Games; how satisfying to be able to use that word in its actual sense rather than as a piece of linguistic hyperbole.

The video shows Argentine hockey captain Fernando Zylberberg running and exercising in the Falklands capital Port Stanley ahead of London 2012 and carries the end line “To compete on English soil, we train on Argentine soil.”

Punchy.

The ad is shot in the style of a ‘Rocky’ film and will no doubt get the nationalist juices flowing for both British and Argentine populations.

Team Obama have released a rebuttal video focusing on international affairs.

This approach, where Romney’s attacks on the President are spliced with footage of Obama contradicting him, has been deployed a few times already in this campaign.  It’s an effective mechanic for lampooning Romney.  It makes the Republican candidate seem at best ill-informed and at worst a liar.

This video culminates in a very emotive speech defending American values.  This is a lovely touch.

Most effective pieces of communication use a combination of ‘desire’ and ‘permission’.  The early part of this video – the factual rebuttal – are all about giving people the logical permission to endorse Obama.  And the last 30 seconds deliver the desire beautifully.

Very nice.

Campaign group American Crossroads have released a video which acknowledges that Obama is thought to be pretty cool, but then goes on to highlight issues some of the perceived problems with his presidency.

This ‘biggest celebrity in the world‘ was a fruitful line of attack for McCain in the last Presidential election.  Except this time, Obama’s critics have got a powerful ‘reason to believe’ in the fact that the economy hasn’t bounced back.  Expect to see many more ads in this vein.

BETC London, the creative agency behind Ken Livingstone’s infamous party election broadcast, have released an advert for their agency in this week’s advertising trade press.  The ad features Ken crying and carries the end line “we also move products”.

Very good indeed.

Ken Livingstone was moved to tears at the launch of the broadcast created by BETC, saying: “It’s an appalling responsibility… the people you saw on the screen represent hundreds of thousands of Londoners who desperately want a mayor who is going to make their life easier in this city.”

The ad is perhaps to draw a line under some of the mainstream media and Westminster Villages’ (over) reaction to the broadcast and remind any clients reading the trade press that BETC is a very capable creative agency.

Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat candidate for the office of London Mayor, has released a new poster (top) which reminds voters what he looks like and gives a pithy, single-minded reason as to why they should put a cross next to his name on May 3rd 2012.

The poster is a follow-up to an execution ‘You break it, you fix it’, which ran in March, that outlined Paddick’s policy of punishing criminals with community service, as opposed sending them to jail.

I like these posters.  The campaign has decided that they’re going to hang their hat on the issue of crime, a no-brainer given Paddick’s background, and they’ve executed it cleanly and simply.

When you’re running a candidate with relatively low levels of name or face recognition in such a personality-based election, you can’t be too ambitious with your advertising.  These ads do the basics very well and anything more discursive would have probably been a mistake.

The left-wing campaign organisation Common People, who are behind both Sack Boris 2012 and the most viral video of the 2010 general election, have launched a video attacking George Osborne to theme of Queens’ Dont Stop Me Now.

Whilst it is vaguely amusing, the assault is so aggressive (and personal) that the resulting sentiment of the viewer is “these guys really hate George Osborne”.  I would guess that the aim of the piece was to get people thinking “George Osborne is a bad Chancellor”, but I’m not sure that this will be the prevailing take-out.

For people who don’t like Osbourne (and posh people generally), this will certainly appeal.  But, because of the tilt of the balance away from comedy and towards vitriol, I doubt it will be as popular as their previous offering.

I’m helping organise an event which I thought might be relevant to readers with an interest in political strategy – which is presumably all of you who haven’t arrived here via an image search for “funny David Cameron face”.

It’s called ‘Worlds Collide’ and it is designed to inspire attendees to come up with better, more convincing and more successful strategies.  Here’s the blurb:

On the afternoon of Wednesday 2nd May the worlds of politics, the military, advertising, activism and sport will collide when Alastair Campbell, General Sir Mike Jackson, David Droga and Jeremy Gilley  go head to head to convince the audience that their strategic approach is the winning one.

They will all answer a single brief: what do you do to win, when you can’t afford to lose?

The purpose of this event is to demonstrate that whilst strategic thinking is about being focused, honing in on and refining a problem, it’s also about being able to see a problem in a new or different way.

Chaired by Rory Sutherland, it’s the unmissable strategy event of the year.

During the course of the afternoon you’ll listen to each guest speaker and then vote on whose strategic approach you think is the most convincing.

Worlds Collide will make you think – and force you to question your assumptions - but you’ll go away with a head full of new ideas and inspiration to re-shape your own strategic thinking.

Details about how to reserve your place are below.

- – -

Date and time: Wednesday 2nd May 2012, 2pm to 5pm, drinks afterwards.

Venue: Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London SE1 8XX

Price: £100+vat for APG members. £200+vat for non-members (which includes APG membership for a year).

Booking:  email steve@apg.org.uk  Please say whether firm or provisional booking and give name, job title and email of each delegate.

Rick Santorum has released a strong new attack video criticising Romney’s seemingly relentless negative advertising. The spot shows a Romney look-alike firing a machine gun filled with mud at Santorum targets, before the weapon backfires and throws mud on to Mitt’s pristine white shirt.

Let’s brush over the fact that it’s a negative ad about negative ads… and focus on the fact that this clever spot is based on a seemingly genuinine (and therefore powerful) insight that elements of the Republican electorate seem to be souring towards Romney’s bully boy approach.

The Washington Post notes that “Romney has to start worrying about the effect all these negative ads might have on his own electability. His favorability rating has been declining at a precipitous rate”

Whilst the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote that he “isn’t winning friends with his relentlessly negative campaign” and needs “to make a better, positive case for his candidacy beyond his business resume.”

This lighthearted advert makes Santorum look like both a victim and a plucky underdog – no bad thing.

However, Santorum may not be able to play the underdog card for long: a new survey shows Rick Santorum has jumped to a 12-point lead over Mitt Romney nationally in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.  Santorum leads with with 39%, followed by Mitt Romney at 27%, Newt Gingrich at 15% and Ron Paul at 10%.

The Economist has released the latest installment of their popular ‘Where do you stand?’ campaign.  One poster questions whether drone bomber strikes are justifiable and the other raises the issue of social media censorship.

(NB. I am involved in this campaign, any comments will be met with hypersensitivity and almost certain incredulity).

Through the posters, The Economist wants to continue challenging non-readers’ misconceptions of the brand by demonstrating its wide-ranging editorial content. Posters also offer potential readers a free copy of The Economist through a text code.