A view from inside the Labour campaign

This week I saw Matt Watts, Planning Director at Krow, Labour’s advertising agency, speak about their work for the party and the changing nature of the role ad agencies play in election campaigns.

The amazing video above was put together by Krow.

It’s a brilliant summary of the cultural movement that Corbyn led and the agency helped facilitate.

Below is a summary of the presentation Matt gave:

“In the future agencies need to help parties curate a cultural campaign, not just create an ad campaign.

Ads are easy to dismiss. People don’t generally want to spend time with ads, they’re more likely react to things they’re passionate about or find entertaining or thought-provoking.

So we need to help create causes that inspire action, rather than limiting ourselves to ads that reiterate a position. And execute them in a way, and place, that resonates beyond the newsnight audience.

The film hopefully shows that we got people to view an election campaign in a new light, that we thought beyond just ads, and we curated cultural moments.

The Labour campaign enabled 3 types of campaign content:

1. Official Party content collaborators – executing the key Party messages: Krow, Labour’s in-house team & Ken Loach etc…

2. Non-party campaign groups: Unite the Union, Momentum, Labour Future etc… authentic voices who champion the cause, and cherry pick their messages.

3. Unofficial Party collaborators (with no official connection) who just champion the cause in their own way: Grime4Corbyn, RantsNBants, Corbyn Facebook groups, JOE, individual activists etc…

Given the sheer number of views these content creators can deliver, we have to start considering them in the planning of the campaign.

As the Tories right wing press, continues to slowly die, you have a new generation of content creators, with mass reach at your disposal. As long as the cause is right.”