Ben Houchen and Andy Street were both incumbent Conservative metro mayors in tight re-election races.
I predicted that Houchen would win and Street would lose.
Why was I so certain?
Their advertising.
Not because I felt that the adverts on their own would make the difference.
Although given the margin of Street’s loss – decided by just over 1,500 votes – better ads almost certainly would have won him the election.
But because election advertising is often a window into a campaign.
You can see the candidate’s strategy distilled into a few words and some pictures.
If the advertising is creative and disciplined choices have been made, you can deduce that the campaign is operationally effective.
If the ads are all over the place – lacking strategic coherence as a whole or visually are a mess – it’s usually a symptom of a deeper malaise.
Houchen’s ads made motivating pledges using simple language. Street’s ads… didn’t…
Houchen won relatively comfortably, Street narrowly lost.
politicaladvertising.co.uk 