This Green Party advertising campaign, which ran last year during New Zealand’s general election and was created by agency Special Group, won 3 gold awards at the NZ advertising effectiveness awards last week.
This campaign is one of my all time favourites. A single-minded, brutally simple and evocative strategy that has been executed with some stunning photography, disciplined copy writting and careful art direction. Powerful stuff.
And we think that UK politicians are bad when it comes to partizan promotion using money given for ‘parliamentary resources’. This is national mail-shot that Phil Goff, Leader of the Opposition Labour Party in New Zealand, is charging to ‘parliamentary resources’. You’ve got to appreciate the ambition and if you can’t be creative with your adverts (‘hard work, inspiration and fierce belief in New Zealand’…) why not be creative with your accounting?
This New Zealand Labour Party commercial ran in the week leading up to parliamentary election polling day on November 8th; the NZ Labour Party were incumbents and lost.
Mary is a voter considering voting for the opposition but who ‘just doesn’t quite trust’ the leader in these difficult economic times. A highly negative spot that says little about values or ideas of the incumbent, but plays on the fears of electorate.
Although the “things are going well, don’t let the others wreck it” path is well trodden in political advertising, this commercial has almost gone for “yes, it’s bad… but it could get worse!”
The lighting is dark, the tone is downbeat and there is literally nothing remotely positive about it. It’s a last ditch attempt to haul back those being tempted elsewhere and far from a rallying cry behind a cause or idea. I hate these sorts of adverts, I’d love to see some research as to their effectiveness – can anyone enlighten me?
