Both parties ‘blew their comms campaigns by treating the electorate like dickheads’
Both of the main political parties made huge mistakes in their election campaign messages, the expert panel at this week’s Mumbrella Question Time said.
And Stuart Gregor, boss of lifestyle PR agency Liquid Ideas said:
“From the communication perspective, they treated the electorate like we were dickheads. I’d have got rid of the bullshit slogans, the cliches, the repetition of sloganism. Anybody who had anything to do with either of the campaigns should be at Centrelink Monday.”
Earth Hour director Andy Ridley said that the swing to the Greens demonstrated that if either party had included climate change in its messaging they could have won the election. And Simon Drewry, MD of Mango public relations, said the parties failed to properly use non-traditioonal channels
Mindshare CEO James Greet told the Sydney audience:
“If you’re trying to sell shit then you can’t. They didn’t stand for anything. There was no vision or conviction behind the big issues.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Gotta take political campaign advice with a grain of salt when it comes from an alcohol/consumer lifestyle PR group director.
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i was thinking about this yesterday actually.. how if the independents get their way and political donations and advertising spend will be capped, it would really hurt advertising companies that get very easy money during election time because all the ads are rushed and the strategy for the ad is probably dictated by a politician who insists on the ad being a certain way.
The success of the “Greens ad” on Gruen was just an example of what would happen if the advertising company just had the freedom to make an ad the way they knew it should be made. Perhaps that is why we got the ridiculous result that we have now.. people voted against bad advertising and for an ad that a political party had no control over the creative process.
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i woulda thought that greens ad on gruen a week or 2 ago mighta been discussed …one of the better ads of the campaign …
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Andy Ridley, to say that the including climate change in an major campaign messaging would have won the election is just…silly.
Anyone working with progressive organisations with an environmental agenda knows that the ‘c-word’ is turns people off quicker than cockroaches on a cupcake.
The most effective political campaigning goes beyond the symbolic turning-off of one’s lights.
Great campaigns inspire people to think about old issues in new ways, is empowering, is collaborative and empowering – that’s why Obama (and Kevin 07 to an extent) was so successful, he made it about people not about himself. It was a brave approach, one both Major Parties are too scared to try (notice Labor’s feeble digital efforts when they rehashed the My David Cameron site?).
The best campaigns (not surprisingly) came from the Greens. Not only did they engage people in the electorate of Melbourne (bothering to translate poster into Vietnamese, hosting events, teaming-up with Vote Music), but they had some imagination and invited collaboration not as an online-because-we-ought-to tactic but because genuinely wanted to listen to what the electorate had to say.
The openness and positivity of the Green’s overarching strategy gave Republic of Everyone plenty to work with when they made the Green’s Gruen ad, the MOST watched political ad during the entire campaign despite not airing on TV.
So to say that the Major Parties should have dropped the ‘C-change’ bomb into their ads is wrong – what they should have done was been brave, listened, engaged and made the campaigns about people, not personalities.
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A lot of British accents in that panel!
“Turnbull would have won”. Thank God he wasn’t running either partiy’s campaign. A fundamental misunderstanding of how politics works outside the major cities. If Turnbull were running we still wouldn’t know who Rob Oakshott was because it would have been a thumping Labor victory.
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Hi Matt,
despite the accents, all four panellists are Australian (the topic did come up…).
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Good comments all round. The great irony is how similar politics and advertising are. Sound familiar?
Stereotyping.
Playing to the focus groups.
Lack of vision.
No bravery.
It’s like a parallel universe. Bless.
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Hands up all those agencies that knocked back the political clients cash because of all the reasons listed by everyone in the article above and the people in the thread ?
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Any chance of seeing the whole Question time? I was interested in attending, however had prior commitments with clients.
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Hi Michael,
We’ll be putting up video, topic by topic, in the coming days.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Much appreciated Tim. Wanted to hear more from Stuart Gregor, as I run a events management company called ‘Sydney Bartenders’. We’re constantly in talks with liquor brands in regards to sponsoring community events such the Sydney Fringe which debuts in the inner west this September while not making the event have a “sell-out” feel to it.
As you discussed Vitamin Water blaring crappy music is a peaceful park in a previous article. There is a fine line between enhancing an event through brand sponsorship and making the event feel “fake”. I think its important brands managers understand that “hijacking” an event with huge logos and free giveaways can do more damage than good. This may seem like commonsense but from experience sometimes brand managers just want/need to tick boxes without actually looking at it from a patrons point of view.
Went on for a bit there, sorry. But thanks for the great content here on mumbrella, its a daily morning routine for me and the rest of the team here.
Cheers!
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I’m a marketer and communicator though sometimes I get a bit miffed with the industry for thinking that a differently crafted message might’ve told the story in an entirely different way so as to effect a completely different impact.
There were shades of that on the panel, though all in all it was a good, rounded response.
In political campaigns, content equals policy and the big failure of this campaign wasn’t dullness, or sloganeering, or bad messages. It was the lack of content credible, convincing, visionary content.
And I don’t believe a better leverage of non-traditional media would’ve made any difference at all. A content-barren, bad message remains that no matter what media it’s delivered through.
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