Political parties locked in search battle as Liberal election videos go negative
Liberal and Labor are engaged in a digital war with both parties buying up search terms relating to the other, although the tone of online video ads is marketly more negative from the Liberal Party, research by Mumbrella reveals.
Both parties are investing heavily in paid search on Google, with Labor also spending on YouTube.
When the words “Liberal party” are inputted, a paid ad from the ALP appears among the top sponsor links urging: “Together With Julia Gillard We Can Move Australia Forward – Learn More”:
The same happens when users search Google for Labor. The paid ad reads: “Nothing’s changed. Same Labor” with a link to a video on the Liberal Party site:
And in an even higher impact buy, Labor has paid for a promoted result on YouTube, meaning that when a user searches for the Liberal party channel, they are most prominently offered a Labor video:
Meanwhile, the two parties have also been taking different approaches with the tone of their online messages. The Liberal approach is noticeably more negative than Labor’s.
Since the election was called two weeks ago, Labor has uploaded 21 videos to its YouTube channel. Many feature homely campaign trail videos from Julia Gillard, Nicola Roxon and Jenny Macklin.
Just two are attack messages aimed directly at the Liberal Party.
By contrast, the Liberals have posted 54 videos on its YouTube channel since the election was called. Of those, 43 feature pitches from individual candidates.
The Liberals have also so far uploaded 12 TV commercials to its YouTube channel. Seven are direct attack ads on Labor:
So far the Liberal Party has 624 subscribers to its YouTube channel and is the 21st most viewed Australian YouTube channel this week.
Labor has 1674 subscribers to its YouTube channel and is Australia’s 19th most viewed YouTube channel this week.
According to free online traffic tracker Alexa (which it should be noted is not always accurate) Labor’s website is getting slightly more traffic than the Liberals.
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We’re feeding some additional social SOV data for the election here. Hope it compliments Tim’s insightful article.
http://thesocialelection.amnesiarazorfish.com.au/
~ @eunmac
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God it’s hard not shooting myself. Liberals continuing with the same gameplan as the last 15 years. Attack attack, scare, scare, negative, negative.
You’d think they’d have moved forward with the times, rather than do a backflip and vote in a right-wing conservative hack with views reminiscent of the 50s.
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Nice comparison – a six-year average versus a two-and-a half-year cumulative. But who would expect a fair comparison anyway?
What I would like to know is, when over 96% of illegal immigrants arrive by plane what does the Mad Monk propose to do about them? I am FAR more concerned with plane arrivals than boat arrivals (and plane arrivals ARE illegal as they have entered Australia, whereas boat people aren’t illegal on the high seas until they make unassisted landfall).
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Labor have promised the world – delivered virtually nothing – and got us into debt again. Seems labor has trouble moving forward as well Disgust.
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If being the only western economy to not go into recession, and the first to return the budget to surplus is “delivering virtually nothing” then sign me up for more.
The ‘slash-and burn’ tactics proposed by the Libs would have seen hundreds of thousands unemployed or under-employed resulting in a huge unbudgeted social security blow-out that would have done zero for our capital asset base.
As for going into debt, the stimulus package is around half of the INCREMENTAL mining company profits 2009 on 2008, and less than the combined bank profits in 2009. I went into debt when I bought my first house – best decision I ever made. Harden up people and see that this ‘debt’ is an investment in infrastructure that had been in a virtual halt over the previous 10-12 years while Costello worshipped at the altar of budget surpluses.
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You seem to focus on the negatives Disgust 2. I’m not one to ignore anything stupid the ALP has done – i.e. Stephen Conroy and the internet filter, but it seems like you’re the type of person to ignore anything decent and focus on the negative…
What about bringing us through the global financial crisis, all the school hall and libraries that they’ve built and did help schools, and saying sorry to the stolen generation to name a few…
In general, I’d have to say they are far more modern than the ancient archaic views of the right-wing hacks that are sitting in the shadow ministry at the moment…
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Whilst over in TV Land,
Labor seem to be spending a lot more, and being a lot more negative, as well as having the Union Friends run negative work choices ads.
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