Lawrence: Gillard needs ‘very intelligent’ marketing strategy to combat Abbott
The man behind Labor’s successful 2007-election campaign said Julia Gillard needs an “intelligent” marketing strategy if she wants to win September’s federal election.
Neil Lawrence, CEO of Lawrence Creative Strategy and architect of the ‘Kevin 07’ campaign, told the Mumbrella360 Conference Labor should market Gillard as “tougher” and “smarter” than the Opposition leader.
“I also think there is a sense in the population that she’s smarter than Abbott. She’s a tough woman,” said Lawrence.
“I’d be looking somewhere around a narrative that says the world continues to be a very uncertain place, Australia continues to be a small island nation, and Australia is always fragile. We need leadership that is very intelligent, that has a track record, and is tough enough to see us through tough times,” he said.
Lawrence said the current government’s brand has become too synonymous with unions.
“The Labor party’s great problem at the moment, culturally, is that it’s turned itself into a culture of the union movement. It’s retreated from a winnable position,” said Lawrence.
Despite a more effective social media presence, Lawrence said Labor has no “movement” to appeal to.
“Social media amplifies grassroots movements, and that’s what happened in the States. There’s no grassroots movement here,” he said.
“I think the strengths of Gillard you would emphasise is that this government has achieved a lot of reform under very difficult circumstances – a minority Government is not easy for anybody, and this one has been particularly difficult.”
Lawrence said there’s logic to Labor’s strategy of announcing the election so far out from September.
“The hope of going very early – seven months before the election – was that Tony Abbott would be exposed in a long campaign because he wasn’t bright enough, and hadn’t thought out his policies, but that hasn’t happened yet,” he said.
“The conservative side are a very, very tight political machine, and they’re running a small target strategy. They’re keeping ‘the government is the story, Julia is the story,’ and that’s how they’d like to keep it until they walk into the government.”
Sam Buckingham-Jones
Exact same schtick Howard tried on Rudd back in 07 and he lost his seat! And this idea that Abbott is somehow “dumb” is a nonsense; on paper he’s arguably one of the smartest guys in Parliament. Rhode scholar from Oxford University, degrees in economics and law at Sydney University and author of a number of best selling books. Education-wise he eats Gillard for breakfast…
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This guy has got to be joking. Gilliard and Labor are finished. There is much more bad news heading Labors way in the next couple of Months and just before the Election. And that is the N.S.W corruption findings to be released by I.C.A.C ( Independent Commission Against Corruption ) and the Victorian Police findings into the H.S.U Labor is dead in the water.
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I’m really worried about the Coalition’s disastrous plan for the NBN. I think it’s our biggest ever nation building exercise and I’m very concerned about how it will end up if the Coalition wins government. Having said that, I’m equally worried about whether the ALP has the courage to stop the boats. I read that it costs $70,000 per year to meet the needs of each of these individuals. That’s an enormous amount of money coming out of taxpayers pockets. It also means that my pensioner parents and other Australians on welfare will be far worse off as there won’t be enough money in the kitty to pay for increases to meet their needs.
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Do people read any more? The premise of the website is marketing. the piece is about how this person would market Gillard. Does it matter if Abbott is a Rhodes Scholar and a genius publisher? No. Because you MARKET Gillard on the idea that he’s a dork, since he behaves like one, and perhaps, it might resonate with the community of (non-rhodes-scholars) people out there.
If you’re ‘worried’ about the NBN then say “we could market Gillard on the back of worries about the NBN” -that might at least address the context.
Me? I think Gillard is unsellable. I think the innate sexism of the voting public went there, because she’s not cuddly, she’s not cute, and mud sticks harder to a woman. Whats more, I think the Labor machine thinks sexist too: they have a high retained majority seat, coming vacant, and they have “Emily’s list” and what do their marketing machine do? They fall into line behind the 3rd rank suck-hole senator with a dick.
GIllard is dead meat because the movement died. I think Lawrence is on the money.
(not a marketing professional, I. just an ad-reader)
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@ George Michaelson. If Abbott is this “dork” we assume he is, like it or not, he’s done a fantastic job at destroying two sitting Labor Prime Ministers and, if the polls are to believed, will annihilate the Labor party at the next election. Far from being dumb, Abbott is perceived as ruthless and the election needs to get used to the idea that this guy will be PM for at least 2-3 terms and that’s upwards of nine years at a minimum!
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DS, wipe the spittle from your chin, and READ what @ George Michaelson actually said. The discussion is about how you would market Gillard, not a political slinging match about which team you love.
And I think you mean “electorate” not a “election”. “Elections” don’t get used to anything.
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