Topic: Advertising
Stéphane Dion did as expected this afternoon and called it quits as Liberal leader less than a week after leading the party to its worst electoral showing ever and less than three years after winning the leadership.
It was quite the historic blow out, obscured in its enormity only by the fact that the Conservatives failed to win a majority at the same time. And really the outcome of this fall’s national vote was determined long before it was officially called in large part by the aggressive negative advertising from the Conservatives positioning Dion as weak leader. It wasn’t pretty, but it was masterful.
I’m not talking just about the summer-long radio campaign mocking Dion’s prized central platform plank, the Green Shift. The Tories started running those ads mere days after the Green Shift was unveiled in June. (If you don’t listen to drive time commercial radio you missed it-but if you do, you couldn’t miss the fake call-in show spots where just-folks savaged the policy and Dion as a joke).
No. The Conservatives were running “not a leader” radio spots with in months of Dion taking the Liberal leadership by default in December 2005. These were ham handed, hokey messages, hammering at Dion on several fronts. I did a series of CBC radio interviews on the unprecedented non-election period political ad campaign back in the spring of ’06 and the hosts invariably asked/stated, in effect, ‘there’s no way stuff this blatant and transparent works, right?’ But, I had to assure them, yep, it does. Especially if there’s a vacuum of information about the leader, as there was then about the then still relatively unknown Dion. Especially if the ads go unanswered. And these ads were never answered. Not even in the campaign.
Acting as the clichéd rational intellectual, Dion apparently never considered there was a need to deign to refute or even acknowledge such ridiculous statements and claims. So the Tories got to define Dion, and the central leadership question long before calling the vote. Save for a few days there after the worst of the market machinations and Stephen Harper’s empathy lapse, the result was never really in question-just the exact extent of the loss for the Liberals.
On the flip side, it’s clear the Conservatives fumbled in not doing enough to position their own guy all those months in advance. Sure, by not turning into wild eyed barbarians while in power for more than three years, the Conservatives had positioned themselves as more centrist than expected-but the lingering fears of what they do with power unfettered by minority status were enough to hold them back. And the perception of Harper as a control freak with a nasty temper was never really countered. (And here again, on the negative-advertising-works thesis: the most effective opposition statements and advertising tapped into those pre-existing concerns.)
That said, the Conservatives nearly pulled off the cardigan-clad typical suburban dad positioning of Harper in their early post writ spots. Fifteen seats shy of a majority is tantalizingly close. That’s just eight seats going the other way- something easily achieved if a couple more suburban Ontario ridings tipped their way and the impressive gains in popular vote even in 416 Toronto had translated into wins. And if they been able to make a significant breakthrough, as they seemed poised to do, in Quebec, there’d have been no stopping the Tories. (In my view, Harper’s sneering shots at the whining arts elites did in fact work - in English Canada. But in Quebec, where culture is seen as something actually important and central to identity, the BQ was able to use Harper’s gibes to position the Conservatives as les autres –outsiders who don’t get “us.” )
I always find it almost endearing, if not frustratingly naïve, when commentators and reporters whip them into a frenzy at the first hint of a dread NEGATIVE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN AD. It happens every election without fail. It’s like they somehow believe that if it wasn’t for those awful advertisements from parties saying mean and nasty things about their opponents, elections would be the reserved, reasoned high minded affairs they were meant to be and all platforms and policy would be debated earnestly and nary a harsh word would be exchanged.
Come on folks. Get a grip.
Our elections are intended to be nasty affairs –a substitute for the truly nasty stuff that armed conflict brings- in which everyone takes their best shots -over and over again- and the participant with the fewest bruises at the end is generally declared the winner. Advertising merely crystallizes the lines or argument in their simplest terms. Frankly, anyone who can be sunk by a catchy slogan and a couple of cheap shots in 30 second broadcast spots doesn’t have what it takes to be a leader who can marshal the hearts and minds of a nation. They shouldn’t win.
Stéphane Dion can whimper all he likes about being done in by “propaganda,” but whose fault is it that the other guy's message stuck better than his?
Advertising, of course, does not work in a vacuum. It is most effective when it syncs up with the actual product offering. And negative election advertising, works best when it taps into existing mindsets. The Conservatives won the positioning and advertising wars in election ’08, but weren’t quite good enough at it to take home all the marbles. A maimed Liberal party, and a not-quite-enough-for-total victory Conservative win, feels about right.
