AdNews enlisted Dr Andrew Hughes, a lecturer at the ANU College of Business and Economics and political advertising expert, to cast his eye over the ads from this campaign cycle. Here's his scorecard.
Australian Labor Party
Labor has run a campaign heavy on negative, nearly spending at the ratio of $4 to $1 on negative compared to positive.
There are a couple of key reasons behind this. One was to build a fear of the Coalition itself and what may happen if they were to govern again, and secondly to try and get momentum and behaviour change from the uncommitted/slightly favouring Liberal voters. Some also thought that with Bill Shorten trailing Malcolm Turnbull so far on the preferred PM stakes that perhaps this campaign would be more about narrowing the gap to the Coalition to make the next election a certainty.
Advertising though played far too much to the core when it needed to be aimed more at the middle, and for a campaign that stated it was all about the positive policies to have over 20 negative advertisements on its YouTube Channel sent mixed messages. Not to mention a long campaign made maintaining any momentum and engagement a very difficult task to do.
On the social media side they used Facebook Live far more than any other party, and appeared to use their volunteer network to be active on social media during critical times of the campaign such as policy announcements and debates.
Best Ad: The Liberals say one thing and do the other
Remarks: Targeted the core really well and played well on viral, but missed engaging with the middle by being negative.
Worst Ad: The Least Negative Ad Ever
Remarks: Whoever made this should be the one who takes it down. Awful in every way possible.
Overall campaign mark: B+
Liberal Party of Australia
This election was for the Liberals to lose. While Labor have been nearly all negative, the Coalition have been the exact opposite spending $2 to $1 on positive vs negative.
Why? Positivity makes it hard for Labor to paint the Coalition as the big bad monster that everyone needed to be afraid of like they had done so well with Tony Abbott and John Howard.
This was backed up having a always smiling Turnbull, branded as a kind old grandpa who loved nothing more than playing with the grandkids down at the park, and a message heavy on economics where Labor’s brand struggles.
Advertising messages were built on what the Turnbull brand represents: progression but not hope. Avoided any connection at all with the Abbott years, even though this meant there could be no mention of any achievements during this time and therefore hurt his perception in some marginal seats as being someone who could turn ideas into reality.
Social media wasn’t too bad but need to be more innovative here and were outdone by Labor but considering their small noise strategy perhaps understandable.
Best Ad: Labor’s war on the economy will cost jobs
Remarks: Ah, the Fake Tradie. Brilliant distractor message at the time when Labor looked like it was building a nice scare campaign around Medicare. Stopped talk on Labor, made the focus how bad the ad was and kept Malcolm safe. The Republicans in the US would have been proud of this one.
Worst Ad: We need to bring back the Australian Building and Construction Commission
Remarks: Woeful. No one bought the excuse for this being the reason why a double dissolution was called and surprised this was even mentioned. Format and structure wise throwing copious amounts of text at people never works, especially not in 2016.
Overall campaign mark: A
The Nationals
For those who follow the Wombat Trail of the Nats leader Barnaby Joyce has not failed to deliver his usual amount of interesting quotes during this campaign. That said, his personal brand is strong in rural and regional Australia and has helped the Nats at this election.
Ad wise they have been quiet, consistent with the bigger play from their more powerful allies the Liberals. Most of their messaging has played to their key brand strengths of agriculture and representing Regional Australia. Not too bad at all on social media.
Best Ad: For Regional Australia
Remarks: Catchy, positive, nice images of rural and regional Australia, and even made you feel like you wanted to drink a brand of cordial or soft drink at the end.
Worst Ad: Not this time, Tony
Remarks: Personal, negative attack ads like this are just woeful. Tried to tie into the House of Cards style iPhone messaging on the screen but failed badly. Creative and structure was just forgettable. Thankfully was pulled quickly but not before the damage was done.
Overall campaign mark: B
The Greens
For a brand that differentiated itself so well on not being negative, to go down that path was sad to see. Adam Bandt’s ad was one of the finest of this campaign and really highlighted his name as the future Greens leader.
Again big on social, especially Twitter where they seem to really dominate that space. Need to work on broadening their appeal though and to do that negative should be dropped quicker than a preference deal with the Liberals in an inner-city seat.
Best Ad: Imagine: Adam Bandt for Melbourne
Remarks: Great positive, aspirational ad. Fast paced, good soundtrack, low on the information dump, high on the personal call to arms and using Adam Bandt as the celebrity it was not hard to see why this worked. This is what the Greens do well.
Worst Ad: Tunnel Vision
Remarks: Limited screening and primarily for the WA market this did not work at all. Negative that matched some of the hatchet jobs from the majors, it’s one thing to be low budget, but that doesn’t and shouldn’t mean low quality, and the Greens should feel thankful that it didn’t come to wider attention and awareness.
Overall campaign scorecard: B-
Nick Xenophon Team
A new entrant with only a handful of creative for this campaign. Great website but will need to really improve on the social media front.
Best Ad: Nick Xenophon – Real Change
Remarks: Catchy jingle, nice speed, low on the information hit and positive made this consistent with the Xenophon brand. Nice job.
Worst Ad: Nick Xenophon Team in Victoria
Remarks: Not awful but not fantastic either. Surprised that they let this one get made though as Nick Xenophon is the brand but he was quiet on this one. The jingle was also different to the one used in Real Change and consistency is important in political campaigns.
Overall campaign mark: C
Other minor parties
The Australian Sex Party “Vat-i-Can Can” message aimed to offend a certain market and worked, but overall they’ll need to do more than just be another protest vote party if they want to win a Senate spot in the new voting system. Same goes the Lib Dems use of Marlboro Man imagery in an outdoor spot.
Bob Katter played to the core well, even though his ad was just so wrong in so many ways.
Best Ad: Real Tradies, CFMEU
It was a nice piece of work, albeit about 30 seconds too long. Creative was good, and nice pace. Information overload was a bit too high too, they need to watch that scene from Love Actually where Mark confesses his love to Juliet.
Worst Ad: Please, please don’t vote Liberal
High on information overload, high speed and low on creative this seemed to be from Labor. But it wasn’t. It was just a bad ad done by the owner of SpecSavers who’d missed out on a Government contract. You can view the ad here.
AdNews has published a special report that analyses how much each political party has spent on media and how the respective campaign strategies have played out.
Dr Andrew Hughes is a lecturer at the ANU College of Business and Economics and is an expert on political marketing.
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