Research from marketing intelligence platform Pathmatics, analysing how and where political parties are spending digital advertising dollars ahead of the election, has shown both Labor and Liberal switching gears in recent weeks.
Since April 10, when the election date was called, the Liberal Party’s messaging has shifted from promises to improve the environment and help recover the economy to critiquing Labor’s track record around economic management. They’re supported this change with a fivefold increase in digital ad spend.
Labor, meanwhile, has consistently focused on different issues over the past month with steady spending, deploying nearly 400 different creatives to respond to the news cycle. These have so far included highlighting their plan to create more jobs, as well as attacking the Liberal party over failure to follow through on statements around recovery from natural disasters.
Data from January 1 to May 1 shows the Labor Party are edging close to $1 million total spent, with 80% of that on Facebook, whereas the Liberals have put over $500,000 towards digital advertising since the start of the year with just under half of that on Facebook.
The biggest spender, however, has been Clive Palmer and his United Australia Party with more than $8,000,000 into the campaign. The UAP’s ads have tended to focus more on Palmer’s plans and credibility for Australia, rather than lambasting the competition; all of the $8 million spent has been on YouTube.
Eugene Du Plessis, Pathmatics ANZ regional director, said: “How Scott Morrison intends to manage the economy has remained a core element of The Liberal Party of Australia’s messaging throughout its election campaign with much fewer creatives deployed.
"However, as we edge closer to election day, The Liberal Party has begun to really up its ad spend, doubling down on criticising the Labor Party’s poor performance on key economic metrics and positioning Albanese's strategy as weak.
“The Australian Labor Party has opted for a different approach entirely, ploughing their ad dollars into many different creatives in a hope these will stick with viewers based on whatever is dominating the news cycle at a given time. Their messaging has also taken several stabs at The Liberal Party, framing Scott Morrison as ‘uncaring.’
‘We’re already seeing a huge uptick in political ad party spend - particularly across social media - as we approach May 21st and Pathmatics will be paying close attention to how messaging evolves over the next two weeks.”
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