Warren Kinsella tweeted a link to an article he wrote this AM in the Toronto Sun (read it here). The gist of it is that the best political ads don’t tell anyone anything, don’t try and make a pitch, and don’t try and score points – rather they surface and wrap context around whatever the viewing voter is already feeling. He goes on to say that the ads miss the mark because Canadians are really ambivalent about a coalition – the central thrust of the ads being that coalitions are bad, and conservatives are the alternative.
You be the judge – the commercials are embedded below.
Interesting side note: Kinsella references the “Daisy + Nuclear Apocalypse” ad that won Johnson his second term as president in 1964, as an example of an ad that surfaces voters fears and points them in a voting direction without badgering them with political messaging. Here it is, courtesy of YouTube:
5 stars out of 5 – Commercial One: I think this one is right on target, great messaging, if delivered a bit solemnly.
1/5 – Commercial Two: Michael Ignatieff is back in Canada mainly to eat your children, right after he forms an evil coalition government:
4/5 – Commercial Three: Great messaging – higher spending, higher taxes, higher prices. Nice. Though arguably our current deficit fits nicely under the “higher spending” banner:
1/5 – Commercial Four: That mean spirited Ignatieff! What a jerk! Personally, I’d probably be appalled at things I said 20 years ago too.
If you haven’t had enough yet, there’s two more here.
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