Friday, April 23, 2010

Vote for Advertising

In what is almost certainly the closest and most battling election in over a hundred years, things have been getting very interesting with twitter and facebook ablaze with comment following the leaders debates.

It's a very good sign that people are engaging with politics in a way that we have only really seen in the last US elections. The twitter buzz has been an important part of building the momentum that is happening around Nick Clegg.

The disappointing thing for me though is that adland hasn't helped make any knockout blows for any of the parties.

Lib Dems have had a good go with their Labservatives idea; which reasonably gets across the similarities between the two old parties.

Labour's work has been alright, but didn't really get the online reponse they might have hoped for. (as far as I have seen at least)

The Tories on the other hand have completely bombed, and ended up with work that has been spoofed and mocked in all quarters. So much so that in my view it's fundamentally damaged the way that people look at political advertising.

The problem is they all look and sound like political ads, sharing that holier than thou tone and smug humour (if you can call it that) which reads terribly to anyone outside the party circles.

No one has delivered anything revolutionary, there will be no Great Schlep here, no amazing nation defining work that changes the way we see a politician or party.

Perhaps the only smile for adland is that the real revolution has been through good old fashioned tv... with a shedload of tweets.

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