In 2015, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Conservative Party) was looking good in the polls, so he called an election. In Canada, prime ministers can call their own elections.
In the last three elections, the Conservatives had developed a series of attack ads, kind of depicting the leader of the Liberal Party with pointy ears, tail, and pitchfork. We could argue that these ads were effective for the Conservatives, for, under Mr. Harper’s leadership, the Conservatives had one of their longer reigns of Canadian power.
There is an axiom in political marketing. Do not to directly respond to such an attack ad, for the response brings attention to that ad. But the Liberals, with a new leader, broke that axiom.
Early in the campaign, the Conservative attack ads pointed to the inexperience of that new Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau. He was young and new to politics. And his early public speaking style was a bit wooden. A few days after these Conservative ads showed, a new kind of ad came from the Liberal Party. These ads showed their leader, Justin Trudeau, riding an escalator, directly refuting his inexperience and youthfulness. Mr. Trudeau was well coached for this ad: his public speaking improved; he looked and sounded confident and politically capable.
“The Conservatives are in trouble,” I thought.
Indeed they were. As the 10-week campaign rolled on, the Liberals created more escalator ads. Conservative numbers slowly dropped in the polls. Mr. Trudeau and the Liberals won the election.
To use a football analogy, the Liberals knew the Conservatives were going to throw a 20-yard pass — and adjusted their defense for that play. No need to worry about the run, the short pass, or the long pass. We could argue that the Liberals had a spy in the Conservative back rooms, but all they really needed to do was to look at the previous elections. The Liberal political marketers were well prepared for the same Conservative play. Justin riding the escalator was a great counter to an easily predicted Conservative attack ad.
So here we Canadians are. Mr. Trudeau has been prime minister for seven years, making big decisions and writing Canadian history. But without that counter-the-attack ad, Mr. Trudeau would have likely lost the 2015 election and been replaced as leader of the Liberal Party. He would have gone back to teaching high school and giving a few speeches here and there. His Wiki bio would have been very short.
One ad made all that difference!
Should we not be looking at a democracy where a societal direction is not being decided by such trivial marketing gimmicks that have little to do with good governance?
Published on Medium 2022
Politics is Mostly a Spectator Sport
Negative Political Advertising
