Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Shiny New Ads

Required timing, particularly because a sense of frustration was clearly growing, with the lack of perceived concrete response to the Conservatives. Fiscal restraints always at top of mind, it's still a morale booster to see some sharp, concise ads coming from our side, on themes that will highlight our central message. I've put the ads on the sidebar for viewing if you haven't seen them yet.

I like the economy ad, the tight shot of Ignatieff gives a personal message. Cookie cutter for sure, the standard ad, with the germane language, makes its point, but a bit pedestrian to be honest. The ad is fine, looks professional, sharp, gives another glimpse into our election thrusts.

The abuse of power ad is a strong theme for us- people can dismiss all they want on resonance, but a PM who came to office on ethics and accountability, that FAILURE is a real weakness that can be woven into a compelling argument, it can HURT. Does this ad achieve that goal? It's a start, although the lead with the Oda angle, I don't quite understand, given all the examples available. That's a quibble, I like the thrust. I'd hammer this angle all day long, at every turn imaginable, in your face, repetition to the point of nausea, assume for every hundred times you say it, most people caught a couple words, once, if that.

I'm curious how big the buy, sometimes I feel like we are forced to fight with one hand tied behind our backs, given fundraising limitations. This is it though, an election a virtual certainty, every penny we can scrape together pre-writ should be used to offset the stampede of Conservative ads. Good ads, a good start.


UPDATE

From the guru, it would appear we are making a serious purchase:
"I can tell you they are accompanied by a very, very big ad buy."

Nice to hear.

24 comments:

D said...

About time!

Anonymous said...

I like the Abuse of Power ad a lot. Not a huge fan of the economy ad, seems a little too generic. I would have liked to see a more biographical Ignatieff ad to counter the CPC attacks which have been largely personal. Either way it's good to see some money being spent. I'm gonna go the liberal website and donate $20 and so should everyone.

Anonymous said...

"A new Postmedia News/Global National poll suggests nearly three-quarters of Canadians have either never heard about or don't care that four Conservative officials have been charged with violations of election spending rules."

NOBODY CARES!!!!!

A Eliz. said...

If that is an Ipsos Reid poll..I won't belive it.....did not poll me yet!
I do like the ads. They are very expensive, so I will see what I can do

Joe said...

Is it true that one of the ads accuses Oda of 'forging' a document? I haven't seen the ads so I don't know. However if the ad does use the word forge it leaves the liberals open to law suits because Oca did not forge a document in any legal sense of the word. If the liberals have to retract the ad and apologize it will not look good on the Liberals.

Steve V said...

Ya Joe, I'm sure the Liberals just left themselves open to lawsuits. Is it ironic that your comment was trying to make it look like the Liberals weren't very smart? LOL.

As for Prairie Kid, those that have heard of it, 60% see it as relevant. So, your comfort blanket is that Canadians don't watch the news? What happens when the do during a campaign? Of those that are aware, it's a big deal, that's the key finding really conniebot.

A Eliz. said...

Feels good..just sent my small donation.

ottlib said...

Not being an expert on advertizing I really cannot comment on the content of these ads. Id do like them though, but I am biased.

PK, if the Senators facing charges was the only thing the Liberals could point to I would agree with you. However, that is not the case.

Scandal kills governments and the Conservatives know it. Which is why I believe they are being serious when they say they do not want one. They want the recent scandals and revelations to blow over before facing the electorate despite the lovely poll numbers they have been enjoying.

ottlib said...

D'oh, proofread!

The Conservatives do not want an election right now is what I was trying to say in my last paragraph.

Gayle said...

"A new Postmedia News/Global National poll suggests nearly three-quarters of Canadians have either never heard about or don't care that four Conservative officials have been charged with violations of election spending rules."

Well I guess the LPC should do something about that - like take out an advertisement to let people know or something.

"...if the ad does use the word forge it leaves the liberals open to law suits because Oca did not forge a document in any legal sense of the word."

I HOPE they sue. People pay attention to stuff like that.

Joe said...

Well Steve V Liberal is Liberal and Conservative is Conservative is Conservative but Stupid is universal. If indeed and I have heard from several different sources that the voice over accuses Oda of forgery which of course is a matter of law. If you accuse someone of committing forgery and can't back it up in law you have to retract it and that can be rather embarrassing. The one ad I have seen is Ignatieff speaking without making false accusations. Fair point fair comment. I could support a party that put out that kind of ad.

Steve V said...

Or:

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

John Stuart Mill

Love that one, such a great man.


Hey Joe, heard the latest:

CBC News Alerts

RCMP investigating former Harper adviser Bruce Carson


Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip...

Kirk said...

Man, I want the Liberals to say that the In-and-Out scandal involves the Cons submitting forged invoices.

Forged, forged, forged, forged!

Sue me, sue me, please!!!!!!!!!!!

Please, say what has been revealed in court affidavits, LPC. The Conservatives submitted fake invoices. Invoices forged to appear to be from Real Media when they were not. And then the Cons claimed before two courts that Election Canada had no right to question the validity of the invoices they submitted.

Joe said...

Sorry to burst your bubble Kirk but fake and forged are not the same thing at all.

Steve I don't wet my pants when the RCMP investigate political apparachucks of any stripe. When they are convicted in a court of law it is time be glad that the crook has been caught. I think in Canada there is an expectation of innocence until guilt is proven. Its kind of my point re Oda.

Steve V said...

Of course Joe, and I bet you were saying that to anyone who would listen with Goodale right? ZZZZ.

Jerry Prager said...

PrairieKid nobody cares because 80% of Canadian media is run by 3 conservative families who have been paid nearly 400 million dollars in the last 5 years by the Harper Government for a spin cycle designed to guarantee conservatives don't face any backlash for anything.
All those concentration of media Keith Davies AND Peter Kent warned about in early 70's and early 80's respectively. We don't have a press committed to liberal democracy anymore, because the agenda is to create a corporate manageriate. Transfers of wealth from tax payers to media companies will do that.
If the voters are asleep,then the bought and paid for media has done its job.

Kirk said...

Sorry to burst your bubble Kirk but fake and forged are not the same thing at all.

You are a funny, funny man Joe.

How do fakes come to exist?

They are forged.

Through the process of forgery fakes are created.

fake: to make up and attempt to pass off as genuine

Forged: to produce, change or imitate so as to deceive; especially to counterfeit.

Wow, "forged" and "fake" are sooo different.

But in the Con world any confused tangled thread is used to justify their crimes. Cons make the rules, eh Joe?

And Joe makes up the definitions of words...

marie said...

Hey Joe; Well Steve V Liberal is Liberal and Conservative is Conservative is Conservative but Stupid is universal.

And so am I Liberal Joe. There are a lot of ads Harper has out that could also be called on by the liberals and the NDP so tit for tat Joe. You want to call us stupid, go for it but stupidity just might end up smacking you in the face.

A agree that stupid is stupid and these stupid Cons are made up of a coalition between the Alliance Party, the Reform Party and a very few real conservatives and yes, stupidly is universal and the con supporters take heed. We are about to call them out on their bull shit and stupidity. BTW, their very ads will eventually come back to bite them on their own asses.

The more often they are aired, every few minutes 24/7, the less Canadians pay attention but in reality get more fed up with them and a great deal of them will not have much respect for the PM or the Cons Party. Attacking a party and their leader 24/7 is getting really tiring and I hear my friends saying that they turn of their TV’s or change channels when that happens.

It’s kind of like a child calling wolf too many times. You get to the point where you just don't listen or believe them anymore and simply ignore them.

Scotian said...

marie:

You said "You get to the point where you just don't listen or believe them anymore and simply ignore them."

So true, as Harper himself proved in 2006 when the truth was told about him and yet dismissed as rhetorical excess to outright falsehoods. You know, the hidden agenda claim? That hidden agenda about how he would abuse the power structure of the government to suit his own narrow agenda and ideology? Where he had a hidden agenda to reshape Canada into something unlike anything anyone has ever seen let alone voted a government in for in our history? I mean really, these things were true, his record for his intentions regarding his hidden agenda was quite open until he lost the 2004 election, and yet it was used so often that even though it was entirely truthful, grounded in reality it still lost most of its impact simply because people had heard it too often.

Well, one good thing I suppose from the past 5 years is those that remember hearing about the hidden agenda back then have had five years to see it turn out to be the truth given all Harper has done even in minority government. Hopefully the ads that deal with his abuse of power scandals and how he has peverted fundamental Canadian values, principles, and institutions both democratic and social will help remind people that there really was a hidden agenda, and as bad as things have been so far it is almost a certainty that if Harper got his majority no matter how slim he would make the abuses and the radical changes he has done let alone tried to do to date look mild by comparison.

I suspect that the "Ignatief, he didn't come back for you" bit has lost a lot of punch, in part because of that repetition but also because he has been a MP now for as long as Harper has held power, and if he was going to be as he is portrayed in those ads he would have long since taken off. I also suspect there were a lot of people irritated by these attack ads being in heavy rotation during significant sporting events like the Scotties and the Briar too, most people do not like combining their sports with their politics like that even during an election cycle, let alone outside of one (an official one anyway, in the Harper minority we have been exposed to the reality of the non-stop election cycle from him and his government, especially the way they have chosen to abuse taxpayer money to further dominate media with ads selling themselves as so wonderful and then using more taxdollars to find out what people thought of them.

I strongly suspect that this government has shattered records in money spent for polling and advertising by a fairly massive margin (even in the legitimate apects, leaving aside the stuff that bends or breaks the actual rules of what is supposed to be allowed which so many of us suspect has occured under the cloak of screcy this government shrouds itself in everywhere), and it will be fascinating and no doubt sickening to find out the real numbers whenever this government finally loses power and the ability to block such information from hitting the public domain.

General:

Its about time we started seeng some push back, even given the well known in political circles difference in financial resources for such ads. Part of the problem is how Harper has been able to have such a one sided field of battle in this respect, and this is an advantage which is no small one in the media/information age of politics.

Shiner said...

Well, I suppose launching a lawsuit and having Oda sprayed across every front page and prime time news bulletin in the country would be a refreshing change of CPC tactics if nothing else.

Joe said...

Marie I'm not calling the liberals stupid. Its just that mistakes are made that make people look stupid. Running what is likely a libelous ad is stupid whoever runs it. If the conservatives ran an ad saying Ralf Goodale had committed a criminal offense I would call that stupid as well. Equally stupid is running an ad with Ignatieff looking like his makeup was done by a second rate mortician. I'm sure there are lots of talented makeup artists out there that could do a stellar job and maybe even do it for free but no the liberal henchmen seemingly want to make their leader look like Frankenstein's monster with a head that doesn't belong to its body. Good grief at least blend the base colour down the neck instead of making it a distinct line. Do they have the same amateurs doing the makeup as they had for Dion's video debacle?

Steve V said...

Yes, the Liberal didn't vet the commercials, instead some guy named "Joe" on a blog has it right. Too funny.

Joe said...

Well Steve V lets keep our powder dry and wait. If the ad gets pulled and an apology offered then my concern was justified. If nothing happens then your lack of concern was justified.

Steve V said...

zzzzzz.