Conservative strategists are utter imbeciles when it comes to opening their war chest to the cheapest and most effective counterbalance to the danger of an ignited 34-44 demographic, the second largest growing social media participant group. That counterbalance is targeted online advertising.
The Conservative advertising strategy throughout the campaign has been a heavy emphasis on massive blanket TV spots. Fine. Television is the heart, the intestine, the lungs of campaign advertising. We have already talked about how their production machine has shifted mid-stride to confront the recent NDP surge. But social media is the new nervous system, the thyroid, and the pancreas. The Conservatives have demonstrated an inability to ascertain and respond to the strength of the NDP momentum, the new manifold on which people make decisions. Their response could have been swiftly accomplished through a noise campaign of massive facebook and YouTube blanket ads for pennies a glass. Their not doing so betrays their internally antiquated groupthink and focus on highly personal and creative attacks rather than a wide ranging public engagement strategy. When even the Chosen One is saying that the revival preacher is failing to connect to Canadians, the Conservatives could at least follow through on their cynicism backed by treasure and sprint back on a road of bones. NDP strategists should be congratulated for using their resources so effectively, especially given the obvious window by their generous counterparts.
By showing that they had no endgame strategy in the event their character assassination of Michael Ignatieff backfired by re-igniting complacent left wing voters, the Conservatives have exposed a conceit all their own. The blind trust they placed in their hatchet men has proven to be their undoing. The closed rallies, the barbs of the lurker scandal, all of this pales to an oversight that will have them kicking themselves in the months to come. With just under $20M probably spent so far in this campaign, an extra half million on an avalanche of impressions,5 second YouTube spots, and Google ads might have been the counterpunch they needed. Every time I see Conservative staffers on TV, they’re always huddled intensely, rattling away on their BlackBerries and their iPhones. It stuns me that so cunning and well resourced an organization cannot see the smart phone for the electorate. In this, the NDP has played the player, not the game.
Read more »
