I’m impressed with the Green’s new billboard campaign and I’m pretty certain it’ll work as it is clean and effective marketing and reminds me of the best work that was coming out of Saatchi when they were at the peak of their powers.
One thing about the billboards disquiets me however, and that is that they are too brand aware. It’s an old saw of mine that the political process is becoming too commodified. That politics is being treated too much like an exercise in marketing a product that is related to the voter only in terms of their “purchase” in the polling booth.
The effect of this style of politics is that it treats voters like consumers and consequently disengages voters from partaking in the political process.
As ‘Sod pointed out in his “Brand Key” post this method of engaging voters is extremely effective but unlike ‘Sod I don’t like the implications it has for our democracy and it makes me uncomfortable to see the Greens indulging in it (especially as they have done it so well).
Call me old-fashioned but I don’t believe political participation should begin and end in the polling booth and I think that this kind of marketing works to enforce the idea that it does.
That’s why I’m pleased to see a group like Vote with Both Eyes Open appearing on the scene: it aims to take political action back from the spin doctors and admen and put it in the hands of citizens. I highly recommend people from the left sign up and get involved and if you’re from the right then you might want to consider starting your own version. After all, this democracy is supposed to belong to all of us.
I think these billboards are great, remember that they are not the only part of the campaign. If anything should have less substance it’s the bit that people quickly drive by.
George: http://www.labour.org.nz/policy/manifesto_2005.html
220 pages by my count.
I understand why you might have issues with Labour, I have them myself. But they do at least tell the voters what they stand for.
I wonder if the little girl in the ad realises that if the Greens had their way she would be wearing a hemp sack and living in a cave.
Crank and if the Right had their way, she would be too busy working in a factory for this pic.
With you, crank?
If the right had their way, she would be learning about personal responsibility at school, and that the government doesn’t owe anyone a living, you owe yourself.
What did JFK say?
Ask, not what your country can do you for, but what you can do for your country?
That is what the left USE to be about.
if the right had their way it would be her CHOICE to go to university or become a sex slave in the arabian gulf!
Randal – Even though this thread has become fatuous in the extreme, you’ve reached a new low.
randal, aren’t you banned?
Billy – you should know better.
To be banned you have to fulfil both of the following criteria.
1. Be perceived as being to the right of the political spectrum
2. Perform a misdemeanour
IrishBill says: I banned Randal for two days. I have also banned the ’sod a couple of times. You’re from the right. Have I ever banned you? I think you should reassess your prejudice in light of the evidence.
[lprent: hs: The criteria is behavior on this site, there are a number of things that will raise the ire of the moderators.
Foremost of course is to attack the site (ie attack me) or to attack the writers at a personal level (which attacks the site). Those cause some very long bans or outright total bans and generally without bothering to warn, because that is really impolite and shows a seriously bad set of social behavior. I prefer to keep writers over commentators.
For lesser behaviors that don't add to the comments, we'll usually warn, and usually put in lesser bans as required. Some ignore warnings from the moderators and get bans. 'sod, Randal, and a few others tend to be the only ones on the 'left' who ignore gentle warnings occasionally, and pick up a ban.
Yes, it appears that the 'right' commentators often value the continued running of the site less than the 'left' because they try to trash the comment stream more without adding anything of significant value. They also seem to be intent on disruption because they seldom read the warnings of the moderators. The modus operandi seems to be to write inflammatory comments and never look to see what response they get.
That could have something to do with the avowed intent of the site expressed in our About. For some reason some people can't abide having a effective voice of the labour movement on the web. Thats fine, because I don't like having ineffective voices of the right here either. You should be able to argue coherently and with other people on the site.
The smart ones learn - notably BDTR who actually looked to see what daft words and silly phrases I had in the auto-moderation list.
The more socially inept (defined as stupid) find out about our "evolution in action" attitudes. ]
That is interesting Tane, but I can’t find Labour’s 2008 manifesto anywhere. Do you know where it is? If they haven’t released it, why not? Where are the policy documents that Labour is releasing for the 2008 election? I haven’t seen them either.
I don’t think Labour can credibly argue that National is devoid of policy when it has made 25 policy releases this year so far against zero from the Labour Party, and has far more policy material on its website from both 2005 and 2008 than Labour has ever had. I know you’re not a spokesperson for the labour party Tane, but in light of this how credible do you think Labour’s attacks on National for not releasing policy are?
OK, randal, I see you’re time is up:
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=2943#comment-85355
I look forward to more of your thoughtful comments.
You want sotty nosed kids in barefeet and hand knits running the country? VOte Green. Putting the village into global since 199mumble.
Tim: 25 policy releases? You’re not confused with 25 bullet-points of policy perhaps?
I really don’t remember 25 releases this year, if you could link me to say… fifteen of them then I’d take your word on the last ten.
And it is said time and again that Labour are actually enacting their policy plans, right now. If you want to know roughly what they’d do next year if they were in power then read the budget – I gather it’s fairly hefty.
Billy: “You’re time is up” – ‘Sod would hide his face in shame.
Tim. I understand Labour are currently working on their manifesto. It’ll be out, just as it is every election.
I’m not a Labour Party member, or even a Labour voter, so I can’t speak for them. But I think National’s line that Labour has no policy is absurd on the face of it – what on earth do you think all this urgency over the Emissions Trading Scheme has been for? What’s that Real Estate Bill that passed the other day? Didn’t they just pass a meal breaks and breastfeeding amendment into the ERA? And close a loophole in Kiwisaver?
The point is when you’re governing you’re issuing policy all the time. People know what Labour stands for – they’ve spent the last nine years delivering policy, they’re delivering policy right now, and they’ll no doubt have a detailed manifesto full of policies going into the election.
National, on the other hand, has a few pages of bullet points and a strategic vacuousness to hide their true agenda. People simply don’t know what they stand for, and I strongly believe that’s the way National wants it to be.
The billboards show just how much the Green Party is becoming just another bland, apolitical, PR-controlled organisation. They are trying to sell their “brand” in the same way that a marketer sells coca cola or Pepsi.
Disagree, name any organisation, Greenpeace, World Vision, churches, etc, etc. They are all “brands”. Not all “brands” are a commericial goal entity. In fact, these billboards are a fraction of the marketing process that any organisation uses and they all do.
Question to the above, “what is The Standard 2.01 then?
[lprent: The name of a 1930's/40's labour movement newspaper. It saved time thinking about a banner if we could just flog it and add a "version 2" to it. The 2.01 was because I'm a programmer and I always increment version numbers.
Of course it was pretty easy to roll TheStandard off the tongue when telling people the URL - pity that most kiwi's don't know that there is a org.nz.
Brand - well I guess it is these days - it is consistently the biggest search phrase used to find the site.]
[deleted]
[lprent: goodbye Rob.]
VE,
Oh no. What horror. That’s twice in two weeks. I may just have to accept the fact that I am not as clever as I think I am.
Tim have a look at them at http://national.org.nz/policies/policies.aspx . Some of the things are speeches, rather than policy documents, but there are two dozen policy documents released. Labour hasn’t released any policy documents or manifesto. I don’t think they can use the excuse that they’re in government and the budget has a lot of policy, because they released a manifesto in 2005. Where is their policy this time?
I think (surely) what one means by Labour not releasing any policy is ‘what policy would they like to enact after the 2008 election’? Score 15-25 to National, 0 to Labour.
Tim, re-read my comment above.
So, for example, under Law and Order where the top four items all have the same date, we can safely assume that they were released in the same speech? And where each of the things has four bullet-points of “National’s Plan” we’re meant to assume that behind each of those is a comprehensive document.
Ie:
http://national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleID=28241
Yeah. I can see why you’re antsy that Labour haven’t released a manifesto. But I’d also like to see one from National at some point – their policy page is laughable. It’s not policy, it’s just excerpts from speeches with nice bullet points. I doubt they’ll let anyone hold them to task for failing to:
http://national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleID=28240
Again: That isn’t a manifesto. Labour don’t have one either at the moment, but don’t pretend that National have somehow released a whole lot of policy already.
Muldoon Magic (AKA Rob, I presume), were you in nappies at the age of 5? Seriously, read Green policy instead of commenting like an uninformed numbskull.
I hope you’re some form of parody – otherwise the irony of someone complaining that the Greens are Luddites, when anyone vaguely proficient with the internet can see what Green policy is all about, will have escaped you. Ditto insider, I guess.
Brand – well I guess it is these days – it is consistently the biggest search phrase used to find the site.]
yeah, wish people didn’t associate brand with “another evil way to make money”. Those righties would think TheStandard is evil lol.
Board looks fine to me (white writing so it stands out!!! Not Green so it isn’t seen when you drive quickly pass), it is simple, clean and to the point reflecting the Green’s image
Not getting my vote though!
yes I got banned because I am working class and proud of it and speak my mind without beating around the bush. I dont take shit from namby pamby pantywaists and I can smell an agent provocateur from the stench on the screen. among other things I have also “saved” a rain forest which meant not only organising the intital campaign but hanging around for a few years making sure the ‘things’ did not sneak in the back way for their 400 tons a day. I learned a lot about politics form that including the fact that the idiotes in wellington had prioritised and were wiling to trade our rainforest for theirs. so in the end everybody is fair game and not only those who say they beleive something but like picasso and sartre only TALK THE TAlk AND DONT HAVE THE COURAGE TO WALK THE WALK. YOu hve to k now who your friends are.
Stephen:
This election is going to be too close to call. I’ve been watching elections for a long time and largely at the business end of campaigning. I’ve been getting pretty good at calling the effective result. In fact every election since 1981 except for 1996.
The ‘right’ of Nat/Act/UF is not going to get a majority. They will probably wind up with numbers very similar to Lab/Green/Prog.
I think that Nat/Lab percentages will be about 44/40 or a percent either way. The only way that the Nat’s could have got an outright victory was to make the election look so hopeless that Left/Green voters didn’t go and vote. They tried that as a strategy and it has now failed (miserably).
IMO: It is going to come down to skills in how to build a coalition with that other 15%. That is going to be interesting because I don’t think that either John Key or Bill English have the skills. They appear to have enough problems keeping the coalition together inside of their own party.
In case you didn’t realise, I’m kindly reminding you that this isn’t sport – it is politics
[deleted]
[lprent: goodbye Rob.]
lprent…’farwest’ has the dirt and nat/act/anyone is not going to get a GO just becuse they want one. Labour and Greens will form the next government because New Zealanders want security plus WFF, Kiwibank, and a government guaranteed ACC. Key has a history of delivering policy and or ‘contracts’ that are opaque and unable to be understood properly.
Thank you Peter, and T-Rex, for both saying what needed to be said.
How ludicrous to say the the Greens have ’sold out’ just because we’ve built a better billboard than we ever have before. Do you not remember how appalling they were in 2005? No you don’t. Because they were not memorable in any way. Not thirty seconds after you drove past them.
And to suggest that the new ones lack substance and/or policy is also ludicrous. Children, the environment. If they are not the basis and purpose of our efforts, why do we get out of bed in the morning?
Can people not be gracious, even as some of our far right brethren have, and acknowledge that they are most excellent? Why does every move that the Green Party makes have to be analysed as if it speaks for the whole party or the whole movement? I would concede that a higher standard is required of us because we demand a higher standard in our politics.
If a few more voters are awakened to our message rather than the spin of our political opponents, then we have succeeded.
Oh, dear. A frog on a soap box. I’ll crawl back under my lillypad now…
frog,
Indeed, the 2005 ones were dreadful
I, like many here, think that the billboards are beautiful, effective and clever – good politics and good messaging. If, however, the Greens were going to produce nothing more substantial than beautiful clever content-free messages I’d be really disappointed.
I am optimistic you will continue to balance beautiful simplicity with the detail-filled content which gives us a sense concreteness and completeness from which the symbols hang coherently.
Don’t be absurd, frog. I’ve not accused he Greens of selling out and I think the billboards are good but I did find them slightly discomforting. Probably because I apply a higher moral bar to the greens than I do to other parties. That said, I disagree that the last bill boards were unmemorable. Quite the reverse, they’ve entered legend for their awfulness.
With these billboards the Greens have shown they can play the game. Good on them. They are now game players. Don’t come here with some “higher purpose” claim that you can use this kind of imagery in this way without analysis because you are more moral than, say, the Kiwi Party (who will also tell you that the future of our children is why they get up in the morning. And they’ll mean it just as much as you do) because the thing is you are using sharp brand marketing and by doing so are tacitly endorsing the consumerist paradigm. That’s fine but at least have the guts to admit it rather than getting all holier then thou.
lprent, I don’t think you’re far off at the moment, but if all Labour campaign on is ‘don’t put it all at risk’ again, and National start reminding people that Labour is so far visionless, I don’t think the left will get that much of a look in.
I suspect that the campaign will be a mixture as per normal.
The economy is buzzing along the best that I’ve seen in my adult life. We’re finally seeing wages across the whole economy going up now that we’ve gotten back to close to full employment (again for the first time in my adult life). We’re started to put in the infrastructure investment that effectively stopped in the 1970’s when I was starting work.
The government is doing the types of forward looking that it should be doing rather than just trying to cope with continuous emergencies. I like the country being in a position to improve things incrementally. In particular to slowly wind up on initiatives that ensure that supports the gradual growth carrying on into the future. Government is a long-term activity. I get deeply suspicious of quick-fixes, because they never seem to work very well.
I really approve of the government being solvent, and now starting to save to cope with the future demands of an aging population.
The “don’t put it all at risk” is a powerful message to people of my generation, especially when the Nay’s don’t seem to have any better ideas. Certainly the Nay’s are bloody incoherent and very unforthcoming about what kinds of things that they want to do over the next decade. A lack of detail to me equates to either an intellecutual dishonesty or a degree of stupidity.
I’d expect that Labour will establish a few more policies on their long-term objectives. Essentially I’d expect a evolutionary rather than revolutionary strategy – doing things when we can afford them. That is a strategy that I approve of.
Oh I forgot to say. The current robust state of the economy doesn’t happen without vision. It takes a lot of work and a lot of reasonably correct decisions. So will working the future. Thats Labour. Hell even the reforms of the 1980’s were directed to that.
National on the other hand has exactly two disastrous governments in my adult life. The first one marched boldly forwards while looking backwards. It did the things that would probably have worked in the 1950’s to cope with problems of the 1970’s and 1980’s. It lacked the vision to loook into the future and realize things had to change. The second made a stupid ideologically based decision at exactly the wrong time (and I’d say for the wrong reasons) and plunged the economy into a 5 year recession when the rest of the world was booming.
John Key and the rest of his team look just as potentially stupid as those previous national governments. The fibre to the home proposal for instance looks like it was dreamed up to show ‘vision’. But for fucks sake, what in the hell is it supposed to achieve? Why should I give up my hard-earned tax dollars to give people faster access to beebo and porn sites? For the few who actually can use it – then they can pay for it.
I’d get a better return in putting it into better cheaper childcare to ensure that more parents are capable of rejoining the workforce. That is a measure I could go for, gives much better returns, and it is a hell of lot cheaper.
The question about ‘vision’ is if John Key even knows what a vision is – ultimately it needs to pay off. As far as I can see the man has made his career out of deconstruction rather than construction. That is hardly a good approach to governemnt these days.