I was catching up on the NB blogroll links and discovered a new blog to discuss the 101 people who are screwing up Canada, created by Spink About It. It should be both entertaining and interesting to say the least. Although, how he’ll mesh the opinions of the left and right should be interesting, as I suspect their lists would be different;) Although Spinks is taking that into account and trying to base his decision on the impact. It sounds like the anti-list of Canada’s Greatest Canadians.

I’ll be honest, my typical political ramblings tend to be on a global/federal perspective. I’ve certainly been accused of being a Bush/Harper basher. I love Jon Stewart’s political satire and I regularly read alternet. Having said that, I find it’s easy to be a Bush basher, easier to jump on those political bandwagons, than discussing what is happening in our local scene. That’s because at this level, the lines are a lot blurrier, the issues more personal perhaps. So with that in mind, I’m more of a blank slate with this upcoming NB election. My opinions less formed.

So I’m finally going to write a post about the upcoming NB election. I think it’s important to clarify that I’m just a regular potential voter. I’m not a political expert, I only semi follow it in the news and mostly when issues that are important to me pop up and as I’ve said before, for the most part, I feel that trying to figure out who to vote for is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. What I do have are my observations of the election in a peripheral sense. In other words, Mr. Lord, Mr. Graham and Ms. Brewer, I’m your regular every day voter that your marketing campaign needs to appeal to. Here’s your demographic info:

single 37 year old Mother of two young children, one in school, one in preschool
Fredericton
Employed
income range (hey this is a public blog, c’mon;))
Post Secondary Education
Home Owner

What I’m curious to know and I know I could search and find it, but maybe a reader will have the info for me. What percentage of women vote in NB? How much of the female vote influences the polls here?

The reason I ask is that I’m going to blog about my perceptions of their marketing campaign. After all, they’re trying to gain my vote. I’m the one they need to sway. I read both the gleaner and the TJ yesterday and saw the full page campaign ads. With my new job, I’ve spent the last year investing a lot of time looking at marketing to women (I highly recommend. Marketing to Women and Don’t Think Pink) I saw both ads from a different perspective.

Liberal Ad:
1/2 page black and white (except for the liberal logo in red)
3rd person copy
team imagery

PC Ad:
full page ad, full colour
1st person copy
Close up of Lord 

Graham’s ad showed he and his team walking together. You can see the same imagery on his website. It’s a bit reminiscent of The Right Stuff but it works to a point. I think the colour version works better than the b/w ad in the paper. It’s too busy and loses it’s effectiveness of it being a team or community in b/w. Women are drawn to imagery that either connotates a team or community feel or they are drawn to imagery that shows close ups of people’s faces. The PC ad with Lord is certainly noticeable, but I find it’s too much in your face and not an appealing photo (no offense Mr. Lord;)). They both took different approaches with their copy as well. Graham’s copy is 3rd person (from the team) is specific in relation to energy, that the “PC’s have wasted 2.2 billion on the Orimulsion fiasco.” Which by the way most women are not receptive to that form of competitive put-down marketing.  He engages in “report talk” rather than “rapport talk” The PC Ad does a better attempt with the rapport talk as he uses the first person voice, the only problem, is that it’s too vague. The PC headline “Getting results for our children, families and seniors.” catches my attention, fits my demographic. The Liberal headline “Shawn Graham will make New Brunswick an energy leader”, yes it has my attention too, as certainly energy is important and definitely one of my “causes” but as the main leading headline, not as effective as the PC ad in that the PC ad hit on children and families, my critical focus for me.

So visually overall, I think the PC ad is more effective (although I think using a different image would have been better). In fact if you took the imagery (community/team feeling works) from the Liberal ad, combined it with the feel of the copy from the PC Ad. Keep the third person “we”, but give it a more personal touch, provide some facts and stay away from the competitive put-downs. Then I think it would have been a very effective ad. And yes colour ads are more effective, although more costly as well.

So what does this mean bottom line. I think it means that more people will be drawn visually to the PC ad then the Liberal ad regardless of where their loyalties lie.

And maybe I missed it (and if I did, that says something too about it’s effectiveness of reach), but was there an NDP ad?

So how much of a difference does an ad make? How much of a difference overall to their campaign will it matter which ad or marketing campaign, I prefer more? Will their signage that is just starting to be distributed all over town make a difference? How much do I trust the print media in NB which is essentially Irving owned? (another issue altogether). How does the every day person find out the election facts or will old engrained, pre-conceived and yes quite possibly false and ill informed info be my deciding factor. How much does my vote count? Who’s going to win my vote?

I finally got caught up on the papers today and I discovered that the Telegraph-Journal launched a new look. I have to say I love it. Lucie Lacava’s design for it is modern, clean, bright and easy to navigate. I know it’s Irving owned, etc. etc.;), but kudos to the TJ for a fabulous new design. I’m looking forward to seeing their revamp of the Reader/Salon when it comes out.

I’m sure this was the same for many of you yesterday. As I was driving to pick up the kids, I turned on CBC radio and heard someone describing a multiple shooting at a college in Montreal. Instant déja vu of école polytechnique. A 25 year old man, Kimveer Gill, had walked into Dawson College and opened fire, wearing the stereotyped black trench coat. One woman was killed and 19 others were injured. Gill apparently tried to kill himself but was shot down by police. Gill posted photos of himself with a gun and posted regularly on a website talking about living fast and dying young.

When things like this happen, I’m often caught up in conflicting emotions. Struck by the terrible sadness and waste of human lives. Yet also worried about why did Gill do this and wondering about what went wrong to drive someone to do something like that. In our new technology medium, we’re able to connect with people from all over the world, we build relationships with people online in different countries, etc. Yet I sometimes feel that in some ways we’re actually growing more distant from people. Gill probably built relationships online on that site he apparently frequented, yet there had to have been a disconnect to those students at Dawson. I know it’s been discussed endlessly and that there are many views on it, but I think despite the illusion of more connectivity, we’re actually more disconnected from people. We don’t know our neighbors like we used to (I realize smaller cities/towns are different) and the accountability factor is different. I don’t know what the answer is, and maybe there isn’t one. Maybe it’s just statistically there will be a shooting at a school, or a college or a McDonald’s. That there are massacres in Rwanda or Afghanistan. All I know is that it’s an endless loop of trying to make sense of senseless violence.

Well, I voted today. In and out in a few minutes, all taken care of. I have to admit, I walked out of there thinking, ok, I’ve done my civic duty, now back to work. I didn’t feel that I’d necessarily contributed in a major way to anything that will matter. And I guess that’s what it came down to. After weeks of following the news, reading the paper, listening to the radio. I didn’t come out of it with a “yes, this is the party to vote for” feeling. First some general campaign wrap up from my everyday voter perspective;

1. I felt that the liberals had a better campaign for the most part from a marketing perspective. Better website, visibility, accessibility, signs, ads, and media EXCEPT I started to cringe when that ad that played every morning on CBC on the way to taking my kids to school. The one with the acadian music in the background with the we can make a difference speech. After several days of listening to that, I turned the rado off this morning just so I wouldn’t have to listen to it again. From a marketing perspective, I think it’s too long of an ad to air several days in a row on the radio. And the music became too much after a while.

2. I didn’t like the negative campaigning by the PC’s and especially the Liberals.

3. It was good to have the NDP platform to read as I didn’t find that through other mediums, that their voice was getting out there. Having read all 3 platforms (and I will be honest, I did not read with a fine tooth comb. I scanned it for items that are important to me, something I think the everyday voter does) while there are differences, there wasn’t a lot that jumped out at me from any of them.

So this campaign, I made an actual effort to read the papers, read blogs (this was my favorite part), and really tried to learn about the issues, not something I had done a lot of before. And you know, the sad truth, is that it didn’t make a lot of difference to how I felt, nor did it really influence my decision in voting. 

Sad, when you think of it. I was active, I learned and I still feel jaded. I don’t trust that politicians will follow through on what they say. Not because I think they are liars or bad people, to the contrary as they are actively trying to make a difference, but because I think that circumstances change and it’s difficult to follow through with some items. So then don’t make promises at election time just for the sake of a vote. I almost think I’d rather have someone running say to me “I can’t promise that I can do x,y, and z. But I know what needs to be done (and state the issues), and I know some solutions (state the solutions), so let’s try and see if we can get there.” Too many things are dependent on other factors. “We’ll make NB a booming place to live by bringing NBers back”, great, how are they going to come back, what will bring them back here, and if they don’t, what are you going to do then?.

Anyway, it’s more of the same rhetoric, what I’m trying to say is that I’m a cynical optimist. I hope for the best, but have my doubts about it happening. I’ll be online from TX on Monday night to follow the election. LOL, who am I kidding, I’ll be out visiting 6th street and seeing the sites of Austin;)