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’m not going to get all boring and write about election stuff all the time;) I’ve just been living, eating, breathing marketing lately so I decided to pick on the election;) Here are some of my favorite marketing blogs/sites;

Marketing Profs 
Wonder Branding: Marketing to Women
Diva Marketing
Seth Godin
Viral Garden
Word of Mouth Marketing Assoc.

I’m currently reading Waiting for your Cat to Bark: Persuading Customers when they ignore Marketing. Which is a great book for showing how the trends in marketing have to shift in order to reach the customer.

I’ve also been thinking about having a regularly recurring post about some of my friends who I think are inspiring as people. Some of them are single Moms who have started a successful business. Other’s are inspirational for their experiences. Stay tuned.

Busy day today. I need to head to Staples to pick up office supplies. I hate that I have to drive all the way up town to the south side to buy office supplies. I attempted to go to zellers last night to find everything but as usual they didn’t have what I needed. Please help the northside grow, sigh.

I contacted the NB Liberal Women’s association trying to find out the stats on the number of female voters in NB and to what degree they market to Women. I’ve heard nothing back from them as of yet. The PC group doesn’t have a link on their website anymore, so I may drop in to the campaign office near me and ask them. However, Rosella Melanson of the Advisory Council on the Status of Women did respond. She said that there were no recent studies with regards to woman voters, but that it is thought that they vote as often as men. She did say that very little of the political marketing is geared to women, even when it is known that undecided voters are mostly women.

I found this article from 2000 that she wrote that discusses some of these issues, albeit a bit outdated.

The people most likely to be influenced by a political campaign are the undecided. Women make up 66 per cent of the undecided vote in this federal election. Yet, it seems no party is making a pitch for women’s vote.

<<--snip-->>

Faced with such a lack of choice, many women may not vote, leaving men to have a disproportionate influence on the outcome. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain for four years, I figure.

In light of that (I want to have a reason to complain, so I have to vote;)), I see that both the PC’s and the Liberals now have some of their ad campaign up on their website including a youtube video from Shawn Graham, not a bad marketing idea Shawn. Makes it easier for us bloggers to share with everyone. Of course the first words out of his mouth are his branded negative put down marketing. He focuses on the orimulsion fiasco, and the rest of the ad isn’t bad, but I still think that he needs to have other emphasis in his ad campaign and I assume he will. Graham’s constant put-down marketing really bothers me, which means it bothers other potential voters as well (many of them women). He has a whole page on his website dedicated to it, called Tory watch. When I think Graham, I instantly hear in my head, all the radio and news clips of him saying what the PC’s aren’t doing. This election campaign is no different, his radio, tv and newspaper ads all start out with the tell tale Orimulsion fiasco. Tell me (or better yet, show me) what you will do for me as a citizen in NB, and let that speak for itself against the PC’s. I don’t need you to tattle on the PC’s for what they’ve done to the province. I also hope that he will have other ads besides energy ads. Energy is important and I care about the cost of my power bill, but I want to hear more. Yes, he’s talking increased daycare spots, autism support, and I know that because I’ve read the paper and listened to the news on the radio, but the ads are supposed to be influencing me, and so far they’re not.

See I told you, I’d innundate you with youtube video;)

The PC ad (radio, not youtube) is not bad. It’s positive, covers a lot of area and is almost convincing. And maybe that’s partly because he’s easier to listen to without seeing his face, live, full blown, etc.

A quick side note. I think the liberal website is by far the most informative and well laid out. Followed by the PC website and last the NDP website. The NDP website is terrible, difficult to read and does not have much information on it. 78% of women use the internet to research their choices in decisions they make. The more informative a site is, the more they are likely to trust the source. It’s the first thing I did when I went looking for information about the candidates, hit their websites. The PC website has too much of Lord’s face plastered all over it again. It may sound trivial, but it’s part of branding, and seeing him reinforces to me the branding he’s created with me, which is why I found his radio ad more effective. He’s also jumped on the negative band wagon with the liberal reality check. A lot of the articles are pdf files and a bit annoying to load them all if you want to read them. Overall, I’d rate the liberal website the winner here.

The truth is, I don’t like Shawn Graham. I don’t like Bernard Lord. I don’t dislike Allison Brewer. Do I know any of them personally . . . no. My perceptions of them are based from many experiences, tidbits heard in the news, read in the paper, and other media venues. I’m sure they are all very nice people, and it’s not that I don’t like them per se, it’s who they have branded themselves to be to me. Which is why I think waiting until election time to suddenly make promises, or kiss the babies so to speak is too late. The only reason it’s different with Allison Brewer is because I haven’t been exposed to her as much in the media and so the branding is weak.

Truthfully, and anyone who reads my blog knows, my views are probably more in line with the NDP. Does that mean I’m voting for Allison Brewer? Not likely (nor do I know of a candidate in my area as of yet). As Spinks said in a comment somewhere, the NDP in NB is a fringe party and while I may support many of their issues, I don’t believe in their ability to actually win. I know, it’s a catch 22, how can they win if people like myself won’t support them. Am I showing less integrity by voting for someone else. It’s reality. It’s why I think for the most part, politics, voting, etc. is all a sham. And not only that, I’m not really voting for Brewer, Graham or Lord. I have to decide between T.J. Burke and Mike Smith. That’s something I completely don’t understand. What if Mike Smith will provide the better choice for my neighborhood but I want the liberals to win the election?

I’m feeling it already, the voter apathy. I feel this every time it’s election time. No Clear choices, despite what the NDP may have in their tagline.  

I’ve got lots to blog about but not a lot of time, so I’ll just throw some bits and pieces of all of them in here.

My life:
1. Had a dinner date last night, it was fun, good to get out of the house and relax.
2. Working a lot lately, not too much longer till we spill the beans on the business. You bloggers will get a lot of the goods first;)
3. kids are doing well, school starts way too soon. Alec’s last week at camp, at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery this week, learning sculpture. Bram starts preschool this year, big changes.
4. Completely surprised and thrilled by the surprise marketing big wig visitors to my blog this week.
5. I watched Poseidon, a great thriller, wish I had seen it at the theatre.
6. I’ve got someone new in my bed lately. He keeps me warm and provides hours of stimulation. He showed me a movie last night. Helps me with my work and may very well be my new best friend. Even better yet, the company paid for him;)

NB Election:
1. Daily Gleaner today had an article about women in politics from the PC party. I actually agreed with a fair chunk of it.
2. I saw the liberal’s new ad today, their second E as Hilary Casey referred to it.
3. Hello to all of you who are finding my blog searching for T.J. Burke and Mike Smith and all the other candidates. I bet you didn’t expect to find this type of blog, lol. They make up a significant number of my search strings the last few days. At least if I don’t count the bizarre search strings like “parking lots girls voyeur” that seem to keep cropping up, lol.
4. PC’s suddenly won the lottery or something, lots of money being talked about.

There’s no doubt that world of mouth marketing is effective. It can make or break you. Blogging has really brought that to the forefront with everyday people like myself able to write about our experiences and interactions with people, companies, products and life. I knew when I had my blog, like all bloggers do, they recognize that a significant portion of their readership are lurkers. People who drop by daily for their fix and head off to the next blog. Sometimes we have a hint of this when we view our stats, we can see where people have been coming from or the search strings that have brought people here. I think sometimes we can forget about the expanse of our readership when we have regular visitors and regular commentors. You have the illusion of an insulated world, although it is far from it. That perhaps my neighbors are looking at me oddly because they read my blog the other day;) So when I blog, I like to try to be aware of potential readers and of the impact that sharing my life with the world could have on my life. I would say that for the most part, it has been positive and I think that the boundaries of neighborhoods are changing all the time.

Which leads me to today’s interesting election tidbit.

My phone rings this morning. I answer. “Hi Lisa, This is TJ Burke calling” “I understand you had some questions related to childcare and education and I also wanted to apologize for the sign incident yesterday” (these aren’t the exact words, but a close enough proximation). We chat for a couple of minutes. Then the question “Do you have a blog?”. I’m half tempted to say, oh her, no that’s not me, that’s a different Lisa R, lol. But no, I fess up and say yes, that’s me. It turns out he was one of the mystery searchers that found my blog googling TJ Burke. A wise move to find out what people are saying about you (remember word of mouth). Fortunately, he didn’t tell me I was a crazy blogger or that my rambling was boring and nonsensical;) He was actually quite pleasant and had very nice things to say about my blog (yes I know, Scott, you’ll say he’s a politician and he’s supposed to say that kind of stuff, lol;)) He also said that he’s in the process of starting a blog which I think is an excellent idea to help the everyday voter like myself follow what the local MLA is doing.

So my synopsis; a good move on TJ Burke’s part to follow up with a phone call. If I had never heard from him after the sign incident, I wouldn’t have had the same impression.