Open season: A deep-dive into the cut-throat, unregulated UK political ad industry

Just how do you influence people? This is one of advertising’s key questions and arguably its raison d’être. Advertising has always been important to any group or business that seeks to reach a given outcome, be it increasing membership, awareness or profits.

In politics however, getting others to come round to your way of thinking is altogether pivotal.

Throughout the years, British political advertising has been dominated by the savvier, and it must be said, better-heeled, Conservative Party whose long-standing relationship with London agency Saatchi & Saatchi enabled the latter to develop into a global powerhouse.

Political advertising has arguably helped shape many a voter’s opinions and choices down the years. Marketing Beat takes a look at some of the more controversial recent campaigns, breaking down just what makes a good political ad tick.

“Look into her eyes and tell her you still back Boris Johnson.”

In this small-scale, but very effective PR stunt, Labour took over the principal ad banners on the Tory news site Conservative Home displaying a parodical take on the government’s “Look them in the eyes” campaign ran during the height of lockdown.

Capitalising on the Sue Gray report’s damning revelations around the Partygate scandal, the banners displayed a close-up of an NHS worker’s eyes reading: “Look into her eyes and tell her you still back Boris Johnson.”

<p>Users of the website were today met with a wall of advertisements purchased by Labour attacking Boris Johnson </p>

This riding of the negative media wave was perfectly timed, says Benedict Pringle, partner at London agency The&Partnership and founder of the politicaladvertising.co.uk website.

“This was a very clever stunt. It generated lots of media coverage, which kept the story of Boris Johnson breaking lockdown rules in the media, and further perpetuated that narrative,” he said.

“Lots of voters who might be persuadable might have seen that coverage.”

On the other hand, Sam Delaney, political author and founder of broadcasting firm 11-29 Media, believes that although the takeover was an astute piece of PR, its impact won’t live long in the memory.

“It’s a cheeky thing to do, journalists pick up on it, write an article and that might shape political discourse for a day or two,” he stated, adding that it “stirs the pot and stimulates the news cycle but that’s all”.

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“Corbyn: No bombs for our army, one big bombshell for your family. More debt, higher tax.”

Playing on the fears of centre-right-leaning voters that Corbyn would be a soft touch on the international stage, this ad drove home the long-standing right-wing press narrative that a Labour government under Corbyn would not be firm nor strong enough in the face of international aggression from the likes of Russia and China.

It also trotted out the traditional trope of apprehension surrounding higher taxes.

Playing on pre-conceived notions surrounding Corbyn’s hesitance to use the military, this ad was aimed mainly at undecided middle-road voters, as Delaney pointed out: “You can’t change people’s minds in the four-week run up to a general election.”

Corbyn tax bombshell poster

“But you can emphasise the things they already vaguely think. Any wavering Tory voters who were thinking of either abstaining or voting Lib Dem would have been reminded of their deepest Corbyn fears by these ads.”

Pringle however, found the ad to be somewhat wide of the mark, believing it to be “very weak”, “with minimal positive impact and potentially counterproductive for the Conservatives”.

“In this instance, whilst the audience may agree that Corbyn’s tax and spend policies will be bad for the country, few people take glee in the idea of the army bombing people,” he said.

“Breaking Point: The EU has failed us all.”

For many, this UKIP ad will need no introduction. Parodying the Conservatives’ iconic 1978 “Labour isn’t working” ad by Saatchi & Saatchi, this poster drove a stake through the heart of the nation’s deepest divisions surrounding 2016’s EU Referendum and was even reported to the police over accusations that it could incite racial hatred.

UKIP’s sway on British politics may have waned dramatically over the last half-decade, but Farage’s flagship poster will remain forever burned into the public consciousness as those same tensions continually ebb and flow.

Nigel Farage with the poster

The ads’ impact on the 2016 Referendum results cannot be underestimated.

“It was a close-run thing, the poster got picked up by ever newspaper, website and TV news show for weeks afterwards. It became a defining image of the campaign,” Delaney said.

More importantly, it “became the focus of the whole election” as it stimulated a nationwide debate on the issue, shortly after the peak of the 2015 migrant crisis and may have steered public discourse.

Pringle concurred, believing that the ad did influence the election, although he feels that its main impact was to cause anti-migrant sentiment to “crystallise and resurface” among the hardcore UKIP voter base.

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“We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead.”

Boris Johnson’s equally infamous ‘red bus’ has also grown into a lasting cultural icon, perfectly encapsulating the fiery debates of that summer.

It has since emerged that the claims displayed on the bus were not strictly ‘true’, but when did political ads ever play by the rules?

Arguably the cornerstone of the Vote Leave strategy – alongside Johnson’s marmite personality-driven politics – a simple coach ad may have single-handedly shaped Britain’s social and economic future for decades to come.

Vote Leave campaign bus

For Delaney, the key lay in Leave’s expert media management centred around controlling the narrative and ensuring those quotes were headline news for weeks on end.

“It was controversial. It was a lie. It prompted an outraged response from the Remain side and created a debate that went on for days. The rights and wrongs got lost amidst all the noise. Most importantly, Leave were in control of the agenda.”

It was this astute media management that, in the eyes of many, ultimately led to Leave’s victory, with Pringle adding: “It was the dominant message that ran across lots of advertising and was run in pretty much every media interview that the Vote Leave campaign did.

“Do I think it contributed to Vote Leave’s victory? Absolutely. And I think it’s probably that and ‘Take Back Control’ that were certainly the two most memorable things of the campaign.”

Undoubtedly, an arresting and though-provoking political ad can be as effective as any policy or politician in influencing public opinion during an election, something which was never more evident that during the hotly contested 2016 EU poll.

The political ad sector is currently unregulated in the UK, and as such parties can be as outrageous as they wish – as we saw with UKIP’s migrant poster. They are also free to position outright lies as cast-iron fact.

Calls to bring this very unique niche of the ad sector in line with the rest of the industry are growing steadily louder as the political advertising dogfight has grown increasingly bitter amid a win-at-any-cost mentality.

But for now, and most likely for the 2024 election campaign, it remains very much open season.

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