NDP Strategic Review Part 3: Message Management

Following up on my earlier posts about the NDP's direction, I'll turn to what looks to be one of the more neglected areas of the road ahead - that being the type of message which the NDP should be seeking to send going forward.

In trying to define what the NDP should be doing, I'll note that messaging may be one of the areas where the genius of the Obama campaign hasn't yet been fully fleshed out. While there has been plenty of discussion about how much room was left for interpretation in the concepts of "hope" and "change", my suspicion is that they're exactly what made Obama's campaign so successful.

Rather than using rallying points for the base which served to repel potential swing voters (or vice versa), Obama managed to define his message in terms that held significant appeal for both. And that not only made it easier for Obama himself to keep his message headed in the right direction, but also ensured that person-to-person contacts didn't get bogged down in differences based on differences in underlying assumptions.

For the NDP, the best sell may not be precisely the same broad themes used by Obama. And indeed the "new kind of strong" messaging used in the past campaign looks like a positive first step.

But there's plenty of room for an additional focus on messages which are aimed less at the effect of a single ad than at creating the best possible environment for person-to-person persuasion. And if the NDP can base its public image on overarching themes like the ones successfully put forward by Obama, then every effort the party normally makes to push its message can only enjoy greater returns as a result.

Fearless

Apparently the NDP's ads aren't the only part of the campaign that's striking straight for the Cons' seeming strengths, as Jack Layton's early itinerary also looked to be aimed directly at Stephen Harper's stronghold:

Mr. Layton did not take questions from reporters at the morning event. That opportunity was promised for later in the day when the party's plane lands in Mr. Harper's home town of Calgary.

Now, it would take some radical changes in vote shifts to put even a single Calgary seat in play; indeed, no other major Canadian city figures to make for less fertile electoral ground for the NDP. And one would have to expect Calgary's media to be about as unfriendly to Layton as any local group in the country - making it counterintuitive to give them the first crack at asking questions about the New Democrats' campaign.

But while the choice may be a curious one at first glance, it certainly drives home the point that Layton won't shy away from the task of taking on Harper and his home base head-on. And sending that message from day one may wind up paying huge dividends as the campaign evolves.

A new kind of ad

It didn't take long after the NDP announced its ad strategy for the first ad to be made public. And so far, the reviews have been nothing but positive. But let's look at a few of the ways where future ads can likely improve on the first appearance of the New Kind of Strong theme:

Now, the mere fact that the NDP has launched the first strike among the opposition parties and won praise from across partisan lines would tend to signal that the ad has served its purpose and more. But there's still reason to think there's some room for further development as the campaign progresses.

After all, while it's a huge plus to have launched the first shot across Harper's bow, the current success in winning exposure through the blogosphere looks to be based mostly on a novelty factor among political wonks, rather than any "cheeky and irreverent" entertainment value which would make the ad spread among members of the general public. Which means that it'll be tough even to get this first ad heard far beyond political mavens without a heavy TV buy - and even tougher for any more ads in the same vein to earn free exposure.

So I'll be hoping that future ads will add more entertainment without sacrificing too much of the strong push against Harper. But even within the pure political attack genre, I would think there's at least some room for improvement.

For one thing, the ad doesn't draw a direct visual connection between Harper and the problems he's associated with, making it relatively unlikely that anybody paying casual attention will link the two together as closely could be done with some minor alterations. Likewise, the transition between different issues could seemingly be made a lot smoother - particularly in the health care/oil sands split screen that was chosen as the featured screen shot. And some of the areas of attack themselves seem to leave loads of room for refinement: while images of the tar sands may make for a great backdrop to an environmental message, surely there's more to the problem to be dealt with (and pinned on Harper) than "Oil Sands" alone.

Now, none of the above is to disagree with the consensus that the ad is generally a good one - in rallying Canadians against Harper, in placing Layton and the New Democrats front and centre in that battle, and in setting the stage for the campaign to come. But considering that the NDP is facing the challenge of defining a leader who's had the entire resources of the Canadian government at his disposal and whose party additionally has more cash than it can apparently spend during a campaign, I'll be hoping for even these kinds of minor issues to be worked out quickly as future ads get rolled out.