Close, but not quite

While most of the NDP's communications about the democratic coalition have been right on point, I have to wonder whether the party's eCards could have been a lot more effective.

Ideally, one would want an effort like the eCards to be sufficiently creative and entertaining to go viral. But the cards consist of only a slight holiday twist on the NDP's existing message, rather than anything which would seem likely to earn widespread interest. (Which would seem possible even within the actual theme - how about a rewritten version of "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" geared toward Harper's childish behaviour?) In the absence of that type of hook, the work put into a reasonably high-quality set of cards figures to reach far less people than it could have otherwise.

Moreover, even assuming there wasn't much floating around by way of ideas for viral media, the cards still seem to be somewhat off the best possible message for limited person-to-person delivery. As much as the NDP does need to be pushing the coalition message and drawing contrasts against Harper, I'd have to think the card context is more a place for building warm-and-fuzzy associations with Layton and the NDP, rather than directly slamming the Cons' shutdown of Parliament.

Naturally, none of the above is to say that a coalition government would be anything short of the best gift Canada could ask for. But while the NDP certainly needs to make sure that Canadians have positive things to say about the coalition over the holidays, it would seem to have a better chance of doing so with a message which either has a greater chance of reaching more people, or at least fits better into the medium chosen.