By Matthew Flinders
First it was football, now its politics. The transfer window seems to have opened and all the main political parties have recruited hard-hitting spin-doctors — or should I say ‘election gurus’ — in the hope of transforming their performance in the 2015 General Election. While some bemoan the influence of foreign hands on British politics and others ask why we aren’t producing our own world-class spin-doctors I can’t help but feel that the future of British politics looks bleak. The future is likely to be dominated by too much shouting, not enough listening.
Dante is a fifteen-year old African-American teenager with a big Afro hairstyle. He looks into the camera and with a timid voice tells the viewer ‘Bill de Blasio will be a Mayor for every New Yorker, no matter where they live or what they look like – and I’d say that even if he weren’t my dad’. This was the advert that transformed Bill de Blasio from a long-shot into a hot-shot and ultimately propelled him into office as the 109th and current Mayor of New York. De Blasio also benefitted from a well-timed sexting scandal and an electorate ready for change but there can be no doubting that the advert in which his son, Dante de Blasio, featured was a game changer. Time Magazine described it as “The Ad That Won the New York Mayor’s Race”, the Washington Post named it ‘Political Advert of 2013’ — “No single ad had a bigger impact on a race than this one”.
Such evidence of ‘poll propulsion’, ‘soft power’ and ‘data optimization’ has not gone without notice on this side of the Atlantic and a whole new wave of election gurus have been recruited to help each of the main three political parties (Nigel Farage, of course, would never recruit such blatant overseas talent, ahem). The Liberal Democrats have recruited Ryan Coetzee who played a leading role significantly increasing the Democratic Alliance’s share of the vote in South Africa. The Conservatives have appointed the Australian Lynton Crosby with his forensic focus on ‘touchstone issues’, while last month the Labour Party revealed they had hired one of President Obama’s key strategists, David Axelrod, to craft a sharp political message and re-brand Ed Miliband.
It was David Axelrod’s former Chicago firm — ‘AKPD Message and Media’ — that had made the Dante advert for Bill de Blasio.
Of course, such spin-doctors, advisers, and consultants have always and will always exist in politics. The existence of new forms of off-line and on-line communication demands that political parties constantly explore new techniques and opportunities to improve their standing but I cannot help feel that with the recruitment of such powerful electoral strategists we risk losing touch with what politics is really about. We risk widening the worrying gap that already exists between the governors and the governed. ‘Resilience’, it would appear, seems to be the buzzword of modern party politics as a General Election approaches. It is about who can promote a powerful narrative and deliver an aggressive onslaught; it is about a form of ‘attack politics’ in which a willingness to listen or compromise is derided as weakness, and weakness cannot be tolerated; it is a form of politics in which family and friends become political tools to be deployed in shrewd, cunning and carefully crafted ways.
But does turning to the masters of machine politics from Australia and America bring with it the risk that the campaign will become too polished, too professional, too perfect?
David Axelrod’s role in relation to Ed Miliband provides a case in point. Apparently opinion polls suggest that poor Ed is viewed as too ‘nerdy’ and more than a little bit ‘weird’. The strategists suggest that this ‘image problem’ is a weakness that must be addressed through a process of re-branding. The danger, of course, of course is that by knocking-off all Ed’s quirks and peculiarities you actually end up with just another production line professional politician. Personally, I quite like politicians that are a bit different, even weird. Isn’t that why people find Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage so annoyingly refreshing?
A really smart election strategist might dare to think a little differently; to turn the political world upside-down by focusing not on who can shout the loudest for the longest but on the art of listening. As Andrew Dobson’s brilliant new book — Listening for Democracy — underlines the art of good listening has become almost completely ignored in modern politics despite being prized in daily conversation. Were any of the foreign election gurus employed for their listening skills? No. And that’s the problem. That’s why the future feels so bleak.
Matthew Flinders is Founding Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the 
Public Understanding of Politics at the University of Sheffield and also Visiting Distinguished Professor in Governance and Public Policy at Murdoch University, Western Australia. He is the author of Defending Politics (2012).
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Image credit: Ed Miliband. UK Department of Energy. Crown Copyright via WikiCommons.
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A survey conducted in 2005 showed that
‘The main activities that children living in London between the age of 8 and 16 engage in are- playing video games, using the internet and watching television.’
These three wonders of modern day technology (the computer, video games and TV) have effectively replaced the good old football or skipping rope. But one can’t help but ask ‘why should they try to make friends when they can do it on the internet (and of course if they are lucky they won’t come across any middle aged individuals posing as children their age)?’ Why would they go out, explore and find adventures and fascinating places with their friends when they can do all of that in the privacy of their own room playing PS3 (not only that but they can also learn about fighting techniques and different ways of killing, the most gruesome of which will give them the most points)!? Why would they need to talk to their parents, do their homework or help with the house chores when watching TV is so much more fun?
Well it is a well known fact that staring at a white wall will result in burning more calories that sitting in front of the telly but who really cares about that? The main thing is that there is ALWAYS something to watch!… or something that you want to watch but hasn’t started yet so you watch something else to kill the time… or when it just seems like there is not much else to do but to watch whatever’s on. Our shows and programmes however are often brutally interrupted by short advert breaks which give you enough time to relieve yourself in the lavatory, make a cup of tea and drink it, fix up a sandwich and eat it so that by the time you finish doing all that there will be just a few more ads left before your show starts again (only to be interrupted again in 10 minutes). But how important are these adverts and how many of them leave an impression on us?
It seems like one can usually recall the extremely annoying tune from an advert without remembering where it was from. Or bits of it that are a little unusual like the bulldog nodding along saying ‘Oh yes! ‘or that man running around dressed in an elephant suit flashing signs at us…Whatever the reason some advertisements are influential and have even been known to change people’s behaviour. An example is the Tobacco Control Programme’s anti smoking adverts which with shocking images and messages such as
‘If you smoke, you stink’ resulted in 5% increase of people trying to quit in the UK.
In 2006 The New Motivations that Matter campaign stated that ‘separate adverts target men and women’ and that indeed those for women usually concern their attractiveness and how smoking might influence it. Women smoking fat sticks, dripping on their clothes which are then discreetly wiped away leaving a nasty oily stain, women with rotting teeth or some who are just being rejected due to the fact that they smell of cigarettes. The ads targeting men, according to the campaign, are to do entirely with their sexual organs and the damaging effects smoking can have on them. One wonders if these adverts really did make people think twice before lighting up and if so what is the reason behind it. Why is it not enough to know that ‘smoking harms you and the people around you’, that ‘smoking is dangerous’ or the good old straight to the point ‘smoking kills’?
Another group of adverts which proved to be hugely controversial was the one sponsored by the Government. Those are ‘types’ of warnings about speed limit, drinking when driving, motorcyclists etc… However the ones that are the most shocking seem to be the ones we remember such as the little girl by the side of the road with the broken neck and wrist, slowly coming back to life by moving backwards in time, hearing her bones click into place and seeing the blood coming out of her ears rush back in and so on until we are taken back to the time just before a car hits her. There is no evidence of any complaints made regarding these ads, however the number of car accidents and hit and runs has not changed either.
On a more cheerful note there are certain ads which use originality and humour to sell their product or send the desired message. Interestingly enough these seem to have the most influence on our behaviour, whether they are increasing the number of buyers or merely annoying or angering people enough to make a complaint. One advert I lumped into this category, I hope you remember, is the one for breath mints (which to this day I cannot remember the name of the product) where a teenage boy suddenly throws up a big (what looks like a) hound dog covered in slime and goo. The ad was quickly banned after just airing for 2 days due to the impressive number of complaints it received in that short period of time. The Guardian also published an article about the Lynx Dry advert which according to it has offended 20 people with the exaggerated amounts of sweat coming out of a man and spraying everything and everyone around him.
The secondary and tertiary sources I researched suggest that advertisements we see on television do seem to have an effect on us whether it has to do with the content dealing with serious and important issues, maybe standing out of the rest with a little creativity and originality or simply by repeating them over and over until we recognise them before they start. Whatever the selling technique people’s behaviour appears to be influenced by them and in order to find out how and why and for humanity’s greater good I intend to plant myself in front of the telly for the better part of the day…
