by frog
Congratulations to all of you commentators here at frogblog. In the immortal words of Jim Morrison, you have broken through to the other side – the mainstream media. This morning the NZ Herald has reported your opinions on the Green campaign as if you are the voice of the Green membership, rather than the colourful combination of random visitors that you are.
Unhappiness at the Green Party’s poor election campaign is bubbling under the surface but co-leader Rod Donald says it was the victim of the “two-party squeeze”.
Some commentators have criticised the party’s campaign and talk of the need for changes within the party – even an “extreme makeover” – has appeared on the party’s Frogblog internet site.
It is probably inevitable that the Herald’s own reporters would join the flurry of comments analysing our election campaign, (see here for earlier examples). News stories round here are about as scarce as Hectors Dolphins at the moment thanks to the secretiveness around the negotiations and the Gallery are going stir crazy trying to fill the holes on the Politics page.
We have been really upfront about both the brickbats and bouquets we’ve received over the campaign. As Abe said and Bob sung: You can’t please all the people all of the time, and so it seems with our campaign. There were some aspects that some people liked and others hated and vice versa. For example, judging by your comments some people liked the billboards and some people hated them.
However, one thing I would love to see is some really well thought out analysis of other parties’ campaigns. While there is a desert of news stories at the moment, it would seem that reporters would have the time to get some comment about other parties’ efforts. True, it would be more work than critiquing the Greens – it would take a little more effort than reading a blog – but I’m sure the world would be interested in views on the other parties’ efforts.
So now we know that we’re not just talking to each other but are also a window into the Greens’ inner workings 
, want to help out? Tell us, what was bad or ineffective or counterproductive about the other parties’ campaigns?
Oh, yes and don’t forget what was good about them too. After all, there has to be something to put in the last paragraph of the story.
Published in Campaign | Media by frog on Wed, October 12th, 2005
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Best Billboard campaign: National
Best TV campaign: National
Strangest Billboard: NZ First
Prize for the least original billboard: ACT
Best Websites: Greens followed by ACT
Worst Websites: National and Labour
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We’re in the news!
“Hi mum!” [wave!]
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ooh, but if we’re in the news we should create a story!
So Frog, what comments to you have about Jeanette’s secret meetings with Don Brash?
[the competition to create the best 'news' story is hereby opened]
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UF: difficult to hear their message while mesmerised by Dunne’s bizzaro hair. Still don’t know if they’re a christian party or not, and the whole outdoor recreation and smoking lobby affiliation was conflicting… but as I say, the hair just fuzzed everything out.
NZF: Winnie is tiring when a tool like Bob Clarkson can beat him. Once again NZF played to their only strength, Winston Peters, and once again they pulled through, but his days are definately numbered.
National: Marketing nearly won the day. A sterling display of targeted advertising that cleverly masked a serious lack of substance.
Maori: Pushed all the right buttons, came through on top.
ACT: Well, who knew Rodney would be right. If only they could have convinced the public they could have done a whole lot better. Should consider starting a polling company or change his name to Rodini.
JAP: Who? Oh, progressives, right. Umm, yeah. What do they stand for? gold chains and hairy chests right?
Labour: Like the kid who gets an A+ for effort and a B- for achievement. At a loss to say what went wrong, though they could’ve taken a hint from the Nats and give Saatchi & Saatchi a call.
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oh and I forgot:
most insipid/uninspiring (sp?) billboard/add campaign:Labour
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Stymied:
What went wrong with Labour’s campaign? Well, a friend in Northcote – who voted National for the first time in her life last month – put it rather nicely: “I know what Labour hates – Don Brash, mostly – but what do they stand for, really?”
Taking my partisan hat off for a moment, I think she was exactly right. This was a campaign Labour should have taken in a landslide by saying over and over again “things are good, and they’re only going to get better.” Instead we had “Don Brash eats babies – while the rest of the dirty Tories sell everything else to Bushiter”. Too often, National was setting the agenda and the response looked weak and desperate. And if the campaign had gone on for another week I think their one flagship policy – the student loan interest write-off – would have been shot down.
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I wouldn’t completely disregard the main parties’ web presence. For example, I quite liked Labour’s Gone by Lunchtime site, and I’m pretty sure most people had a glace at National’s Tax Cuts one.
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hmm, gone by Lunchtime is less effective when in a format that some people cannot render (is it JAVA? which many networks disable as it is highly virus prone)
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Icehawk: I was wanting to know about Rod Donald’s civil union with Peter Dunne…
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Sheesh, don’t reporters bother tocheck their facts anymore? A call to the Green’s parliamentary media office would have told Granny Herald the purpose of Frogblog.
Frogblog commentators are hardly rank and file Greens..and what that comment about “a party where dissent is usually muted” ? Is the reporter a Green party member to know this? Or is he talking out of his hat?
Anyhow,to your request for campaign analysis:
Best Slogan designed to alienate the most voters at once: ‘mainstream’ goes to the National party.
Best campaign to scare people into not voting for your party: the national party
Best cultural revisit to the 1960s: the National party
Best attempt to get the electorate to eat stale whitebread: National.
Best failure to convince of any vision: Labour
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with all due respect Clara, if you don’t understand anything about web design don’t comment on it.
Or if you have an issue with a website, try to describe from the users perspective what actually went wrong with it, rather than making up a theory to explain the results – your theory only exposes how little you know about web technology.
p.s. the Gone by Lunchtime site is done in Flash. According to Macromedia/NPD, 97% of people can view Flash content so it is a great choice for animated web content, unlike say, the windows media player only content on http://www.keepleftnz.org which can only be seen by 83% of people.
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so stuey outs himself…
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So the Herald’s trying to sell papers by cooking up non-existent stories. What’s new?
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Stuey, maybe you should also have a word to Kevin Taylor and explain what an “internet site” is compared to a “blog”.
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idiot,
hush! that’s secret!
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Hi Mum!
National had the dominant advertising campaign.
I am sure money wins advertising campaigns (cf MMP referendum),
but the error was focussing on the converted. It gave them the all important momentum but I suspect it did not change many minds.
The tax/cuts etc billboards did much to define the campaign as a contest between two parties, to Nats advantage..
The tv puppet show was also brilliant and no other party matched it.
The strategy to cosy up to United Future and the longer term strategy of gobbling up ACT probably cost them the election.
I think the racist dogwhistle probably firmed a lot of waverers to vote against National. It was never a winner with the majority. It was a very dumb strategy, although no doubt part of the original momentum that was needed.
Labour kicked for touch and I guess it worked okay. The loans interest move probably insured their lead but it also hurt their only reliable ally. (Hints of the Nat/ACT syndrome).
Maori Party especially in Auckland, developed a formidable grassroots team (or modified existing networks)to get new voters out, and that is a significant change in our election landscape.
Sadly the Greens benefit in the frustrated Maori at last election is probably gone forever.
Winston managed to keep a place in the headlines with a new handful of catch phrases and well planned throw away lines.
I have to say Greens, who seem so media savvy between elections, fail every time to get together a decent billboard and slogan campaign. I think it has to be a personality factor of some kind.
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A relevant speech given by Al Gore to Media Conference. Pertinent as it explains the power of TV and why “”If it’s not on television, it doesn’t exist.” and goes further to discuss the “mearketplace of ideas”, and the role of, and limitations of the internet. Quite long, but I found it worth the read:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/06/D8D2IU703.html
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Logix: I was browsing that last night. Certainly some interesting thoughts on the need for interaction and feedback for the marketplace to work properly – which the net provides but TV does not.
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I personally thought the Alliance had the best catchphrase this election campaign: Take The Power Back.
*cue Rage Against The Machine track titled as such plays in the background*
It resonated very strongly with a number of us. After all, that’s what grassroots activity/organisation is all about: devolving power back down to communities.
I would like to see the Greens at the next election adopt a catchphrase along the lines of: Enrich, Enliven, Engage…Empower.
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or even enBitch, enrage, empower….
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FWIW, I did e-mail the Herald to point out that I’m a financial member of the National Party. I don’t think that would last if I was also a member (grassroots or otherwise) of the Greens, because that is a clear breech of National Party rules.
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Craig;
always thought you were deeply dyed blue!!
think the con-currance might break our party rules too. Anybody?
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[the competition to create the best ‘news’ story is hereby opened]
hmm ..
how about this one
“extreme heat from jet fuel fires causes wtc towers to collapse.”
(nah, just kidding, thats tooo crazy)
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Tēn? koe, te wh?nau! (p?hirihiri)
Auē stuey, maybe you should have a cup of java and chill out – clara was only asking, and we aren’t all gifted with your deep techno-vibes.
(kia kaha clara)
I want to know how many of the 20% who didn’t vote at all were put off by the combined silliness of the all the parties (and EB) campaigns. And what is with all the deliberate informal votes? (I was tempted to do a DIV myself this time, or not turn up at all)
And who was that “Jones generation” guy working for?
And what exactly is Jim Sutton up to at GATS? Are they really trying to force countries to privatise their water supplies?
Why don’t the media answer these questions?
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yeah stuey, clearly I got it wrong but perhaps you can enlighten me.
In internet explorer I can often see graphics (flash I guess) but Firefox gives me little puzzle pieces, on my home pc I can just download the application (oh dear am I using the right lingo?) but on many institutional pc (which includes universities and possibly internet cafes) this is blocked and the puzzle piece stays.
All this modern technology, it really makes a girl think,
it’s amazing I can even turn my computer on let alone code in C (to name but one) …swoon
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sorry if I was grumpy and patronising clara,
aha yes that is because Firefox does not come with the Flash plug-in installed by default and instead you see the jigsaw piece icon, and you are expected to download and install it yourself, and yes, most institutions will not give people admin rights so that they can’t install software. However these institutions should make the Flash plugin part of their default installations for Firefox. People in this situation should ask their IT services dept to add the Flash plugin to Firefox. cheers
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fwog, this good, do yous send us green badge for ours support of yous site, i want mine signed by the pastor hisself, it say, to the famous peter quixote, who introduce green to croos party supports even though he donts be a socialist, i give myself another medal i think, yes, medalliuon of quixote top quixote
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no worries! stuey -its alright, with the exception of programming, I am notoriously crap with computers
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Has Flash anything to do with the size of Don’s carrot?
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