What do we think of the Indy on Sunday’s mock ads?

There’s a great piece in the Indy on Sunday about how a 2009 general election might look in terms of the ads that will be appearing on poster sites up and down the country.

The paper asked half a dozen top advertising agencies to come up with some ideas and reproduced above are just three of the twelve that are featured in the article.

I’m not sure how the Thatcher-linked Labour creation produced by the Green-consultancy might appeal. Certainly it would go down well with Labour activists – but many Tories would be delighted to see their man compared with the Baroness.

ACQA’s creation for the Lib Dems “The Borrowers” using the movie ad notion is a powerful way of getting over Labour’s current strategy – but wouldn’t this work better as a Tory ad?

The one I think is most effective and could conceivably be used is the Tory poster from 360 Degrees Advertising – a simple message which juxtaposes Labour’s brand colour with the reminder, the Tories would hope, about who got us here

Labour, surely, are going to do what’s worked in the last three campaigns – to try to scare voters about the consequences of the inevitable Tory spending cuts.

What makes this exercise interesting is to see how a range of highly creative communication experts perceive the weaknesses of the parties their ads are against and how they would seek to exploit them. Here the simple image and message can pay dividends reinforcing what voters watch on TV and read in the papers.

Seeing the way the debt issue is portrayed in several of the ads suggests that Labour has a big challenge. For the response has to be much more complex than the attack and is not as easy to get over.

In any case this is a great way for the IoS to be looking forward to the election on a very light news weekend in the middle of the holiday season.

Don’t forget to cast your vote in the PB Poster of the Year ballot.

Mike Smithson