With a name like Trudeau, it should be no surprise that a young MP from Montreal was able to charm a crowd. That’s exactly what happened Tuesday afternoon when Justin Trudeau, member of parliament for Papineau, addressed a packed room of industry executives at Advertising Week.
As the keynote speaker for “Leading Social Change,” an Advertising Week session meant to foster better relationships between government and the advertising industry, Trudeau spoke on broad themes of social change. Describing the current political landscape as a fight between those who wish to coast on stability and those who risk change for innovation, Trudeau placed himself firmly in the second camp. As a longtime advocate of youth and environmental causes, his message was one of inspiring individual Canadians to actively help shape the country.
He spoke of a need for “an engaged buy-in” from Canadians–particularly youth–whom he wants to see become more involved in politics, social issues and the global community to create “complex solutions” for the country’s complex problems.
“That’s a really hard sell, but that’s what we have to do and that’s where advertising comes in,” he said. “Social change, from a marketing perspective, is about making people understand that engaging in a particular behaviour will give desired results and make the world a better place.”
Trudeau’s keynote wasn’t all bold statements and rallying cries. He lightheartedly explained why, despite a following of more than 44,000 on Twitter, he hasn’t tweeted since December.
“Over the past month or so, you might think I’ve been doing nothing. But I’m here today at a moment when I’m actually supposed to be with my colleagues in Ottawa at a caucus meeting, so if I tweet that I’ll have a whole bunch of colleagues who say ‘That’s right, Justin’s not sitting in this room right now. He’s off in Toronto talking to ad folks.’
“There’s a challenge we face in being authentic and being present. As a public figure and someone who’s accumulated a lot of people watching what I’m doing, I’ve had to balance that authenticity with choosing to not say anything from time to time. Knowing when to be silent is as important as knowing when to say the right kinds of things.”
When asked by an audience member if his father–the late former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau–would have used Twitter, he responded “I have no idea. He didn’t chit chat. He didn’t like small talk. He demanded a level of intellectual engagement that would have been really constrained in 140 characters.”
Speaking with Marketing at the end of the day, Trudeau answered questions regarding agencies’ ability to affect change with their clients:
Marketing: Agencies may be inspired to take part in the change you describe, but they’re not necessarily at the table when products and policies are being developed by their clients. How can they bring their ideas of change to those who pay the bills? How do you speak truth to power?
Trudeau: I think the issue for me is to understand that we’re going in a direction where there is no longer a power that is above us all. Marketing managers and agencies are thinking about social change because the population is thinking about social change. We’ve got two clear streams in politics right now: the stream that says everything is alright and let’s sit back and make our way through, coasting, then there’s the stream that says we need to pull together and build. For me, that’s the shift that’s got to happen holistically in society. We have to develop a culture of engagement and service that goes beyond getting a specific sector to be more a part of the decision making process. You have to shift the decision making process into the hands of the people who are not just giving opinions to opinion polls, but grappling with the complex solutions to complex problems we need to have.
Marketing: So when speaking truth to power, the key is to realize “the power” isn’t where it once was?
Trudeau: The power is shifting to those people who will speak the truth.
