Kids seem to be everywhere in this Ontario election campaign, thanks to attention-grabbing ad campaigns from the likes of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario and new work from the environmental organization Environmental Defence.
The national non-partisan organization has enlisted a young girl named “Penelope” to star in a series of online ads aimed at putting environmental issues on the mind of Ontario voters.
A two-minute YouTube video that introduces viewers to the precocious eight-year-old has garnered more than 11,000 views (see above).
The spot ends with the tagline “You can’t really vote for a kid, but you can vote with her future in mind,” before directing viewers to the web site Penelope4Ontario.ca – where they can read the candidate’s bio, donate to Environmental Defence and read a report card evaluating each of the four major political parties’ platforms as they relate to the environment.
A second video mimics political attack ads, and features a young pro-coal candidate called Donald running on the platform “Future Schmuture.” In the one-minute video, Donald accuses Penelope of waging a “war on pavement” and belittles her faith in green energy.
“Trust me, when the sun blows up, they’ll come running back to coal,” he says. A third spot featuring a debate between the two “candidates” was set to appear Monday.
Environmental Defence has previously released report cards on election candidates’ environmental platforms, but Adam Scott, the organization’s Toronto-based green energy program manager, said they have tended to be overlooked.
“It’s a bit frustrating because elections are probably one of the most important times for the environmental campaign,” he said. “We wanted to come up with something a little more creative to cut through some of the chatter.”
All of the ads were created in-house with what Scott described as a “really, really small” YouTube buy. The YouTube component is also being supported by Twitter and Facebook feeds.
