Love it or hate it, Ontario teachers’ election ads hit phase two
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) today unveiled the “reveal” component of its polarizing “Vote Against Kids” campaign, urging Ontario voters – in a roundabout manner – to cast their vote for a pro-education party (ie: Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals).
The TV, print, radio and online reveal reverses the “Vote Against Kids” stance that appeared in a series of controversial TV and online ads that garnered rebukes and praise in almost equal measure.
Radio ads, for example, continue to employ the anti-kid rhetoric employed in the teaser stage, albeit with a twist. In one spot, “Bath,” a stentorian voice intones, “Kids hate baths. So if you want to clean things up in this province, on Oct. 6, vote against kids. On the other hand, if you want to see satisfied grins on all those filthy little faces, then go ahead – vote for a candidate you can trust to continue making innovative, pro-kid changes to public education. But what will that be teaching our kids? Other than the fact that education is, like, really important.”
The campaign also includes a series of three 30-second TV spots as well as print and online advertising. All of the creative links to a new website, RefuseToVoteAgainstKids.ca, that outlines why education needs to top the list of campaign issues.
While not expressly endorsing Liberal candidates, the campaign is intended to convince voters that kids and the schooling system have benefited under the ruling Liberals.
“We wanted to convey the message that we’ve got to keep the positive momentum of the past eight years going, and support candidates that have increased the number of teachers and done all sort of things for education in this province,” said Malcolm Roberts, president of the Toronto agency behind the campaign, Smith Roberts. “It is an endorsement of the past eight years, of an education-friendly provincial government.”
According to Roberts, there was a fairly even split between likes and dislikes for the teaser ads on YouTube, with slightly more than half of responders indicating that they disliked the ads.
Roberts said ETFO and agency representatives were “very pleased” to see such different reactions to the spots. “That’s the game we’re playing,” said Roberts. “We wanted to polarize and get people thinking emotionally about this, because education was losing focus in this campaign and being pushed down the list of issues.
“There was probably a small number of the 76,000 teachers in the union that expressed their displeasure, but I think once they see the reveal and they see the device we used, and how we used it in order to really create an emotional message… I hope they’ll come around,” said Roberts.
Smith Roberts worked with digital strategy partner Gravity in May to develop an ETFO-branded community forum called Kids Matter that was populated by approximately 200 teachers and parents. The agency partners seeded the forum with a handful of creative concepts to determine which marketing approach would resonate most strongly with its target audience.
“The one that came up the strongest was the attack ad approach,” said Roberts. “Attack ads obviously work. Even though people dislike them, pretty much everyone in the community agreed that, like them or not, they work and you notice them.”
Does the second phase change your opinion of this campaign? Was the overall strategy a good one? Post your thoughts in our comment section.
