STEPHEN LONG: So what could an anti-carbon tax ad campaign look like? Advertising experts say the spin should target concerns about jobs and the cost of living and the campaign should avoid using celebrities.
Michael Edwards has this report.
(Anti mining tax ad excerpt)
SINGERS: Oh you're going to get whacked.
AD VOICEOVER: It could be your job.
SINGERS: You're gonna get whacked.
AD VOICEOVER: Or your superannuation.
SINGERS: You're gonna get whacked.
AD VOICEOVER: Or your electricity bill.
SINGERS: By the mining tax.
(End excerpt)
MICHAEL EDWARDS: Advertisements such as this were used with devastating effect last year against the proposed mining tax.
Sydney-based advertising company, Banjo, created this one. Banjo's Ben Lyttle says the campaign was directed at everyday Australians.
BEN LYTTLE: You actually have to come from a position of assuming that they don't understand anything. They're not absorbed by this like, I guess, we are or the media is, or whatever it might be. They're going about their daily lives, they've got a lot on their plates, they don't particularly care to listen to messages and if a message does come across their table, or through the telly or whatever it might be, you've got to make sure it's pitched directly at them so that you can get their attention.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: The ads hit the government where it hurt. In electoral terms the anti-mining tax campaign helped erode its vote in the resource states - Queensland and Western Australia. The whole campaign cost the mining industry an estimated $20 million.
For Ben Lyttle the secret to it was finding the hip-pocket nerve.
BEN LYTTLE: And the quicker you could get the issue to their hip-pocket the more impactful it becomes. And we call it one degree of impact. If you had to explain the steps between a tax through to me, as mum and dad in the backyard with the kids, and there was lots of steps between that, they just tune out. They'd get confused they don't quite understand how it's going to relate to them.
But if you can quickly go from here's the issue to here's out it impacts you, we call it one degree. Really only one step between that, then they quickly understood it and took it on board and formed an opinion very quickly.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: And just how would Ben Lyttle approach the anti-carbon tax campaign if Banjo was given the brief?
BEN LYTTLE: Quickly work out how you can explain a tax to how you're worse off as an individual. You work that out, you've got your platform to communicate from and then once you've got that don't be cute about it, be very straight, be very consistent and say it once, say it twice, say it three times. Because the reality is, when you and I are getting bored of it probably for the average person out there they're just starting to hear it and just starting to understand it.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: Marketing commentator Dee Madigan's initial response was that she'd reject a brief to run the campaign on moral grounds.
DEE MADIGAN: If I had no moral grounds I would probably look at the facts that we are going to be competing internationally with governments who don't have a carbon tax, so of course that's going to affect some kind of things. I would treat it: is it going to achieve anything? And is it going to affect our competitiveness?
MICHAEL EDWARDS: And Dee Madigan thinks it would be wise for the alliance to make it clear that they're not climate change denial group but that they're motives are economic. She says she'd also avoid using any celebrities, like a coalition of pro-carbon tax groups did with actress Cate Blanchett.
DEE MADIGAN: What it didn't do is it didn't engage the audience, they couldn't relate to these people because they knew they were on stage. And I think that's kind of the problem with it.
And it was all airy-fairy. The questions were, you know, 'do we want a better world?' kind of thing. It's like asking a bunch of school kids if they want a free lolly, you know, there was nothing in it of substance that we didn't already know.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: PM has been told an advertising company has been engaged but just what the budget is for this campaign isn't certain.
Political scientists say campaigns financed by business and directed against government policy are a relatively new phenomenon. Sarah Maddison is an expert on campaign techniques from the University of New South Wales.
* See Editor's Note
SARAH MADDISON: Both sides of politics are clamouring for the vote of the mainstream and somehow that has allowed business to get a toehold with their argument that what's good for business is good for the rest of Australia. And I think that that obscures the fact that really what's good for business is good for business.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: And what about for democracy with these very powerful and very financially strong organisations banding together to oppose Government policy in this way.
SARAH MADDISON: Well thank God for organisations such as GetUp! I think if it were not for organised, progressive organisations, bringing together many thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands, of Australians outside of the business community, then the influence of business would be even greater than what we're seeing right now.
Clearly the business community has very, very deep pockets. The mining industry alone has been able to demonstrate its ability to reach for the cheque book, mount a campaign and strongly influence Government decision making.
We absolutely must counter that, theirs is not the only point of view, and it is an important principle in our democracy that the values and interests of business be contested with a wider set of values and interests.
STEPHEN LONG: Sarah Maddison, from the University of New South Wales, ending Michael Edwards' report.
* EDITOR’S NOTE: 2.8.11 Sarah Maddison is also a board member of Getup, a lobby group actively involved in the public debate on the carbon pricing scheme.
The full story...
Anti-carbon tax: focus on real Australians
Michael Edwards reported this story on Friday, July 1, 2011 18:14:00
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