Yesterday we launched the WA campaign for the Australian Sex Party. A good result; we got coverage in the daily paper, the talk radio station and two of three commercial TV stations.

I was struck by the high level of engagement by the media people who attended. Much nodding of heads when we spoke about 25 years of ludicrous censorship laws, the power of very conservative people in parliament and the need for more secular people to stand for election.

I asked Fiona Patten, the party leader, if this was typical of the response as she travelled the country and she said it was very much the case. It seems if the election were confined to members of the media, the Sex Party would form Government.

Why are the media (privately) so positive about the Sex Party? Clearly they are among the most politically engaged people in society. It would be interesting to test the proposition and research what is driving this. Here are my own speculations on the subject.

* People who have close access to what really goes on are not impressed by the nature of two party politics in Australia. This would follow naturally from cynicism in the media.

* The media, like the Sex Party, are frustrated that Australia lags in progressive social policy. This would result from idealism; another problem known to affect the media.

* The media dislike the narrow agenda that results from following the major parties. This would result from boredom :p

I think it would be a great tactic for one of the networks (and for our democracy) to publicly declare a Major Party Blackout Week during the election campaign and see what issues emerge. I suspect they would develop a far more interesting agenda and alter the course of the election.

Chances are slim. Today was the drawing of the ballot in all electorates; the only opportunity before the election for the media to gather all the candidates together in each constituency. In my electorate, Swan, no-one from the media attended. Neither did any media attend the draw of the Senate. They were all out following Julia Gillard. Boy, does that work – flying around the country visiting towns/cities for fractions of a day! The media might not like it, but they lap it up.

Maybe it’s just me. I find myself constantly between the amusing and the effective. Here’s a classic case. Tasked with the job of creating an election leaflet for my candidacy in the Federal Election, I couldn’t resist a dig at the predictability of the election leaflet: Picture of candidate. Vote 1. Australian flag if it’s for the Libs.

I’m confident the ad will get more cut-through than the average flyer. It’s more likely to be read. The risk is that people will decide the Sex Party aren’t taking things SERIOUSLY. It’s quite a big risk because the Party is already ‘out there’ by virtue of its name and platform.

On the other hand, it’s not a style of advertising the competition can use because it’s very difficult to get anything satirical through a committee. They just take themselves too seriously. The Sex Party doesn’t like committees because they remind people of things other than sex.

Cheeky, irreverent advertising doesn’t always work. Fuck it. Life’s short.

What to say to your Labor mates

What to say to your hippie friends

Advertising should fit the personality of the brand and the Australian Sex Party doesn’t take itself quite as seriously as the established parties. Not expecting the other parties to use humour all that much so it stakes out territory and appeals to those who find the adversarial thing a bit of a drone.

In those millions of pre-election conversations about to occur in workplaces and homes, very few people will put their hand up and say “I’m voting Sex Party”. We’re reminding people here that nobody sees who they vote for in the final analysis.

We’re also doing two other things in the ad; visually legitimising a vote for the party by showing a Sex Party vote on a ballot paper and we’re explaining that socially enlightened people are under-represented in parliament. If parliament is to represent average Australian values, we need to offset the current pre-dominance of religious, socially conservative politicians. Let’s shake things up a bit :p

Went to Sexpo and met Fiona Patten, the Convenor of the Australian Sex Party. I think this is going to be successful and influential. Set up by the Eros Foundation, the sex industry lobby group, it’s attracting the support of commercial operators within the sex industry. That means they’ll have a physical distribution channel through which they can promote membership. I gave Fiona my unsolicited opinion (people love that) – I think their strategic focus should be on gaining members. This is because the mainstream parties actually have very low membership numbers. If the Sex Party get to the point where membership numbers match either of the major parties, they will legitimise themselves in people’s minds. Nobody wants to vote for a party that nobody votes for.

Their web site is already attracting 35,000 uniques a week after just six months and they are more pro-social media than the rest. Okay that’s not difficult. Join the Facebook group here.

They also need to establish in people’s minds that what they’re chasing is some representation and balance in the Parliament. Not a take-over. They need to present themselves as reasonable and normal people and they probably should consider knocking off some of the hard edges on their policies, which are pretty strongly anti-religious. That won’t help.

I wish to point out that I’ve written about this without a double entendre which seems to be beyond most media folk.

Two products at Sexpo I thought were interesting. Sportsheets are a clever product. Restrain your partner using velcro pads that adhere to the sheets. So much easier than those infernal ropes.

Party High Pills is a new business selling herbal euphorics manufactured in Hamilton Hill (in a state of the art garage?) from ingredients sourced from New Zealand and Israel. Good quality presentation; they’ve done an excellent job. Although the danger levels are almost certainly lower compared with Ecstacy and amphetamines I think they’d be wise to amp up the reassurance on their web site about toxicity testing. I’m sure there’s a substantial market there so at some point, someone needs to fund a clinical trial. Meanwhile, will instigate individual sampling for purely research purposes.

This post is homage to a guy I regard as the English speaking world’s most insightful commentator. Gary Trudeau writes Doonesbury, syndicated around the world and the only strip published daily in The Australian. A discerning choice; I think he’ll be looked back on as a Shakespeare or a Dickens.

Knowing the characters now, I can pick it up and read it one-off, but regular reading is most rewarding. It’s on-line here and you can subscribe to get access to the entire archive. There are, of course, many compilation books, including my favourite, ‘But The Pension Fund Was Just Sitting There!’

Sometimes a dozen words is all he needs to lay bare the ironies of human behaviour. And he’s funny. Rick has just been retrenched after a long career as an investigative reporter for the Washington Post:

That’s typical; something you read in a few seconds and in that time Trudeau has addressed middle aged men’s struggle to connect, their awkwardness and their capacity to accept what is and get on with things. So much said through what is unspoken.

A week ago, he told the story of Rick’s retrenchment conversation with his editor:

A great Radio New Zealand interview explains Trudeau’s connection with veterans of the Iraqi war. Those who’ve read Doonesbury know how powerfully he has covered the politics and the human issues. Whilst being funny.

Trudeau’s contribution has been properly acknowledged; he is the only cartoonist to win the Pulitzer Prize. 38 years of daily commentary. Damn that guy can drop kick.

Apologies for the flagrant abuse of copyright.

Two common mistakes in contemporary advertising are to underestimate the intelligence of the audience and overstate your own worth. Both are at work here. The ad starts with the assertion that the state government inherited a weak economy and has turned it into a powerhouse.

Taking credit for this undermines credibility. Far better to have said, ‘as you know WA is currently the fastest growing economy; we’re actually not taking credit for that but we believe we’ve done a good job of managing state finances and investing in sensible projects…’ Political advertising should aim to cement credibility and make you look reasonable, not show how partisan you are.

The more recent ad contrasts said schmick Premier with an unflattering photo of the Opposition Leader. It’s black and white, out of focus and his eyes are closed. The audio describes Colin Barnett as a ‘flip-flop’ man (new heights in sophisticated invective) and it verges on insulting. The Labor Government is in a position of strength but using negative advertising packed with pejoratives makes them look petty and insecure. It’s just shabby.

It looks like strategy is being dictated by party leaders who have little understanding of advertising and insufficient contact with mainstream society.

Lyndon LaRouche, American political figure and economist who was sentenced to 15 years’ jail for fraud has fallen hook, line and sinker for an April 1st joke on a Second Life blog. No, Rupert Murdoch did NOT pay $30 million for a Second Life blog that posted three articles in six months. This sentence on the blog should have been a clue: “Simon Lameth, owner of Metaverse Media before the purchase, was seen running from the press conference to the Ferarri dealership down the street”. Especially since Simon Lameth wrote the post. Besides, would you believe a guy that can’t spell “Ferrari”?

I’ve decided I’m not subscribing to Mr LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review.

I just received the ‘Talking with your kids about drugs’ booklet. It came with a two page covering letter from the Prime Minister. The letter explains why the brochure is important. In fact, I don’t have any children of an impressionable age, so the brochure is actually not important to me or people like me. Distributing it to all households involves a substantial amount of waste.

The Prime Minister refers in the letter to ‘my government’ and ‘My Government’. Does he not have a proof reader? After all, he says he owns the whole government.

The booklet intends to “alert your family to the dangers of illicit drugs”. It turns out that drugs are dangerous. I recommend you text the kids straight away.

Here are some valuable communication tips from the booklet followed by what parents actually say.

“Express your concern and question their decision” “Are you out of your fucking HEAD?”
“Try exploring the main reason the young person took the drug” “You hate me, don’t you?”
“Talk about less risky ways of feeling good” “What about a nice bike ride? On the oval.”
“It is difficult to solve a problem when there is conflict” Take Iraq for example.

The booklet is full of fear-mongering. Although it urges honest communication it presents every drug as equally terrible. In fact, it lists 10 lines of ‘potential problems’ for cannabis use and only 4 for opioids. This undermines any credibility as an objective information source. The advice to adults is in a remote and academic voice; when I read it I feel like I’m being talked down to. It’s almost certainly a poor piece of communication, probably in the wrong medium.

However, its probable failure as a piece of social engineering overlooks its real purpose. The booklet spends as much time talking about the Government’s initiatives on drugs as it does about the drugs themselves. “The Australian Government’s commitment”, “The Australian Government’s efforts”, “The Australian Government has invested”, “The Australian Government has established”, “The Australian Government has allocated”, “The Australian Government has sought to”, “The Government has increased” and so on. Photo of the Prime Minister and two letters from him.

It’s a piece of political advertising and it will create the impression that the Government is ‘tough on drugs’. This zero-tolerance approach appeals to some core constituencies; families, religious right and older conservative folk. It presses all the right buttons for these people.

On the 23rd of August a client of mine received 13 unsolicited emails from that website. The contents of the emails suggested that a lot of people who had commented on the old SMH’s webdiary site had received similar spam. One of my client’s proprietors had also commented on the site. Thinking the spam was from the Sydney Morning Herald and not liking the idea that my client’s privacy had been breached, I emailed them and asked them what was going on.

Their reply included the following: “It appears that your contact details were collected by Margo Kingston, who was previously engaged by Fairfax to edit the Web Diary. Those details were given by Ms Kingston to her associate, Hamish Alcorn, who sent the email in question. We understand that Mr Alcorn has destroyed the list.” It went on to say they had “taken immediate action to ensure that any personal information of Web Diary readers is properly protected.” So Fairfax did not knowingly provide email addresses to Ms Kingston. This was confirmed by Margo four days later when she posted this on webdiary.com.au:

“I understand that Fairfax has received a number of complaints from people who contributed to my former WebDiary on the Fairfax website. Those complaints relate to an email sent to those contributors directing them to my new Webdiary.

G’day. Fairfax’s security systems are intact. I did not and do not have access to or use Fairfax Digital personal information systems, nor have I ever wanted to. I make the statement above in accordance with the acceptance today of an offer I made to Fairfax last week to formally and completely put this fact on the record.”

In comments on the same page she continues, “we created a program to notify Webdiary’s change of address by email should that prove necessary, and an email was sent.” (Seems it did prove necessary). Interestingly, Margo also quotes legal advice she received …

” (a) you are not in breach of the Privacy Act because you are a “small business” (ie, one with an annual turnover for the previous financial year of $3million or less);

You are therefore entitled to consider that you had an existing business relationship with those contributors from which it is reasonable to infer that you had consent to contact them solely for the purpose of informing them that you would no longer be writing for the Fairfax Web Diary and in order to give them notice of your change of address.”

Some obvious questions:

If the emails were “directing them to my new Webdiary”, how can that be “solely for information purposes”? Surely that is for promotional purposes.

How can Margo say the emails were “sent on her behalf” but that she did “not have access to Fairfax information”? “Sent on my behalf” would seem to be contradicted by “we created a program”.

How can Fairfax’s security systems be said to be intact when many, perhaps all of the people who commented on a Fairfax web page have been sent unsolicited email by a third party?

If Margo’s legal advice is correct, many employees leaving a business would be entitled to email all their contacts and advise them of their new email address. Once they leave the big business they are a small business and therefore exempt from provisions of the Privacy Act. The Spam Act would not apply because they had an existing business relationship with the client.

And if that is true, the Privacy Policy you read on a website is not worth the pixels it’s printed on – your information is not protected if used by an employee who has left the company.

greens, originally uploaded by notthewest.

Someone in the Greens has a sense of humour. Their slogan for the WA election: far canal – better vote greens. Not bad. Here’s my review of the ad.

First the easy stuff. The ad is a visual dud. I missed it the first time I read the paper. The name GREENS is a big positive and I would use it prominently in all press. Standardise the typeface. The logo is awful and reproduces poorly. Get professional!

Second, the message. It’s a grizzle about the lack of coverage in the major daily. They seem to have made the normal error of talking about the enemy.

Third, the strategy. If you read the copy of the ad you’ll notice it’s not corporate; it’s not written by a committee and this is a great strength. They should make this a defining characteristic of all their communication. For mine they could lose a bit of the smarty-pants tone. Nobody likes a smarty-pants do-gooder with a university degree.

The message the Greens have not got across is that they stand for a scientific approach to decision-making that takes into account ALL the angles, not just big business. I’m thinkin’ this would be a good line for them.

The other thing they must address is the phenomenon of people wanting to vote for a winner. They should be saying to the population; don’t vote to win, vote to influence. Increasing our percentage of the vote will put pressure on the government.

The Greens should aim to present themselves as scientific, objective, straight-talking and interested in better outcomes for the community as a whole. I’d be saying “not just business, not just unions, communities”.