When I was writing ads for Labour’s 1997 election campaign, I’d never have presented an idea as factually, creatively and strategically wrong as Labour’s recent ‘attack ad’ on Rishi Sunak. If I had, I’d have been the one under attack for failing to understand the simple principles of advertising.
What you need when writing any ad is calm, dispassionate advocacy rather than silly, partisan evangelism
Let’s start with the first and most obvious one: ‘Don’t tell lies.’ Labour’s ad suggests that the Prime Minister would be quite happy to let sex offenders go unpunished. Nobody – not even the person who wrote it – believes this to be true and it’s the reason the ad could only appear online. If the same claim were made on TV, on radio or in print, it would have been rejected because it’s neither legal, decent, honest nor truthful.
A second principle, particularly with something as emotive as politics, is: don’t allow your ads to be written by zealots.
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