How the Tories should respond to Labour’s attack ad

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.

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. I assume this is what must have happened with Labour’s ad. I quite liked Tony Blair, but no more than I liked Heinz Baked Beans, Birds Eye Fish Fingers or any one of hundreds of other products that I’ve tried to persuade people to buy.

What you need when writing any ad is calm, dispassionate advocacy rather than silly, partisan evangelism. Before you begin, you need to acknowledge and tackle your product’s weaknesses and your competition’s strengths, so your ad can then highlight your product’s strengths and your competition’s weaknesses. Labour’s ad failed on that third principle. It didn’t highlight, for example, Keir Starmer’s strengths, which conveyed the impression that he doesn’t have any. Instead, the ad shows a party blinded by a visceral hatred of ‘the Tories’, which they mistakenly assume everyone shares. That mistake made them lose sight of their competitors’ main strength: Sunak’s personal popularity.

And this is where Labour failed on a fourth principle – make sure you understand the people you’re talking to.