Grabbing voters’ attention
Published April 18th, 2007 in PR in IrelandWe have a general election coming up this Summer in Ireland and the political parties are busy canvassing despite no date being set for a vote. Press releases are being fired out ten a penny by the political parties and rivals are getting their digs in already. I’ve noticed the increase in leaflets being pushed through my letterbox every week and despite the green issue coming to the fore in Irish politics this year, one wonders how many of these political pamphlets are quickly discarded.
Funnily enough though a politician in my local constituency has grabbed my attention with some clever tactics over the past couple of weeks. The first time I met Tom Morrisey from the Progressive Democrats was when he pushed a card into my hand one morning as I was entering the train station. Instead of politely accepting it and quickly discarding it, I stuffed it into my wallet as he had cleverly produced a branded business card printed with the train timetable to and from the city centre train on either side. It was a clever stroke by Morrisey and recognises the trend of commuters ignoring leaflets they are being handed.
Yesterday I decided to flick through my local paper and noticed the amount of advertising that politicians were taking in it. I scanned through them and continued through the paper until I eventually reached the classifieds. It was there that I noticed an wanted ad looking for my vote. It caught my attention and I read it fully only to see it was none other than Morrisey again. I have to congratulate him as he is certainly creative and I hope I’m not the only voter in Dublin North Central whose attention has been grabbed. Shame about his website url - morrisey4transport.com - he’ll have to setup a new domain if he ever becomes their spokesperson for health.
Technorati Tags: Piaras Kelly, Politics
9 Responses to “Grabbing voters’ attention”
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Great comment! I agree!! This is live!!
Piaras, yes I though the idea of giving out timetables was a clever one, especially as he’s transport spokesperson - he’s campaigning in Dublin North BTW not North Central.
Wonder what other clever tactics we will see. I know FG have used washroom advertising as it’s politely termed a bit with their candidate in Dublin SE. I expect to see You Tube being more used in this election with ‘on the road’ type uploads available each day and canvassing blogs used more.
I think the fact that you thought he was running in Dublin NC and not Dublin N says much about these gimmicks. And “gimmicks” is what they are. If people are fooled by such tawdry bangles, they’ll get the government they deserve.
Or the my lack of knowledge of what constituency I am in. Are you trying to say that politicians shouldn’t advertise, produce info leaflets, etc? Surely that would mean the population wouldn’t have a clue about what any of the parties stand for and then god knows what government wwe’d end up with.
theres a huge difference between a party telling you about what constitutes good government and a party giving you a business card with train times (for a service which should probably be vastly better than it actually is) on it.
That’s not what he was doing though, he was simply making himself known to voters. It’s a clever way to make himself top-of-mind among the people challenging for a seat.
which comes back to my main point. do you know anything more about this geezer other than his name and political affiliation? sure, the card puts him above the others in the name recognition game, but all it does is further push the personality politics aspect of the Irish system, a place where the leader of the government has been Bono-ed into becoming Bertie.
That puts us on the same track. I wouldn’t have known much about him until I picked up the card and then visited his website, etc as a result. I agree that there is too much of an emphasis placed on personality in politics, but it’s the same in most places in the western world. Don’t think anyone is pushing for term limits and making the political system more transparent.
I know and thats what makes it so sad. the electorate just doesnt care about real issues, its instant gratification time (just look at the emphasis on stamp duty as an election issue rather than the state of the health system or our education problems).
even look at the situation in galway with their rancid water. only 300 people bothered to show up to protest yesterday. ok, protests may not be everyones bottle of water but this clean water crisis is a scenario which is totally incredible to behold in a supposedly well-off country like ireland. yet the public prefer to moan or talk to joe. the local reps know that “personality politics” will see the usual shower of Galway West and East TDs returned after the next election. very sad.