Managing Marketing: The Art of Brand, Political and Election Advertising

Dee_Madigan

Dee Madigan is the owner and Executive Creative Director of the creative advertising agency Campaign Edge. She is also an author and political and social commentator, regularly appearing on ABC’s Gruen, Channel 7’s Sunrise and many others. Dee talks about the art of political and social justice advertising, particularly in the rough-and-tumble environment of election campaigns. And the reciprocal lessons brand advertising and political advertising provide to make the other more effective.

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Transcription:

Darren:

Welcome to Managing Marketing, a weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.

Today, I’m sitting down with Dee Madigan, Owner and Executive Creative Director of Campaign Edge, a creative advertising agency with offices virtually everywhere; Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Darwin. She’s also an author, a social commentator, and regularly appears on ABC’s Gruen, Channel Seven’s Sunrise and many others. Welcome, Dee.

Dee:

I was gonna say good morning or good afternoon. It depends on what time people are listening to this. Good day, good day.

Darren:

Well, good evening or goodnight. Well, look, thanks for making the time to sit down and have a chat. You’ve created quite an interesting position in the marketplace with Campaign Edge, haven’t you?

Dee:

Yeah, look, and that was kind of deliberate when I started being in this space, I guess. I realised that there was an absolute dearth of professional organisations in the progressive space. There was a lot of party hats who thought they knew what they were doing, but didn’t.

And I just thought you know what, there is a complete space in this industry for a professional organisation. And it turns out that I was right. So, luckily, hey.

Darren:

Well, but this has come on a career that you’d already established quite successfully as a creative, working on a lot of commercial brands as well.

Dee:

Yeah, so I almost had two… I had a career going and then I had a passion going and they were existing side by side. So, I was in mainstream ad agencies working on big brand campaigns, which when you’re a junior, it’s a lot of fun, it really is.

But I was always getting to the point where I was more increasingly uncomfortable about the work I was doing. Not because I feel that advertising is inherently bad, I just felt there was something more I wanted to be doing.

And at the same time, I was doing a lot of political commentary and I was writing articles on politics, and that was what I was passionate about. And I was feeling less passionate, I guess, about advertising. I just thought if I sat in another meeting where they sort of spend an hour talking about the size of a logo, I would possibly go and walk out.

So, I knew I was at a bit of a crossroads. And so, when I got the opportunity to do an election campaign, having done lots of government marketing campaigns and social change campaigns, I did it. And it was the first time in my life where you just feel, you are doing exactly, exactly what you should be doing. And it was an incredible feeling.

Darren:

Well, that comes from a sense of social conscience, doesn’t it? And I know I’ve read where you’ve said a few times that social conscience was something that was given to you in your family as you were growing up. Is this an extension of that belief in doing good?

Dee:

Partly, although, it would make me out as being too good.

Yes, I grew up in a family that was a very Catholic family. And social justice was a part of that. My father or my parents were very interested in politics. They were from Ireland. And they were living in Australia, but my father was a massive Bob Hawke fan, a massive Paul Keating fan.

So, that was all … I don’t know, it was just part of my upbringing. We weren’t allowed TV, for example, which is weird. We didn’t own a TV until we won one, when I was seven, at the parish fete. And even when we won one, that was only turned on for the ABC news and an occasion, if there was a mini series about Ireland or something, that was it.

Darren:

Power Without Glory. I remember my father watching every episode of Power Without Glory on the ABC.

Dee:

Yes. And there was also Against the Wind, which was an Australian mini series … I don’t know, my parents quite like that. And also, Roots. It was about black rights, black slaves in America. And I just remember every year, those mini series would come on and we were allowed to watch TV.

So, basically dinner time was all discussions of politics and in my HSC ─ and we went to a very posh girl’s school, convent girls school in Toorak, which is why I’m such a goddamn fucking lady? There was 97 of us in HSC, and I think two of us voted Labor. So, that was always part of it.

But there’s another side to me as well, why I like campaigns. And it’s less altruistic, is that I’m basically a brawler with breasts. Like I love the fight and the heat of a campaign and the speed at which you have to work. So, there’s a part of it that just suits my personality.

So, people always say, why don’t you go into politics? It’s because we don’t want to be nice to people all the time. Whereas in a campaign, it’s really, it is the pointy end. And it’s like, just, I can’t describe it, but for me it’s like heroin. Well, I assume it’s like heroin, having never actually tried heroin.

Darren:

Right. Okay. So, yeah, that’s quite interesting that you bring that up because I can imagine some of those consumer-packaged goods campaigns that you worked on in your career, you would have found painfully slow.

I mean, people would literally sit round in meeting after meeting contemplating every minutia of the communication. Whereas I can imagine election campaigns are as you say, fast and furious.

Dee:

They are. And even the non-election stuff, like the union stuff I do, what is so lovely about working for them is none of them have marketing degrees. So, you don’t get someone who’s been at Uni for three years and just thinks that this is the way you do something. They come to me, and they say, “You know this, what do you think we should do?”

And it is such a lovely, respectful way to work? And you know what? You can get better work out of it. Having said that, I’ve worked on some great brands. And I was really lucky to work with some great clients, but sometimes they just kind of were what they were.

So, take J&J Hair, for instance. It was like, “No, she has to be on a beach.” I was like, “Oh God, really?” So, what I would do was get a globe, spin it, choose the bloody nicest beach that I could find, and write the ad, set on that beach and make sure I went to that shoot. It’s like, if I’m not going to get a great ad out of this, I’m going to get a great trip out of this.

Darren:

Well, that’s not a bad way of writing your next holiday, is it?

Dee:

And the clients were always in furious agreement with me because of course, they got to come on the shoot as well.

Darren:

Well, there’s one thing about political advertising that you rarely see in brand advertising and that is a willingness to attack, and to attack the opposition. It’s very rare that you see even the mildest comparative campaigns anymore. But in politics, there is absolutely an opening to attack the opposition, isn’t there?

Dee:

There is. But look, I think there is in advertising, challenger brands have always done it, but you have to do it with a bit of cleverness and tongue in cheek. And my argument with political advertising, because I always get people to go, “Oh, I hate negative ads, why do you do them?” It’s like, well because they work. And there’s a whole lot of psychological reasons why.

Mostly, we’re hardwired to notice negative information. It’s a survival instinct. If you go on your news site in the morning, you click on the bad stuff first. But we also know that because people hate negative ads, they tune them out really quickly if they can see it coming.

So, what you will never see from me is a negative ad in yellow and black with the booming voice,  that kind of crap. That’s the sort of stuff that political advertising was doing. And when I started, I’d say to people, I will not do those ads, I won’t do kitchen sink ads where you put everything in. And so, I’ll do attack ads, but I try to make them clever or funny because basically … going back to the people hate negative ads, you work out what their barriers are and then you slip under them.

And just like with normal advertising, they’re not obliged to watch your ad. So, you actually have to work hard. You have to put an idea into it. You have to be entertaining.

So, in a lot of ways, the good old advertising rules apply to political advertising just as much or even more so. And this is what I had to explain to a lot of people in politics who just wanted to do the old black and white.

It’s like, there’s no point. You can say everything you want in an ad, but if people haven’t paid attention, you’ve totally wasted your money. You have to be cleverer than that.

Darren:

But isn’t some of the justification, the idea that governments lose elections and oppositions don’t win them?

Dee:

A hundred per cent. Swing voters are more likely to vote against things than for things. And that’s why most campaigns will be 70% negative. And I have had some political leaders who I won’t mention that are going to go, “Dee, I want this to be a one hundred per cent positive campaign.” And I look them straight in the eye and go, “Yeah, absolutely.” And in my brain, I’m going, “Mate, not a fricking chance.”

Like the positive sets up the agenda if you like. But the problem with political ads is most parties have broadly the same aims, and it’s very hard to differentiate in a political ad. And they just tend to look a little bit wallpapery.

And the problem with the positive ones is that people in it all decide to have an input into how it should look and feel, whereas, with negs, you can kind of just go away and do your own thing. And as long as the research is well, it’s fine to go. So yeah, we probably still do like 80% neg to 20% pos.

Darren:

Isn’t one of the other advantages of incumbents that they have access to government advertising, and we’ve seen it on both sides of politics, where leading up to an election, they’ll suddenly do a lot of advertising for the government initiatives that almost borders on party political?

Dee:

Yeah. It’s kind of outrageous. And Labour governments are always like if you do their campaigns and then you try to get on the government advertising list, they’re like, “Oh no, that would be a bad look.” You’re like, “Oh my God.” So, I never make any money from that because I’m never the one that gets to do those ads.

But yeah, it’s always funny that just the year before the election, all of a sudden, there’s a whole lot of Government ads … I think the one thing different this year is the government advertising seems to be having the opposite effect of helping the government, which is a new and interesting sort of development.

I always say Scotty from Marketing is not very good at marketing, which is probably why he was fired from his two marketing jobs.

Darren:

It’s interesting you should say that because I actually wrote an article, which said that it’s a pity he’s called Scotty from Marketing because very little of what he does is strategic marketing. Most of it, is reactive comms.

Dee:

Exactly. It’s sort of its tactical rather than strategic, but yeah, so he wasn’t actually good at marketing. He gives all of us a terrible name, frankly.

Darren:

One of the other challenges from the point of view of political advertising and especially around elections, the 24-hour news cycle, because I guess, no matter how much advertising you do, there’s this now 24-hour analysis of everything the politicians do during an election.

Dee:

Yeah. But this is the thing I think that’s important. Twitter is full of people who think they know what a campaign should be. And honestly, Twitter is the last place on earth you would take campaign advice. And anything that works on Twitter, I think by nature it would never work on a swinging voter.

So, yes, there is a 24-hour news cycle and all the people on Twitter are very up with it and know exactly what’s happening. Swinging voters are not. Swinging voters are absolutely disengaged. Now that’s a generalisation; not all swing voters, but primarily.

And I think there’s this assumption that swinging voters are weighing up the options between both parties and thinking about who to vote for. Swinging voters actually don’t give a fuck. And so, they don’t follow a 24-hour news cycle. A lot of them get their news from Facebook.

So, understanding just how little they care about politics, and this isn’t putting them down. They don’t have a lot of good reasons to care about politics. In their minds, politics has not helped their lives, particularly at all. And fair enough for them to think that. So, it’s not a put down on them, but it’s understanding that they’re not part of that 24-hour news cycle. They are not following that 24-hour news cycle.

And so, I think this idea that somehow, we should be reacting to all bits of it and pumping out information is a waste of resources a little bit because those people just care about what everyone cares about, which is themselves. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

And all you need to do is work out how to talk to them in a way that they think what you’re selling or what the other people are selling does or doesn’t answer their needs. That’s basic brand advertising rules as well.

Darren:

Yeah. What’s in it for me, answering that, making it meaningful and engaging for the audience.

Dee:

100%. So, when I started, I would get politicians and some of them were well-known MPs and candidates, and they’d want to start their political ads with, “Hi, my name’s such and such, such and such MP of the Labor party, blah-blah-blah.” And I said, absolutely not because that’s the point we lose. No one gives a fuck who you are.

Start with them. So, the people of this area care about an issue that’s important to them. And that’s your way in. Bring in your name halfway through because honestly, that’s just the least important bit of it at this point. So, that was all a bit of a wake up for them. They’re all like, “Huh!”

Darren:

It’s not about me.

Dee:

I know, and because of the nature of politics, and the nature of political staffers as well, and I think we’ve seen this with what’s happened in Canberra is just the nature of political staff is such a weird employment thing where your whole job relies on that one person liking you, that they just act like little … they all drink the Kool-Aid when it comes to their boss and they tell their boss that they’re amazing and they’re doing the blah-blah-blah and that everyone just wants to hear from them. And it’s not the case at all. So, I go in, here’s a bit of a truth-teller.

Darren:

And so, what’s the reaction to that?

Dee:

Very good, actually. Politicians ultimately want to win, and because I have a good track record, they will listen to me.

Darren:

Well, that’s true. I mean, you’ve been Creative Director on the ALP elections … what is it? 2015, 17 and 20 in Queensland, and 2016 and 2020 Northern Territory, and 2016 and 2020 in the ACT. That’s a pretty good track record.

Dee:

It is a very good track record. And there are quite a few by-elections in there as well, which is very nice. Yeah, so I think out of 20, I think I’ve won like 14 or 15 of them, which is a good record. I’m hoping it continues, but you know, time will tell.

Darren:

Well, they say, anyone that does better than 50/50 is in front, aren’t they?

Dee:

Exactly. And again, you already play in the margins that matter. It’s the only people. If you think about it in an election campaign, and this is why so much of the polling is just a complete waste of time, because it’s done nationally.

The only polls that matter are the ones for swinging voters in marginal states. They’re the only people who can swing an election. And they’re actually not a massive amount of people and your material just needs to work on them. So, again … and I always hop back to Twitter —oh, that ad wouldn’t work on me. It’s like, I don’t care. It’s not designed to work on you.

Like it is literally designed to work on a swing voter in a marginal state. That is it and that’s how you win an election by putting the blinkers on and ignoring the yelling people from the side, saying what ads they want … because you see, people go, “Oh, the ad that would work on me would be one like this.” And they always bring up the Lincoln project … more Lincoln style project ads.

It’s like they’re literally the last thing we need because they’re high information ads and swinging voters are low information voters. And the last thing you want to do in a campaign is pump a whole lot of resources into ads that would work on people who are already voting for you.

Darren:

So, one of the criticisms globally or observations, perhaps — I’m revealing my political bias. But one of the criticisms is that the conservative side of politics globally has become very good at wrapping up a whole lot of complex issues in catchphrases that appeal to these undecided voters. Whereas the left is inclined to always be trying to do the nuance and not really learning how to simplify the choice.

Dee:

Yeah, look, I think that’s true. And I think it’s deeper though than that. I think it used to be that the most progressive people, say, if you talk about Australia — the most progressive people were the unions, and it was the left and it was the working class.

And we sort of seem to have this thing in the last 20 years where you’ve almost got two parts of the Labour party. So, you’ve got the inner-city progressives and then you’ve got the working class who are increasingly less progressive and they’re quite different. But the way we talk to them, those working-class people that we need to win, is with that sort of inner-city, progressive voice that I think is a bit judgy and a bit talking down.

It’s like, “We will explain everything to you because we’re the moral guardians. And we’ll tell you what the right thing to do is, and what’s right for the world.” And these are people in their very nice inner-city houses with their very nice inner-city incomes. And they’re kind of preaching down to people in marginal states in Queensland, people who are maybe working in mining, who are struggling to pay their mortgage and need that job to pay their mortgage and put food on the table.

And we tell them, “Oh, your job’s wrong.” And then we wonder why we lose these people. So, I think it is the Progressive, it’s not just that we want to explain everything, and we don’t want to drill things down to a three-word slogan, but it’s also, I think our tone of voice has been really wrong.

Darren:

Judgmental.

Dee:

Very judgmental without meaning to be. It’s almost … what is the word? It’s that sort of we know a little bit better. We’re helping you but the undercard of that is absolutely talking down to people I think, and we need to stop doing that.

Darren:

The other big difference, because a lot of people look towards the UK and the US when they think about politics. And the big difference is in Australia, we have compulsory voting so that literally every person has to turn up on the day or around the time and register or vote or pay their $50 fine, which makes the dynamics quite different, doesn’t it?

Dee:

It does. And we always get people over here from America who would think, “Oh, no, this is what you need to be doing.” And it’s like, no, because as you said, the get out to vote in America, particularly for Democrats, really, if you can get people out to vote, you’re likely to win. So, that becomes your primary message.

And there are different triggers to do that, which, as you said in Australia is just not a thing. We can kind of go much more straight for the jugular because we don’t need them to get out and vote. Although, it’ll be interesting to see with COVID whether it changes things, whether there is more of a reluctance, and I guess it depends on how the electoral commission wants to set things up in terms of how people can vote.

Darren:

Yeah, it’s interesting because the census is in August this year, and they’re saying that about 70 to 80% of that will be done online. I’m wondering if that will open up the possibility of online voting?

Dee:

I hope not only because the checks and balances would concern me. I mean, I know that in theory, online voting almost just seems like a very reasonable thing to do. It is also far easier to manipulate or to … the checks and balances of a normal vote ─ and I don’t know, people understand what happens; but what happens when your vote gets counted at the counting station, there’s the person counting, and there’s usually a person from both parties standing behind that person.

And if there’s a vote that looks like it could go one way … and you’d be surprised how many people vote in a weird way on there. That when they’re not quite checking the right place, but it’s close enough, so there’s usually a conversation and they’re called scrutineers. There’s usually a conversation between them where they’ll sort of argue it out as to whose pile that vote goes in. And that human oversight I think it’s really, really important. So, I’m not yet a fan of online voting.

Darren:

Okay. So, it still could be quite a few years away. But just to go back, the topic I’ve always been interested in is the idea of political advertising as being part of government business. It’s interesting how election ads under the Australian Broadcasting Act have to have written and spoken by at the end of it or authorized by, at the end of it, as part of the Broadcasting Act.

Dee:

The rules and regulations on that last two seconds of an ad far exceed any other part of the ad. For example, there’s actually no truth in advertising rules for federal election ads, but the bit on the end takes all the time doing.

And they change that occasionally. So, for example, they made it, so you can’t say CFMEU anymore. You have to say Construction, Forestry, Maritime, blah, blah, blah. And all of a sudden, your two-second disclaimer becomes a five-second disclaimer. And so, it makes it really tricky for things like 15-second ads. Because as you know, media buyers will always say, “Oh, we should do lots of 15-second ads.”

And I explain to my clients you know, in political advertising that takes us to about 11 and a half seconds. So, you might want to rethink that. There are slightly different rules online. On some platforms, you can just have a written disclaimer on the end as well. But yeah, they constantly change it, and we have to constantly check to make sure we don’t get in trouble.

Darren:

But it’s interesting how that’s leached across into government advertising. So, campaigns for government business, getting people to register, getting people to get vaccinations all have the same disclaimers at the end as if they’re political.

Dee:

Yeah. Some of it I think is unnecessary, but deliberate, so that it’s almost good branding. This is a message from the Australian Government Canberra is actually smart branding. Technically, the ads that run-in election campaigns are supposed to have them and ads that don’t necessarily run in a campaign don’t always have to have them, but we’ve got to the point now where we just stick them on everything because it’s just safer.

But yeah, with the government … I can’t remember what the exact government rules about whether it had to be a spoken one, but I think as I said, I think it might be a bit of a branding exercise as well.

Darren:

Interesting, because we mentioned earlier how governments are inclined to increase their investment in advertising, leading up to an election. But I’m just wondering if the same thing should be applied. Because there are implications, of course, the award for voiceover talent and actors means that political advertising is paid with a loading.

Dee:

Oh my God, yeah. I had that conversation with a state secretary the other day, they’re like, “How much?” And I’m like, this much because it’s a loading. And like that’s a lot. It’s like, well, if you want to go and argue with the union about that, but I wouldn’t … but also, you can negotiate beforehand for an entire campaign where you can do a package deal.

But yeah, it’s very expensive, but that used to be the case even in tampon advertising. Like girls in a tampon ad got a certain loading. If it’s someone in an ad about incontinence, there is a particular type of loading as well.

Darren:

Alcohol is a big one. Any alcohol advertising also comes with a loading.

Dee:

Yeah. I had one voiceover turn up to do an ad and it was to run an election campaign. And just as he was about to start, he just said, “Do you think it matters that I voice the Liberal Party campaign?”

I go, “Yeah, yeah, it really matters, and your agent probably should have let us know. And no, give me that script really quickly. You have to leave now.” It was just like, fuck … like I don’t believe the voiceover necessarily has to be fully on board, but he thought it was okay to do different party campaigns. I was like, “No, mate, not doable.”

Darren:

Well, I had one of the union representatives explain to me the political loading was because the talent, the voiceover actor, talent, or actress needed to be compensated for potentially advertising or appearing to endorse a political party that they may not actually support.

Dee:

Yeah, I thought it was more that it could stop them from getting other work. So, if you are doing an ad for a political party and that meant you might not get government work if there was a different government in that state.

So I’m not sure exactly what the reasons are, but I know it’s significant. So, the other day, I was looking at a radio one, and it was going to be $470. And then with the political load in double … it goes to $940. All of a sudden, you put in your costs for a sound booth and an engineer … and elections campaigns are done on the smell of an oil rag. People say “Oh, why don’t you do an ad that does this and that, and this and that.” It’s like, “We can’t afford it.”

Darren:

So, is that driven by obviously trying to make their budgets go as far as possible? Or is it also a factor of, as you said before, it’s fast and furious and there wouldn’t be a lot of time to plan things like detailed or elaborate shoots.

Dee:

All of the above. Often campaigns are increasingly capped in their spending. So, what you spend on one ad means you don’t have to spend on another and you’ve always got to make sure you’ve got some money in the middle of a campaign to make something if something comes up.

And increasingly with social media, a lot of content is important as long as it’s on strategy. And so, yeah, it is a bit fast and furious. It is nice if you can occasionally do a big neg that’s going to look right to begin a campaign with; but yeah, you don’t want to be spending a lot of money on something if you need that for something else down the track.

And it is a fine line between quality production and something that’s only going to last for a couple of days.

Having said that, I’ve done neg ads where we’ve started them on day one of a campaign and run them for the six weeks through. I think the other thing that’s changed is just the tempo of a campaign. So, it used to be, you came out strong. So, if was say, a five-point campaign, standard campaign, you come out strong in the first week.

It used to be traditionally; you’d go positive for the first four days. And then you’d accuse your opponent of going negative. Oh, look how negative they are before you go negative. Now, you can sort of get into the neg pretty much … everyone just goes neg from the start.

But then what would happen is you go a week and a half and then you pull your media spend back for two weeks because you just couldn’t afford to advertise for that whole time. You pull it back and then you’d come in hard on the last week.

But with pre-poll, that’s changed voting patterns completely. And pre-poll has increased 40 – 50% and I’d say after COVID even more. So, it means you have to be able to afford a flat campaign that runs through. So, again, it is more expensive and also just the internal costs of if you do a piece of material, just having to make it work for different ratios for different platforms and things like that is also costlier.

Like four or five negs in a campaign and two or three positives used to be enough. And now, that wouldn’t even be close to enough. So, campaigns are more expensive to run.

Darren:

Because there are more elements to them. It’s interesting though, one of the side effects of the low cost of political campaigns, election campaigns, especially is when you’re successful ─ I’ve often had conversations with politicians saying, “Why can we get elected for very little money, and yet, as soon as we’re in office, we suddenly have to pay agencies 10 to 20 times more to do the same sort of advertising?” What would you say?

Dee:

Well, this is my sort of thing, I’m never one of those agencies that are paid 10 to 20 times more … it’s like, oh no, but we used you for the campaign. It’s like, yeah, on the smell of an oily rag.

Very few of the big agencies do election campaigns. But usually for quite good reasons. One is honestly if you worked out the hours you work and the resources in that, you think, man, this is not a financially brilliant idea.

Like every year my board sits down and they go, “Dee, look at what we make from election campaigns compared to all our other clients. Is this really something that you want to be doing?” And I’m like, “Yes.” So, that’s why a lot of the big agencies don’t do it because they know that you don’t actually make a great deal of money from it. It really is something you do because you love it.

So, those big agencies that they’re going to for their government ads actually put in reasonable profit margins, which is why they cost a lot more.

Darren:

Absolutely. And luckily, as you say, you own your own business, so you can say to the board again, it’s my way or the highway, I guess.

Dee:

Well, I try to phrase it differently, but they know that it’s why we started the business. Like it’s literally why we started the business, was to pitch for the Queensland 2015 campaign. And because I felt like there was space here, so yeah.

I find it exciting still. I mean, it’s exhausting. After every single election campaign, I say that’s it. No more, can’t do it again. And then about a week or two later, when I crawl back out from under my doona, I just start to go, “Oooh, when’s the next one?”

Darren:

It’s like young adults after hangovers or after childbirth. Everyone goes never again and then backs up and does it again.

Dee:

Well, it’s not just young adults after hangovers, old adults do that too. Childbirth’s easy because you just have all the drugs.

Darren:

Hey Dee, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your experiences. Of course, Campaign Edge, you’ve been doing elections, but you also do all sorts of communication campaigns to influence the public towards better ideas, new ideas and commercial objectives.

Dee:

Yeah. And I actually think our campaign experience makes us better at brand stuff. We don’t work with a whole lot of brands, only the ones that we are comfortable with, and that’s our decision. But we definitely do brand clients.

And because we get really, really good at micro-targeting people online; we know how to get them demographically, geographically, and any other “aphically,” you could possibly imagine ─ our data knowledge from campaigning, I think means that we get really, really good results for our brand clients.

And I keep brand clients as well because what I learn from them actually informs my campaign work. I don’t get stuck too far inside the bubble. And the danger with politics is you can get inside the bubble and the people we need to talk to are outside the bubble. So, I actually, try to keep a balance on that because I think it makes me better at both jobs.

Darren:

Absolutely. Well, look, thanks very much. I just have one final question and that is, of all of the politicians that you’ve either known or know of, which one do you admire the most?

Ideal for marketers, advertisers, media, and commercial communications professionals, Managing Marketing is a podcast hosted by Darren Woolley and special guests. Find all the episodes here