Different messages for different newspapers

The Tory You can get it campaign has ten messages and there are adverts in many of this morning's newspapers for the different themes...

Sun readers have an advert focusing on cutting paperwork so that more police are on the streets, fighting crime.

Mail readers are promised proper controls on immigration.

Telegraph readers are reminded about the Tory promise to axe inheritance tax for homes under £1m.

Times readers are promised an end to economic incompetence and reckless borrowing.

Guardian readers are promised a good school for their children with teaching by ability and tough classroom discipline.

And Independent readers are going to get more help to go green and produce their own energy.

Comments

[CCHQ Spy]

Very sensible targeting.

[Will Stobart]

I like the personalised campaigns, it sounds like it should be quite effective.

[ChrisD]

Putting forward a broader message enables us to target a wider audience in this way, could be very effective.

[Iain]

"Mail readers are promised proper controls on immigration."

I think they are missing a trick by doing this, for if political parties are coalitions of various beliefs, what they need to do is to widen their coalition by making policies relevant to a wider audience. For example the immigration policy should pitched by arguing the policy on population sustainability grounds, this won't lose any of the people who have for years wanted to see a severe cut back in the levels of immigration, in fact they would probably appreciate the policy being given a moral argument, but it would also widen the coalition to people who have a green and environmental priority. Finnally it would also highlight the policy contradiction in Labour's and Libdems policies, being both for immigration whilst moralising about environmental sustainability, which is an inconsistency.

[Serf]

Meanwhile on the BBC website, the advert will declare David Cameron's hatred for George Bush & Israel ;)

[London Tory]

Surely our advert on the BBC will also pledge our allegiance to Hamas, Sinn Fein and Fidel Castro too?

And to the whole "downtrodden Palestinian state" as a whole.

Just remembered the occasion when they described John Reid as having had a "distinguished Cabinet career".......

[Tony Makara]

Is there a message for FT readers about financial stability and support for the supply side? How about the Mirror? Maybe "Do you feel you have been let down by Labour?" or "Think you know the Conservatives?...why not have a proper look at us?"

[Editor]

Does anyone have a copy of The Express? What was the ad in there?

[Mark Hudson]

I think the FT message will be: oops, sorry, it was our stupid idea to bring up the whole non-dom issue in the first place, or how about you guys in the City earn too much and we want to take your bonuses for good works in the East End?

Both barking and why the Party's credibility is still nowhere near where it should be in the Square Mile or for those of us in Canary Wharf.

[ChrisD]

"Does anyone have a copy of The Express? What was the ad in there?"
Shadow kitchen cabinet to appear in OK magazine?

[HF]

Well we cannot run an anti-Treaty message in the FT as they would not accept it.

[Express non-reader]

My guess would be:

We will extend the Diana Inquiry so there are non ending stories for Express readers about the late Princess of Wales.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Speak for yourself Mark Hudson. As far as I can see the Tories are more popular in the City than they have been for many years.
The FT,also seem to be much more onside than it was when you were a member of our party when it adopted an extremely Blairite position.

[Mark Hudson]

Hmm, Mr Dunn. You obviously had a bad bonus round or you don't talk to the right sort of investment banker.

[London Tory]

The Murdoch press and the FT are merely coming to heel now because they think we are going to win next time.

I for one hope that we keep Murdoch, Pascoe Watson and Wade etc at the end of a very long stick.

Rupert has a short memory- he forgot what Maggie did for him in the mid 80s.

[christina speight]

I despair at the CCHQ's sheer inability to grasp the basis of how to grab attention.

This dissipated message means that there is no overall theme for the party to campaign on. It's all things to all peopler and the party could be accused of having different policies according to their audience - precisely what the LibDems were rightly accused of.

The Country's Broken - it needs Fixing . That was not an attempt at sloganeering but in fact it's not bad. The details can then slot into the whole.

What drives us on? The people could respond if they knew.

(Please excuse a personal note!? I DO know what I'm talking about. In my marketing career I launched a brand which doubled a major company's sales and trebled its profits - That brand 45 years later still sells at £600m++ a year. Much later in life I launched my own company and in 5 years earned more than in the rest of my life! You've got to inspire people with an overarching THEME to get them on board)

[Mark Fulford]

The Country's Broken - it needs Fixing.

I don't doubt your marketing ability (wanna job?), but is it advisable to campaign on negative messages? I'm also not convinced that "the country's broken" is a majority view.

[Edward]

This is not being all things to all people at all. It is telling specific groups how specific policies we have are what they want. *None* of these, unlike much of the LibDem pandering, are contradictory. This is just good politics: particularly so in light of much of the criticism on here earlier that having so many messages meant we would "water down" our theme.

We show everyone we want a better future for Britain and have plans to achieve that. This is a narrative which can be convincingly articulated by DC.

[christina speight]

Neither of the two replies to me get the problem at all.

People `are fed up with Labour but can't make out where the Tories are at or what they stand for. It's an amorphous mess. There MUST be an overarching THEME into which the individual policies fit .

[comstock]

I take it we Mirror readers are considered past redemption :D

[christina speight]

Mark and Edward @ 1530 +1531 - As I said that ("The Country's Broken - it needs Fixing") was not a considered slogan, it was a remark - (later graced with some caps!) which I believe to be profoundly true and I think it will increasingly be obvious as it all collapses this year and next. I too would prefer a positive focus on the "fixing" rather than the "brokenness, but one without the other is meaningless)

It's not a narrative from the Boy Dave that we need. He;s quite good at that on MOST - not all - subjects. But all his myriad, one-a-day policy initiatives don't hang together into a coherent whole without the THEME - the umbrella.

[Matt Wright]

I think the theme will come, as its been sketched out in terms of social responsibility and no doubt will be firmed up as the pieces of the strategy come together.

[Lennie]

I knew the tories were two faced...but ten faced??????

[christina speight]

If nobody can think of anything better why not try the one we used way back in 1950/51 to do dig us out of just as bad a hole - "SET THE PEOPLE FREE" - you can work a lot round that, schools, IHT, immigration, financial competence.

Nobody is going to be enthused by an endless stream of unconnected policy snippets.,

[Express non-reader]

The advert in The Express promised more jobs, less welfare.

[christina speight]

My last on this subject ( ?) is the opening sentences of today's Telegraph leader (re the NHS muddle)- - - -"In his two years as leader David Cameron has done a formidable job of making his party electable again. Yet he has so far failed to imbue the Tories with a clear-cut set of principles with which the electorate can readily identify"

That's the THEME I've be asking for!

[Graeme Archer]

chrisD, serf, comstock, Express non-reader et al.: thank you for your witty comments, they have made me smile this grey February lunchtime. I particularly liked the idea of the shadow cabinet in OK magazine!

I'm one of those sad people who instantly downloaded the new movie and played it incessantly yesterday. Christina - I think the theme is not that far, actually, from the splendid classic "Set the people free" you mention. It's social responsibility - we're all in this together - but there's no reason not to be optimistic about the future. I'm sure you could express it more pithily than I can!