Voters across the country are inundated with political advertisements in the lead up to the federal election, but the strategy behind them starts well in advance.
The count from Saturday's election continues with focus on three tight races for seats in Queensland, Victoria and NSW which will determine the size of Labor's parliamentary majority.
Labor's advertising strategy began more than a year and a half ago, according to the creative director behind it.
Speaking to the Mumbrellacast podcast, Campaign Edge director Dee Madigan reveals her take on the winning campaign and where the Liberal Party missed the mark.
A "show not tell" approach was adopted for Labor's advertising.
"It was just a matter of using (Morrison's) own words, really, to remind people why they didn't like him," Ms Madigan said.
"As much as people hate negative ads, we know they work."
The Liberal Party earworm about a hole in Labor's budget was a smart advertisement because it targeted Labor's brand weakness as a party that spends, Ms Madigan says.
But the campaign line "it won't be easy under Albanese" was the wrong choice by the Liberals from a strategic perspective, she says.
"It assumes things are easy now and a lot of people were like 'Well, it's not easy'," she said.
But Clive Palmer's strategy, where he spent $100 million on advertising without appearing to deliver results, failed because he underestimated voters.
"It's one thing to go after a protest vote, but you've got to do it with a little bit of intelligence," Ms Madigan said.
"Voters aren't stupid. They might be disengaged, they might hate politics, but they are not stupid."
Meanwhile, the vote count continues almost a week after the federal election.
Three tight races will determine the size of Labor's majority in parliament.
As of Friday afternoon, the Australian Electoral Commission had Labor with 75 seats to the coalition's 59, the Greens with three seats, 12 on the cross bench.
The seats of Macnamara and Brisbane are without a two-candidate preferred count.
In Brisbane, Labor's Madonna Jarrett is holding on to her primary vote lead over the Greens, placing her in a strong position to take the seat from Liberal MP Trevor Evans.
She is 628 votes ahead of Greens candidate Stephen Bates.
In the Victorian seat of Macnamara, Labor MP Josh Burns is in the primary vote lead on 32.1 per cent.
But his fate will be determined by the race between Liberal candidate Colleen Harkin (29.5 per cent) and the Greens' Steph Hodgins-May (29.3 per cent).
Ms Harkin is currently 167 primary votes ahead of Ms Hodgins-May.
Liberal candidate Andrew Constance is 277 votes ahead of sitting Labor MP Fiona Phillips in the NSW electorate of Gilmore, with postal votes slightly favouring Mr Constance.
No seats have been formally declared.
The AEC remains on track to return the writs to the governor-general on or before June 28.
"Our motto for the count is 'right, not rushed'," Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said.
