The camera pans across the facade of Parliament House, an Australian flag audibly flapping in the night-time breeze. Then we spy, through a window, the prime minister diligently working away beneath a photo of Queen Elizabeth II.
Then we’re behind Scott Morrison, somewhere in the vicinity of his left ear, as we hear his voiceover, deep and earnest. “Things are tough,” he says.
Political marketing lecturer Dr Andrew Hughes, from the Australian National University, calls this “stalkercam”. We’ve somehow stumbled on the PM working hard to save the nation.
“It’s like we’re looking through his window, late at night, and he’s working on documents, being ‘prime ministery’,” Hughes says of Morrison’s campaign video, released the night before the PM called the 2022 election.
Why I love Australia pic.twitter.com/acmDsLgYo4
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) April 9, 2022
“It’s very doco style … as though we’ve caught him off guard.”
Then we’re inside the office and the PM is raising the alarm with someone offscreen (Drought! Fire! Floods! Pandemic! War!).
“The first time, I stopped watching after about 25 seconds, because I didn’t like the ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse,” says Dr Chris Wallace, author of How to Win an Election.
“Droughts, fires, floods, pandemics. It’s coming out in the polling that people think he’s just an ordinary guy doing his job in hard times,” she says.
“But he hasn’t done a good enough job.”
Next in the social media ad, we’re the stalkers again as he talks into a phone, looking out a window, and the camera lingers rather obviously on his simple gold wedding band.
Then Morrison asks himself:
“What’s firing me up?” (He answers himself, with emotion: Year 11 and 12 trade students want to start their own businesses. “How good’s that?”).
Who is the ad talking to?
“Middle Australia,” Hughes says.
“Blokes,” Wallace says.
Wallace is also an associate professor at the 50/50 Foundation in the business, government and law faculty at the University of Canberra.
“He’s lost the treble and upped the bass [in his voice]. He’s trying to win this election on the bloke vote and the crude metric he’s trying to project is the deeper your voice, the more blokey you are,” she says.
What’s the ad trying to do?
“He’s hitting a number of basic buttons,” Wallace says.
“The wedding ring was one of a number of crude buttons he was pressing – the ‘I’m married’ button.”
The picture of the Queen?
“The monarchist traditional values button.”
The trade school talk?
“It’s Morrison talking to his own people. He seems to think he can win this election on the bloke vote. News flash: half the population are women. He’s expecting those blokes who share his values to bring their women and children with him.”
(Wallace also points out that “of course” young people studying trades will want to start their own businesses – they’ll mostly become subcontractors.)
Hughes says Morrison is “trying to get trust back”.
“He knows he’s lost it.”
“That’s probably why he had the wedding ring as well – I’m a married man, a man you can trust.”
Does it work?
The wedding band won’t, at least not for everyone, Hughes says.
“The divorce rate is so high, and has been for such a long time,” he says. “[Outside the ad] he’s using [wife] Jenny as well.”
But, Hughes adds, the ad might work for some.
“If you’ve got a mortgage, a secure job, you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about. Some people have done very well for themselves.
“Not just rich people, people in the middle. Property values have gone up. A lot of people have much more money now than they ever dreamed of because of the LNP.”
It may talk to those people, Hughes says, but that means it leaves out those who don’t have a home.
Wallace says it’s a “classic vote consolidation ad”. “It’s him trying to double down and lock up his own people,” she says.
“He’s projecting traditional values and hoping that’s enough.”
Herald Sun columnist Peta Credlin (former chief of staff to former PM Tony Abbott) declared it “hits the mark” because it reminds people of everything you’ve done without telling them to be grateful for it. “It’s known as a memory ad,” she wrote.
Seen an election campaign ad you think we should take a look at? Send it to tory.shepherd@theguardian.com
