KWP! masterminds the winning election line
Masterminding the winning line has delivered the ultimate hat-trick of Liberal party election triumphs, with Adelaide-based KWP!’s marketing strategies resulting in their clients claiming victory in last federal, and state NSW and SA elections.
KWP! commenced work on the campaign 12 months ago, after being approached following the success of the SA and NSW’s Liberal Party campaigns.
Responsible for the marketing strategy, strategic messaging, creative execution and all production, KWP!’s managing director of advertising, John Baker, explains it was about the team identifying the simple, yet powerful messaging and keeping consistent throughout the duration of the campaign.
Says Baker: “For SA, it was ‘No Jay, it’s not ok’, for NSW it was ‘You’ll pay for it Daley’ and for the Federal Election it was ‘The Bill Australia can’t afford’.
“With the Liberal Party positioning themselves as strong at managing money, growth, job security and opportunities for future generations, we focused on the fact that Labour can’t manage money or secure our future.”
KWP! group managing director David O’Loughlin said achieving the successful outcome didn’t happen overnight and it was a year-long strategy-focused campaign: “For us, it was being very focused with our messaging strategy and crafting a strong winning campaign line.”
64 Comments
Thanks a bunch.
Pricks.
Hmm
Great campaign – looking forward to the flow of salty comments
truth in advertising. A real low point. I definitely wouldn’t be showboating. Screw the climate, lets keep using taxpayers dollars to subsidise coal. Screw Indigenous people having a voice, we’ll tell them how to live their lives. Screw closing tax loopholes that extract the common wealth. Screw removing the advantage of wealthy property investors. And screw wage growth, which is the actual thing that will grow the economy.
As long as you’re okay though Jayzon, that’s all that matters.
Um I wrote this for another agency during the pitch and they obviously fed it to you. So maybe just don’t brag about the IP theft.
Woah serious allegation and pretty f’d up if true.
One halfway clever line of the old Award school variety in a sea of steaming crap.
You think you’re the only person to ever use Bill as a noun and not as a surname? Yeah, right. Join the cue.
Will not leave you as smug as this press release. Thanks for nothing.
Awful thing to boast about.
Whether you like it, or not, political advertising is judged on one thing and one thing only – who won? The Libs won, so well done KWP!
If I was a Labor supporter, I wouldn’t be firing bullets at KWP! and Morrison, I would be asking why Labor and Shorten ran the most stupid, ill-thought-out, ill-disciplined political campaign of all time. Shorten saying one thing about Adani to people in northern Queensland and something else about Adani to the inner city voters of Melbourne and Sydney. Stupid. Bowen proposing a change to negative gearing then saying negative equity in your home is ok. Stupid. Shorten proposing ‘lofty’ renewable targets and then calling a question about the cost as ‘dumb’. Stupid. Shorten telling working class retirees their franking credits were a gift when they had worked hard to buy those shares and planned their retirement around the income from them. Stupid. Bowen telling people who disagreed with his tax plan, “Well, if you don’t like it, don’t vote for us”. Stupid. The list goes on and on. One stupid statement after another. Stupidity lost Labor the unlosable election. And KWP!’s advertising did their job in never letting people forget just how stupid Shorten and Labor were. So, don’t get angry with KWP!, get angry at the idiots who ran Labor’s campaign and the biggest idiots of all, Shorten and Bowen.
Look mate, you were never gonna vote Labor even if all those policies (and Bill) were removed, it’s just a nice excuse you give to yourself. Labor made mistakes but what the hell have the Libs done in 6 years. But thats ignored and forgiven isn’t it? This was largely a vote bout hatred of the left and the shrillness of certain voices in it (Which also really brass me off too) And rather than get the hell over themselves bout that shrill voice on the extremes and help those lesser than, people opted to teach Labor a lesson. Of course you might say Labor overplayed the mood for change. But thats just it isn’t it. Some people think it’s important to try, just to try and strive to make things better for people other than themselves with their choice of government. I don’t think they are stupid for wanting that. Even if Labor winning would just for a moment make some really really horrible people, that I bet you also really think are horrendous, be shown that the weight of public opinion isn’t with them.
Dear Slinger
Australians don’t reject change, they reject chaos.
Change is fine if it’s managed and does not create massive uncertainty.
Look at the Same Sex Marriage vote – the biggest NO votes weren’t from regular old school Australians, or Tony Abbott, but from traditional Labor electorates.
When Australia voted for change in 2007 they were reassured by Kevin Rudd declaring he was ‘an economic conservative’.
This election Labor created massive uncertainty – compounded by Shorten not willing to/able to cost his renewable target’s policy.
As for hate – well, that’s just rubbish.
The inner city, socially progressives might see hate, bigotry, racism under every rock, but regular Australians don’t.
They’re too busy trying to make ends meet, to get a job and figuring out how to pay for their next power bill.
In uncertain times, people aren’t looking for the ‘grand vision’ that will change their world, they’re looking for certainty and knowing
what little financial security they do have won’t be threatened by government.
That’s what this election result is about – nothing else.
Spot on
Badly conceived policies by Labor.They were never going to stop the mine they had to much to loose as QLD state labor could loose the next election.$ they have a record of not being able to ad up
You must be an art director, surely. Your spelling is atrocious. ‘to’ rather than ‘too’, ‘loose’ instead of ‘lose’ and ‘ad’ where the word is ‘add’. If you want your opinions to be taken seriously, try to write like an adult.
Personally I thought ‘The Bill Australia can’t afford’ was a brilliant line. That said, I’m not convinced it was the advertising that got the Liberals across the line.
Well down KWP!
Helped win a federal election, probably were able to earn a decent quid from it too.
It was a brilliant line from an equally brilliant agency that consistently punches above its weight.
I think I’ve got to opt of this thread. I understand we’ve all got to make a living, I have family who are Libs voters, etc etc. But praise of this campaign for this kind of election, its just a bit ….Riefenstahl, like what’s the moral limit here? What are you social responsibilities? One Nation? Rise Up? How do KWP then face clients/customers, family/friends representing people perhaps really badly hurt financially, socially, environmentally, or institutionally by this Government?
But hey Xanex stops these 3am existential crisis horrors in a jiffy right?
Did you see Labor’s ‘Riefensathl’ negative ads? Or was that eye closed at the time?
And for just one minute, can you put your bias on hold and recognise that for every
One Nation and Rise Up there’s a Green and a Get Up.
Your anger at losing – your embarrassment at being ‘wrong’ – is no better than the
confected outrage of a Paul Hansen and Clive Palmer.
You see Slinger, it’s your sense of superiority and entitlement that created Pauline
Hansen and Rise Up. You are the problem, not shift workers in northern Queensland
trying to keep their jobs.
This isn’t a dig at the writers of the line, but a statement of political advertising in this country in general. How often would you write an ad for a Honda saying how rubbish a Toyota is? Or an ad for Meadow Lea talking about how disgusting Flora is? The net result of constant character attacks and mud slinging is a voting population that is uninformed on policy and voting primarily on personality. I’ve worked on government jobs before and I know you don’t get much room to move. But do we honestly need the money this badly? Every four years it’s worse, and every year people have become less and less confident in their political system, or how their vote can affect it.
I also don’t know why you would plug advertising of this nature. It’s not exactly the Great Schlep, is it. To me it’s nothing more than a character attack, and giving nothing for people to vote for.
Hear, hear.
sucked in commies
>industry dependent on big business
>supports the anti-big business party
bravo adland hipsters
Well the libs have made it harder for themselves to cut corporate taxes. They have to protect all those franking credits.
I’m so happy that there is no legal requirement for the content of political advertising to be factually correct. Now it’s all mine.
Puns and rhymes. Good job, dickheads. You really raised the standard of quality in Australian advertising.
Well done KWP. When I first saw this line I laughed out loud, admiring its brilliance in this context. And I’m a labour supporter. This is the kind of genius Saatchi was known for with the Conservative party back in the day. It helped the universally loathed Thatcher get in or back in, but that’s what they were paid to do. For those criticising, get real. This is evidence of an impossible brief cracked brilliantly. If it wasn’t KWP, a zillion other agencies would have jumped at the chance. I’m disappointed your work worked so well but hats off to you.
You say you’re a Labor supporter, but you can’t even spell it correctly.
And? How does that change things? So sorry. I’m a Labor supporter who can’t spell and thinks what KWP did is exactly what their client paid them for. To help them win the election. Proof is in the puding. Or is it pudding?
A bill pun?
What a leap.
There! I did it, too! Can I have plaudits and an article about me?
Well said.
So we’re at the point of praising the use of fear and dishonesty in marketing. How far this industry has come.
I would be ashamed of the work and ashamed of the outcome if I worked on it.
It’s never black and white.
But the ‘outrage’ is so much easier to muster when we make believe it is.
Fo all the social progressives bemoaning the Labour loss, remember the divisive rhetoric that attacked the ‘Top end of Town’ during the campaign. By any objective measure this was an attack on achievement, on aspiration, and the rewards of hard work. It wasn’t big business targeted…it was small business – the risk taking, self-backing biggest employer in the country. They got spooked.
It was just dumb.
Also remember this is a party built on the strength of the union movement. During the Hawke halcyon years, this was around 50% of the workforce in Australia. Now this figure is around 10%…yet the unions still hold an unrepresentative power over Labour and their policies.
Don’t blame KWP. They did what needed to be done for and on behalf of their client. They did their job.
And they understood the nature of their job better than the opposition. That’s why the Liberals won.
Dear The Grey Truth, 100% correct.
Its this constant bile by people like Slinger who have made Australians retreat from public debate.
Australians who sit in the centre of politics, maybe even slightly to the right, are sick of being accused
of being climate change denialists, bigots, rascists …..
So they just shut up, sat back and waited with their baseball bats.
Shorten and Labor got everything they deserve.
And all the loud-mouthed socially progressives who find fault with everything in Australia and Australians got what they deserved as well.
Maybe Labor will return to the values and common sense of the Hawke years.
What Hawke values and commonsense are they? Environmentalism? Giving to Landcare? Taking 20,000 refugees from China post Tiananmen square. Imposing sanctions on South Africa? Not wanting Australian children to live in poverty? The Barunga Statement…
I agree with you about a Hawke’s achievements.
I actually voted for him.
But Hawke was a unifier.
He built a bridge between labor and capital that benefitted both.
Hawke would never have embarked on a campaign
of class welfare like Shorten did.
Hawke would have ‘grandfathered’ changes to franking credits.
Hawke would’ve acknowledged Malcom Fraser did more for opposing apartheid than most.
Hawke would admit he promised much on child poverty but achieved little.
But most importantly, Hawke would’ve taken people with him, not declared war on them like Shorten.
Hawke would never have embarked on a campaign of class welfare like Shorten did.
True. Why?
We didn’t have the levels of inequality during Hawkes time! We switched economic theories. We went from Keynesian to trickle down. 3 decades of trickle down created inequality. Privatise everything, cut taxes for the wealthy, subsidise your mates. 30 years of these kinds of economics created it. We didn’t have a GST in Hawke’s time either. The promise of the GST was to put more money in our pockets. Hmmm. We have 1% of the global population and 2 banks that are in the 50 most profitable. How is that even possible? Oh, Debt.
As for not achieving his goals around child poverty, we now have 17.3% of children in Australia living below the poverty line. (The Libs ran in the opposite direction. Screw the collective, we’re the party of individualism and free markets.)
The problem with trickle down economics is that it has never trickled down. It just goes into wealth building strategies. But let’s ignore what all the major economists are saying “we need wages to grow” and continue riding this train off the fiscal cliff.
Have a listen to the podcast “follow the money” from Australia Institute. You’ll very quickly work out where we are going wrong. We need government to pull the right levers. Something that is currently not possible when you beholden to giving tax cuts and subsidies to your mates.
Subsidise mates: Coal. Punch your enemies in the face: Union run car manufacturing industry. How many people did we put out of work? Way more than what Adani will hire.
Subsidise mates: Elite private schools. Punch your enemies in the face: Teachers unions in public schools. Cut subsidies to public schools (which educate 70% of the population) Kill Gonski,
Lets forget all that though. How pissed are all the retirees going to be when they discover the reduction in their Franking credits because ScoMo is cutting company taxes? (Nobody is talking about that are they?)
Are we not going to talk about this fairly major accusation?
It’s a pretty decent line.
If you work on politics or cigarettes you should just shut up about it.
wtf
Commies? Talk about a Murdoch media infected brain. We lost a Prime Minister last week that showed us what true leadership was. He set the country on a pathway of shared prosperity. Medicare for all. etc etc etc. It’s what we used to call Australian. Now we’ve bought into the Ayn Rand cult of the individual idea. How fucking stupid and easily led (down the wrong path) is this country.
I bet you cheered when that young kid killed himself because Morrison hounded him with Robo debt collectors. Tell me more ScoMo about you wanting to serve every single Australian.
There are some people on here that really live up to the term Ad wankers.
It is bull shit though.
Higher Taxes – for the rich maybe. Most we not actually not creating higher taxes, just removing loop holes that only the rich could take advantage of.
More Debt – in 2012 Australian Gov Debt was at 234 million. at the end of 2018 it was at 532 million. I think it’s clear who’s creating the debt.
Weak Economy – Pouring money into coal may not be the next idea right now for a number of reasons. Financially is one of them.
But yeah, great campaign based on lies. Well done KWP!
Agree completely.
I thought it was Jesus who won Scott the election. Are you telling us the PM is a liar?
Jesus only helps special people. However Snotty will be running seminars on clapping, and pointing at the sky. And for those with extra potential both at the same time. He won’t however be running seminars on advertising. After the dreadful “Where the bloody hell are you” debacle even Jesus won’t forgive him. He’s still considering KWP but if they are wise they will stay inside during thunderstorms.
Thanks.
There’s nothing worse than advertising that lies.
How Labor lost to this absolute idiot is clearly at their feet, not the Coalition’s advertising campaign.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c_UO5PCklY
Who was the agency that worked on Labor? Asking for a friend.
Dear Art Directors in this thread, please learn how to spell Labor.
It’s only five letters.
A brief like this is the point where an agency should tell a client “you have a product problem, not a communications problem”. Just making shit up might work but isn’t the work of a “mastermind”.
What other genius did they produce?
“Bill kills puppies”
“Great Scott performs miracles”
Left wing creatives. What a cliche.
There were so many lies and misinformation in ShartMo’s campaign.
Why is political advertising not held to the same standards of truth as normal advertising?
https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/can-a-politician-straight-up-lie-to-you-in-their-ads/10990230
Someone in the industry needs to do something about it. The fact people like ShartMo, Clive Palmer and One Nation can blatantly lie and win an election is wrong.
A car company can’t lie about their transmission, but a Government can lie about their policies and worse, rubbish the opposition’s policies with lies. We should be boycotting the agencies who do lie for politicians and pointing it out to their clients.
PS: ScatMo has already broken his first promise before he’s even formed a government. Not a happy start to the next 3 years, but would be very happy if finally there was some truth in political advertising.
A print ad won the election?
Look forward to reading your sketchy Effie in a few weeks
It’s wrong to applaud this work. Australia had a generational chance to make a huge difference for the future of this nation. But we chose selfishness, we chose the back pocket over our people and environment. KWP, you will never get back the part of your soul you sold creating this campaign. Shame on you.
Grow up and get a life.
I dont think it won the election, but certainly the best campaign line I saw.
I don’t eat McDonalds. I think it’s repulsive and damaging to community health. That doesn’t mean that I can’t respect and appreciate quality McDonalds advertising. I thought Kevin07 was a clever encapsulation of the country’s mood for change at that time. It was snappy and memorable. I voted Liberal in that election and despise KRudd with a passion. They are completely separate judgements, however.
@Dear F the liberals : you too.
Kevin 07 was ‘inspired’ by Obama 08.
How could 08 precede 07?
In the USA campaigns to become a party’s Presidential candidate start well over a year out from the election. (Look at Joe Biden now).
Obama 08 was Obama’s campaign in his battle with Hillary Clinton to become the Democrat’s nominee.
It ran well before Kevin 07.
So, Kevin 07 mightn’t have been an original idea, but it was a stroke of genius to copy it.
A kwap line from a kwap agency for a kwap government. It’s no, ‘LABOUR ISN’T WURKING’ that’s for sure.
Quality art direction.