Media: Steady on and don't scare the horses

National's new campaign. Photo / Richard Robinson

The creative brain behind National's 2005 billboard campaign says the party's new ads try to squeeze in too many messages.

John Ansell doubts the new "blue aeroplane" billboards will jolt passing motorists into noticing them.

But he says the new ads fit the new National Party brand perfectly, and says that the Nats probably don't want them to create a stir.

It's a case of "Don't frighten the horses".

Labour needed to make a big hit ad campaign this time - not National, Ansell claims.

The 2005 campaign - most famously the short, sharp, succinct Iwi/Kiwi billboard which suggested Labour was caught up in a Maori perspective - had left-wing bloggers squealing, saying they were divisive, but were applauded by some National supporters and among some voters.

Ansell says the first of the 2008 billboards reflect that the National Party brand in 2008 is very different to what it was in 2005.

The brand for the new John Key National Party was to be modern, positive and non-threatening, he said.

The new ads feature planes and the cumbersome message "Wave Goodbye to Higher Taxes and Not Your Loved Ones".

It's subjective of course but the first word that came to mind when this reporter saw the new billboard was "wallpaper".

Ansell was wary of critiquing the first of the new billboards.

"I don't want to appear a tosser," he said.

"But personally, I think it's a little bit over designed - so that focus groups have more things to say "Yes" to. I'm not sure it will jolt people as they drive past. And the blue aeroplanes? It is the modern Mac (Apple MacIntosh) designer style."

But it has four messages on it and that makes it hard to be noticed.

"I think every blob of ink needs to justify its presence - I'm not sure we needed the corporal stripes pointing to National.

"You have got to be brave and you have to do something quite different for people to interrupt their lives.

"It's a bit churlish, but in some ways the billboard reference to tax cuts played into Labour's tax cuts (which are set to put on October 1).

"But it is early days and that can be easily fixed.

"My approach would be to put up a billboard on October 1. It would say: 'Want a bigger tax cut - vote National'."