Page 144 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

ADVERTISING

political party, or (b) a body, cause or campaign identified with, or
likely to be regarded as identified with, a political party’. 7
The example of the GLC was a major factor in breaking
down Labour’s long-standing resistance to the use of advertising
techniques, although the process had begun with the trauma of the
1983 defeat and the election of Neil Kinnock as leader to replace
Michael Foot. Nick Grant, one of Labour’s media advisers, reflected
the ‘new realism’ when he accepted that the party was now in the
business of ‘selling a set of social values. What you have to do is
substitute the offending aspiration for one you’ve researched. One
that is harmonious with your socialist principles’ (quoted in Myers,
1986, p. 122). The party still had reservations, however:

Selling a philosophy, because it is intangible, is much more
complex than selling a product. All we are endorsing about
advertising is the narrow, highly methodological technique.
We are not endorsing the style, the form, or any particular
way of advertising a product. We’re trying to extract
benefits from the scientific technique of marketing and
apply it to a different world.
(Ibid.)

In October 1985 the new leader, Neil Kinnock, appointed a
current affairs television producer, Peter Mandelson, to the post
of Campaign and Communications Director which he had just
created. Mandelson in turn appointed advertising executive Philip
Gould to undertake a review of Labour’s campaign techniques. In
1990 Peter Mandelson himself became a Labour parliamentary
candidate, and his post was taken over by John Underwood, a
former television journalist and producer. Underwood’s tenure was
very short, due to conflicts of approach, and he resigned in June
1991 to be replaced by Dave Hill, who co-ordinated campaign
planning for the 1992 election.
The theme of the 1992 campaign was ‘It’s Time for Labour’ and
again, as in 1987, the advertisements elaborating on the theme
were well-produced and widely-praised. One broadcast backfired,
however, producing what Butler and Kavanagh call ‘the only real
confrontation of the campaign . . . the war of Jennifer’s Ear’ (1992,
p. 122). ‘Jennifer’s Ear’ was the subject of Labour’s PEB on health.
It presented, in glossy and emotional terms, the sad tale of a young
girl unable to get treatment for a painful ear condition because of
long National Health Service waiting lists. Although the characters

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