Death by advertising

>> Celebrate the end of politics: put a lunatic in the Premier's office

by PHILIP PREVILLE

"Getting people to vote for a political party is exactly the same thing as selling a can of paint," says Michel Bissonnette, a former Liberal youth wing president who now works for a Montreal advertising firm. "You've got people who already buy your brand, people who are loyal to the competing brand, and then you've got everyone in between. That's your potential market."

Bissonnette is surely a shrewd political thinker, but none of his words qualify him as a genius. Such thinking has dominated political campaigns for years now. According to U.S. political lore, back in 1980 Ronald Reagan met with his communications and advertising team and said to them, "I understand you're selling soap, and I came here because I thought you might like to see the bar."

Since that time, news media outlets have devoted an ever-increasing amount of broadcast minutes and column inches to the topic of political advertising.

During this provincial campaign, much ink has been spilled over the PQ's advertising strategy: using green instead of the usual fleur-de-lys blue, posting campaign signs that don't have any politicians on them, hiding the party logo in the corner, photoshopping out Lucien Bouchard's double chin and other such things. Instead of selling paint, the Globe and Mail likened the PQ's TV ads to selling tampons: women talking about feeling "secure," followed by the PQ campaign slogan, "I'm confident."

Meanwhile, for Liberal strategists who think in advertising logic, Jean Charest must have been a dream come true: there's little that distinguishes him from a can of off-white latex. "He's totally neutral," says film wardrobe designer Françoise Lecour, one of the Mirror's image-makeover panelists. "I don't think he could make a visual statement even if he tried."

But when you're selling paint or tampons, this kind of inoffensiveness is considered positive. To put it another way: what makes Jean Charest such a great politician is the fact that he's totally non-political. And what makes the PQ ads so innovative is that they have successfully disassociated their party with any notion of politics.

Which makes sense. Politics is dead. All three major parties promise more or less the same things: more money for health care, a tax cut, no deficit, and smaller government. Image is the only thing upon which the voters' choice rests. (With the exception of the sovereignty issue, of course, and even that's become fuzzy. Many voters now believe Bouchard will not hold another referendum--another image management success for the PQ.)

Such being the case, the only question that remains is: why does anyone care if these people wear suits or not? If they all promise the same things, then I want my tax-cutting, deficit-reducing, civil-service-slashing health-care saviour to be a raving lunatic, or a cross-dresser, or a philanderer with a cigar fetish, or someone who talks to his dead wife through his dog. Something more entertaining than a can of paint.

Either that, or I want him or her to have an original political idea.