After watching the leaders debate free pitch to camera tonight it was clear to see the lost opportunities by both leaders.
Let’s start with Bill Shorten. Whoever his media team is they are using the 1990’s playbook in 2016. The straight down the camera barrel dead pan face looked and felt fake and like a shot to the camera style ad. And a bad one at that. And one that at times was on high rotation over the next hour.
It lacked excitement, engagement, passion and zeal; attributes an alternative Prime Minister should really have.
What we needed to see was the real Bill. A real experience. This is 2016 and experiential marketing IS IT right now. Although momentum is with him at this stage of the campaign, and whilst there is much water to flow beneath the bridge yet, this was a missed opportunity for the market to see him being relaxed, authentic and honest.
These attributes are hard to earn in politics so for them to be so easily let go for a glib “Comrade Leader” style address was hard to fathom. Perhaps his media team should trial these tactics out for themselves to see how bad they look.
Better still they should actually take a look at the “Big League” of the US where leaders are expected to be real, authentic and be human – just look at Obama, Bernie, Palin and Trump who all do that so well, but then the opposite with Clinton 1 & 2, Gore and Romney who looked they were more petrified of a media slip up than actually showing that as Americans they too cared about as much as what happened to the country as those who were voting for them.
Charisma, or as the Skyhooks once said, ego, is not a dirty word in politics because it has such a strong connection to leadership and here again Bill and Malcolm would be wise to show a bit of that off because in tonight’s leadership debate there was a huge vacuum of it.
You are the leader. Yes you. Be proud of that. Take a leaf out of the Leon Cameron playbook on this one.
To Malcolm. I get it. You made a lot of money in business, from not the best start in life. Can we all move on from that.
Who are you actually now? Let’s go beyond the selfie. You. What do your family hear you get passionate about when it comes to this country? What makes you passionate? That Q&A gig he did before you became PM was great. Go back to that. But now you are the Prime Minister. You need to start having a clear, concise and simple vision that we all can engage in otherwise your Bill will be in the mail and heading for the Lodge.
A vision by the way is not Jobs and Growth. That’s a slogan. And a slogan should represent a vision. So what is your vision for this nation? If you are the king of progressive politics in Australia then perhaps it is time to start acting like it. Be the King. Be Progressive in ways Labor can’t because you had better start to as those polls are moving from a fad to a trend.
As for us. We lost the opportunity that such a long campaign can provide to allow us to see policy discussed in-depth. Instead we got spin. And we really needed more out of that debate and the leaders.
Actually we needed a debate. Not the spin cycle to camera we got for over an hour. We heard no simple, clear or concise language or vision from either leader.
As for a winner? Again a lost opportunity because I couldn’t see any. Bill. Malcolm. The network. The viewers. Not even the press. What a waste. That’ll make a great topic for another post in the days to come. Till then.
