Political Marketing

I know this is a crazy thing to say, but I've been spending some serious time mentally analyzing a huge range of commercials on tv the past 6 months or so. Some have been pretty snappy on the surface, and honestly offer you something you might be interested in. Others are designed to attract your attention to cute or sexy or "omg how adorable was that". And some are just clearly outright deceptive in design.... but only if you take the time to think about it.

And this is what marketing people do. Do note, this blog post is NOT about bashing anyone in the marketing profession, they are hired to do a job. How they proceed is based on the client's wishes and the amount of money they wish to spend on the job.

I am sure everyone can relate to the Telus ads. All cute creatures, designed to entice the animal lovers and kids and look "oh so hip". Have you noticed, the majority of these ads will typically feature things in sets of three? Watch any of the design type shows, and you always here that "three" is the magic number for balance, eye catching, etc etc. So the question here is... do you want to be trapped into a 3 year contract (geez, that number just came up again), with a company who wrote that contract to be totally in their favor? Have you read the fine print? Do you have to sign the contract to get things installed... only to find out you are on "twisted pair" lines and you will never get the speeds promised? Did you read the part that they will do the best they can, but there are no promises? .. Oh, what about those free perks and equipment? *cough*.. free, because the cost plus profit are already built into the cost of that 3 year plan.  .. Oh... seriously.. you honestly thought they were free?

Another spiffy one is the Enmax commercial. You know.. why sign with anyone else? Why get a contract? After all, you can easily cancel with one months notice, right? And the dude... his horse... the outdoorsy feeling. The cute smile. God, you just HAVE to go for that, right? Well, if you don't sign a contract for a fixed rate, they clearly know prices are going to go nowhere but UP. So with no contract, in the end, you will probably pay a lot more and THEY aren't locked into that price. And the one months notice thing? Well, how many times have you moved, and remembered at the start of the month to give 30 days notice? And if your billing period isn't the start of the month? Or... you get the pleasure of getting out a week or two early from the old place, then what. Yep.. YOU are responsible for the entire bill for 30 days. Pretty cool huh? Even with other utilities, cable, etc... most will generally drop you with a couple of days notice without an issue. NOT SO here.

Ok ok.. politics... that's what drew you here in the first place.

History has proven we get promises up the ying-yang and then. You know.

So why in the world would you think this election will be any different? Oh sure, the people are more involved but that just means what "they" tell you will be much more guarded. In concept, we simply do not trust. And when it comes to the Wild Rose party, remember the issues. Who do you hear from? The candidates seem to be under a gag order. I've heard from many who were within their system and left, who all say the same thing. And generally not good things. We have religion and abortion and private health care and backing from what many say are the "big oil" folks. Oh yes, and the promise to send YOU money too! Free money, as it were. And to that point I can only say "remember what Klein did"... sold our storage and gas sites, and then allowed private enterprise to control them. Remember, ATCO would buy surplus natural gas in the summer, to give better rates in the winter. And does that happen anymore? Nope.

And the PC party, promising to be SO good to the people. Um... like you have been in the past?  Arg, I don't even want to go there, I'm not smart enough to co-relate all of those things.

THE bottom line here is this. Are you going to continue to be sucked in by these ads, keeping your head buried in the sand because its just TOO hard to think about your families future? Is it not time to actually *think* about the consequences?

For me, I would love to see a minority government. The main reason is that no matter what party you choose to deal with, they have either little experience or they have too many that you just can't trust. Clearly the PC folks have the experience but I believe they lack the trust factor. The Wild Rose have little experience and from the looks of things they have a very low trust factor as well. The Alberta Party is a wishful dream that will make little inroads.

That leaves the NDP with Mason and the Liberals with Sherman. Both struggling to stand up strong, both with experience.

To have either the PC's or the Wild Rose in a majority, would in my opinion, destroy Alberta. Politicians need to be taught a lesson... and a minority government would at least give all citizens the ability to be heard. We definitely have not been heard nor will be heard by a majority win.

Choose wisely, think with caution and wisdom...