Billboard ideas for Left and Right

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, September 17th, 2008 - 46 comments
Categories: election 2008, humour - Tags:

I see the National billboard on the corner of Dixon and Victoria in Wellington is already down. Are they pulling them all because they have been unanimously ridiculed or were the hilarious extra comments* that kept appearing on this one making it a liability? Either way, perhaps they will consider replacing it with something like this from The Onion:

*my personal thoughts on defacing billboards are it’s better to put up your own banners etc, like this one out by Wellington Airport, not sophisticated but on-message:

Brilliant.

 

46 comments on “Billboard ideas for Left and Right ”

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  1. higherstandard 1
    17 September 2008 at 7:16 am

    Nice cartoon.

    However if the poster is your idea of brilliant it’s best you don’t consider a career in advertising.

    It appears to be a tacky negative little piece if work.

  2. Bryan Spondre 2
    17 September 2008 at 7:18 am

    The Left must be terrified of John Key.

  3. max 3
    17 September 2008 at 7:49 am

    Oh my god – this place has gone further downhill in the last couple of months.

    Bye bye laybore.

    Tackey negative little piece is correct.

  4. Tane 4
    17 September 2008 at 8:08 am

    The humourless right strike again.

  5. r0b 5
    17 September 2008 at 8:16 am

    The humourless right strike again.

    And the sad thing is they won’t even have that right under National’s terrifying new employment secret agenda evil master plan!

  6. Stephen 6
    17 September 2008 at 8:27 am

    “laybore”?!

    The poster is rubbish. National would probably have come up with that if they were asked to hazard a guess as to what Labour’s billboards would be like this year. Even plays the envy card with the names of all the places Key has homes (John Key is rich, pass it on).

    Maybe National did make it, can’t see how it will achieve anything but to repel people away from Labour, whether they did it or not.

  7. Tim Ellis 7
    17 September 2008 at 8:28 am

    Maybe I need another coffee this morning, but I am baffled as to what this post is attempting to say.

  8. DeeDub 8
    17 September 2008 at 8:32 am

    Bryan Spondre

    “The Left must be terrified of John Key.”

    Heh heh . . . yeah, we must be??? (What?).

    And the right must be afraid he’ll get seriously ‘off message’ once he has to think on his feet in a live debate..

    Good luck with that.

  9. Monty 9
    17 September 2008 at 8:34 am

    I wonder why the left is just so bitter and twisted at present. First we have lefties defacing billboards, and then last night there was Cullen on TV proving that we don’t really need an advertising campaign – he is doing it for us. Please keep Cullen on as lead spokesman for the Labour Party right up until the election. In a single sound bit he has demonstrated why Labour are no longer to be fit to be the government.

    I initially thought Cullen’s outburst was his wit (and it may well be) but he really did come across as a very angry sad and pitiful person. His statements said much more about him than it said about John Key – and it makes Labour look so dirty and desperate.

    So carry on you negatiive campaign, vandalise the natonal Party Billborads, but at the end of the day, you will just see the Labour support base continue to fade away below 30% as people realise a desperate Government must be evicted.

  10. rjs131 10
    17 September 2008 at 8:39 am

    I heard that in Auckland Central, Labour are going to use

    “Vote Judith Tizard – No One Can Work Harder”

  11. Stephen 11
    17 September 2008 at 9:02 am

    A few Labour and Green billboards going down too Monty…

  12. monkey-boy 12
    17 September 2008 at 9:07 am

    Meanwhile there have been a few complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority because people are upset that the photo of Helen Clark on her billboards has such a slight resemblence to the real thing…

  13. Steve Pierson 13
    17 September 2008 at 9:07 am

    guys, loosen up. I saw a couple of funny things and thought I would share them with you.. the text is clearly tongue-in-cheek.. you’ve even got a tag that says ‘humour’ as a guide.

  14. higherstandard 14
    17 September 2008 at 9:12 am

    SP

    The cartoon is humorous – the flier is just a bit pathetic and childish, much as a Helen Clark flier saying see was lesbian or such like would be. It looks like the effort of a pimply faced third former to me.

    [and I’m poking fun at it. SP]

  15. Tim Ellis 15
    17 September 2008 at 9:17 am

    Monkey-boy, I don’t see why people would complain to the ASA about the picture.

    It does surprise me why the Labour Party would think it was a good idea to use such a ridiculously manipulated image that looks nothing like Helen Clark. Everybody knows what Helen Clark looks like. I think she’s a pleasant looking woman. Making such silly changes and then saying “oh, it is just the lighting we used” makes me think that Labour’s ad people think that we are stupid.

    I’m not saying her picture should look like she’s stressed and haggard, but they could have had one that actually looks like her. It just seems like strange behaviour. I do wonder how much they are trying to undermine their own brand: “Trust us, we’re so ashamed of our own leader, that we’ve manipulated this image to make it look like somebody very different, because this election is about trust.”

  16. Stephen 16
    17 September 2008 at 9:19 am

    What HS said.

  17. Tane 17
    17 September 2008 at 9:27 am

    Um. It’s not funny when you have to explain it, but SP was being ironic.

    The ‘John Key Sucks’ poster is so awful that SP is admiring it for its sheer awfulness.

    Subtlety, it’s wasted on some people.

  18. Stephen 18
    17 September 2008 at 9:42 am

    It did occur to me Tane, and if it was any other site I might’ve had a laugh. But with the amount of time this site spends having a go at Key, I thought it was serious.

  19. Tane 19
    17 September 2008 at 9:43 am

    The ‘humour’ tag is usually a tip-off.

  20. G 20
    17 September 2008 at 9:46 am

    “Monkey-boy, I don’t see why people would complain to the ASA about the picture.”

    Because it’s false advertising, Tim. They’re leading the buyer to think they’d be purchasing an attractive, fresh, happy and benevolent leader — when in reality they’d be getting three more years of an ugly, dictatorial, tired and bitter old smash-mouth troll. 🙂

  21. coge 21
    17 September 2008 at 9:49 am

    If National billboards are being tampered with it will be third rate political activists from places like Aro Valley doing it. Not
    skateboarding youths, who would have different priorities.

  22. Tane 22
    17 September 2008 at 9:52 am

    Just to be completely humourless myself for a second, the ASA is an industry body, which means it’s unlikely the NZLP is a member.

    http://www.asa.co.nz/asainc.php

  23. G 23
    17 September 2008 at 9:52 am

    … oh, and of course utterly corrupt.

  24. Stephen 24
    17 September 2008 at 9:55 am

    The ‘humour’ looked like it only applied to the first.

  25. r0b 25
    17 September 2008 at 10:03 am

    when in reality they’d be getting three more years of an ugly, dictatorial, tired and bitter old smash-mouth troll.

    Putting a smiley after it doesn’t make it OK to say such things G. Fits with your description of women as “silly bitches” though. Nice.

  26. Brett Dale 26
    17 September 2008 at 10:40 am

    Thats a real classy Billboard near Wellington Airport, I’m sure that will get people thinking and change a lot of votes. My personal opinion on defacing billboards is, its property damage and its a crime, end of story.

    Anyone who does it, must hate free speech.

    [just to play devil’s advocate and bearing in mind that I don’t support defacing billboards… aren’t we limiting the defacers’ free speech by making their defacing illegal? SP]

  27. Felix 27
    17 September 2008 at 10:55 am

    Steve,

    Perhaps you could put a label at the start of every paragraph you post to indicate whether the contents are intended to be taken with deadly seriousness.

    Of course it would be better if the genuinely slow (like monty) and the willfully ignorant (like hs) could just grow up a little and learn to read contextually, but if their past behaviour is anything to go by wouldn’t hold your breath.

  28. jaymam 28
    17 September 2008 at 11:03 am

    May I make a threat to the people who drove around Auckland last night, smashing down Labour billboards and deliberately breaking the timber supports (and leaving alone the National billboards):

    When I catch you, as I surely will, you’d better not have any connections with a political party or there will be big trouble.

    Don’t say you weren’t warned.

  29. Tim Ellis 29
    17 September 2008 at 11:10 am

    jaymam, I noticed on Monday morning that some Judith Tizard hoardings had been knocked over. One of them was graffitid as well, in what I would express as quite straight-forward tagging. That suggested to me that it wasn’t politically motivated.

    I also noticed that some Tizard hoardings appear to have been put up illegally, on council owned sites that are not authorised. It sounds like she’s having a tough time keeping her hoardings strategy together.

  30. Brett Dale 30
    17 September 2008 at 11:51 am

    Only someone from left would call criminal damage, free speech. You have every right to free speech by putting up your own own billboard, or handing out pamphlets or giving a speech in a public street, but to damage someone’s property is NOT free speech its a crime.

  31. Phil 31
    17 September 2008 at 11:52 am

    [just to play devil’s advocate and bearing in mind that I don’t support defacing billboards… aren’t we limiting the defacers’ free speech by making their defacing illegal? SP]

    That sounds like the catalyst for another debate about property rights, which could potentially descend into blog-comment-madness… do you really want to go there, and risk bringing Michelle back?
    🙂

  32. lprent 32
    17 September 2008 at 11:55 am

    coge: After 30 years putting up hoardings and trying to keep them up, I’ve come to the conclusion that it makes bugger all difference if it is 3rd rate activists or taggers or drunks on a friday night.

    Unless you surround them with bouncing betties and anti-truck mines, the hoardings will get defaced (everywhere), amended (everywhere), shotgunned (that was in otago), deliberately driven into (mt eden), towed away down the road (hamilton east), chainsawed with the face removed (rodney), torn down (everywhere), reconstructed as the opposition (mt albert), and weakened so they fall on cars (mt albert).

    They are basically targets. You have to harden them, have plenty of spares, get everyone in the local electorate to report problems, and have a crew going around fixing them. As far as I can see this applies to all parties billboards. The greens seem to have a good run so far – the billboards are so nice…..

    captcha: not glowing
    The fate of billboards?

  33. lprent 33
    17 September 2008 at 11:57 am

    All I can say for all parties. Wait until friday…. I predict a widespread problem across all parties.

  34. Tim Ellis 34
    17 September 2008 at 12:12 pm

    LP, how much do you think these things are politically motivated, as opposed to random acts of petty criminal behaviour?

  35. Vanilla Eis 35
    17 September 2008 at 1:21 pm

    lprent: A friend was running for district counsellor, and we ended up taking down her hoardings every night and putting them up again the next day. It was time intensive, but seeing as how we were young and poor it was more sensible than trying to keep replacements around.

    Campaigning is stupidly expensive. I wonder if Stephen Franks has to work out the labour costs for the 10+ Young Nats that were holding up signs on the corner of Lambton Quay and Bowen last friday for a couple of hours?

    Plus are there any rules surrounding the authorisation? His was ridiculously tiny, and written in white inside the light-blue border. I actually had to search for it.

  36. G 36
    17 September 2008 at 2:03 pm

    “Putting a smiley after it doesn’t make it OK to say such things G. Fits with your description of women as “silly bitches’ though. Nice.”

    Ahh, now that’s dishonest, Rob. I didn’t say all women were silly bitches as you’ve implied here, just those two who wanted to make a big stink about how warm the planet was getting and got stuck in the arctic during one of the coldest blizzards on record. (Bit like that silly prick who tried to paddle up there in a canoe but couldn’t because the ice thicker than your average warm-monger). 🙂

    Regarding your beloved leader, Clark Jong-Il: c’mon, Rob, you have to admit that airbrushed nonsense simply doesn’t stack up with the sour-faced man/woman with the Third World dentistry we have to suffer on our screens every night. 🙂 🙂 🙂

  37. Tim Ellis 37
    17 September 2008 at 2:04 pm

    Vanilla, as I understand it, the spending cap does not include the use of volunteer labour resource. The young nats are clearly volunteering their labour.

    There was also some discussion in the Clarkson-Peters case about allocating a portion of the cost of paid staff to the design and printing of election expenses. This is where it might start to get tricky for the EPMU’s evident involvement in erecting hoardings on behalf of the Labour Party, as evidence seems to be emerging on this. Their time and labour could be counted as an election expense.

  38. lprent 38
    17 September 2008 at 2:22 pm

    About 30:70 in the favour of the petty criminals and with a great big blurring line (because activist is such a ‘broad’ term).

    No party I’ve even been in (or had access into) has their active activists actively going out and doing the oppositions sites. Ignoring any other consideration, the potential political downside would just be too damn high.

    However that is not to say that they don’t do it. But they aren’t told to do it which is quite a different kettle of fish. I’d suspect most of the people who have ever worked for a political party who do it would be the ones who don’t have much else to do for that party. You could speculate why….

    But most would be people who have never had any association with any party.

  39. r0b 39
    17 September 2008 at 2:29 pm

    Ahh, now that’s dishonest, Rob. I didn’t say all women were silly bitches as you’ve implied here

    The use of the term to describe any group of women is unacceptable G, and it tells us a lot about who you are.

  40. Tim Ellis 40
    17 September 2008 at 2:33 pm

    I think that’s about right, LP. The activists I speak to don’t like to see signs of any party knocked over. If, say, all the Labour Party signs are getting knocked down, then they’re the only ones left for the taggers to hit. Likewise, if suspicious numbers of opposition hoardings get trashed, then even if the party whose hoardings remain had nothing to do with it, that just invites retaliation. If you’re actively involved in erecting hoardings and maintaining them, you don’t want to create more work for yourself by setting off a war like that.

    I was involved with the hoardings in a political campaign about fifteen years ago. Every time I went around to put up a sign that had been knocked over, I saw a certain member of the press gallery running past.

  41. G 41
    17 September 2008 at 2:50 pm

    Are you on Winston’s coaching team, Rob? Very slippery. You know I was only referring to the pair of silly arctic warm-mongers, who deserved my derision after being resoundingly contradicted by our cooling Earth, and yet you dishonestly set out to imply I was a misogynist.

    “We’re gonna boil, we’re gonna boil!!” All I have to say to that is Pugh!! 🙂

    Now, on to the airbrushed truth of the ‘infallibly honest’ Helen Clark. False advertising?

  42. r0b 42
    17 September 2008 at 3:11 pm

    You know I was only referring to the pair of silly arctic warm-mongers, who deserved my derision

    Brave resourceful concerned people setting out to help draw attention to an incipient global catastrophe deserve your derision?

    after being resoundingly contradicted by our cooling Earth

    Belief in a cooling earth is pretty much equivalent to belief in a flat earth G.

    and yet you dishonestly set out to imply I was a misogynist

    Someone who describes any group of women as “silly bitches” is a misogynist, yes.

  43. Matthew Pilott 43
    17 September 2008 at 4:07 pm

    I dunno r0b, at least if you believe in a flat earth you have the argument that it’s “turtles all the way down”. If you believe in a cooling earth what have you got? Fewer. Or less. Must ask National which.

  44. G 44
    17 September 2008 at 4:44 pm

    “Brave resourceful concerned people setting out to help draw attention to an incipient global catastrophe” who ended up losing their fingers and toes during one of the coldest winters on record!! And you think I’m the flat-earther??? Ahhh, Rob…

    Re: “silly bitches”: don’t think that makes me a misogynist…

    bitch |bi ch |
    noun
    1 a female dog, wolf, fox, or otter.
    2 informal derogatory, a woman whom one dislikes or considers to be malicious or unpleasant. [indeed, a very malicious and unpleasant thing to be scaring our children]
    • [in sing. ] informal a thing or situation that is unpleasant or difficult to deal with : the stove is a bitch to fix.
    verb [ intrans. ] informal
    express displeasure; grumble : they bitch about everything | [as n. ] ( bitching) we’re tired of your bitching.

    And they were bitching quite vociferously, no? 😉

  45. r0b 45
    17 September 2008 at 4:55 pm

    Re: “silly bitches’: don’t think that makes me a misogynist

    It’s nice that you don’t think so G. Why don’t you go round asking women their opinion on the topic. You might be surprised at the response.

  46. G 46
    17 September 2008 at 5:40 pm

    Where you living, Rob — in a monastery? You don’t know of any women that call other women ‘bitches’?! Ha! Ha-ha!! 😀