Counterfeit Bill

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, July 2nd, 2017 - 31 comments
Categories: bill english, making shit up, social media lolz, spin - Tags: , , , ,

Bill English has an active social media strategy, likely well funded and professional – Socks, pies and pizza: How to turn the Prime Minister into an everyman

While the Facebook posts may appear cringeworthy, social media experts say they are part of a sophisticated strategy to build an everyman image for English and introduce him to as many people as possible.

Social media expert Philippa Crick, director of Cre8ive Marketing, says English is clearly being advised by professionals.

“On Facebook, people like to see you are authentic, human and honest, so him posting about walk/runs shows his human side,” she says.

“It looks to me like a deliberate strategy in place to keep it real. He’s trying to say he is the real everyday man. He is not putting feta and spinach on his pizza.

“That is a clear strategy.”

Crick says the best way to build an audience on Facebook is to ask questions in your posts and upload videos. In 2015, two videos were posted to English’s Facebook page. Last year there were seven. So far this year he has posted 76 videos.

The walk/run video may appear home made, but it has been engineered to perform well on Facebook. The video is vertical in shape, has been subtitled so people can watch without sound and has been carefully edited to make it pithy and humorous. All things that make video popular on Facebook.

Media commentators can see right through the lipstick, and are cringing at it – Revealed: Silly old Bill English’s humble hero social media strategy. Duncan Garner writes – Stick to plain English: We’re all cringing at PM’s social media silliness

After eight years behind the scenes, totally mastering the art of boring us all to a slow, painful death, Bill English has been forced to step out from the shadows.

The attempt to re-cast the prime minister as a fun-loving, hard-exercising, sheep-shearing, pizza-making family man – clumsily advised and poorly executed – is truly cringeworthy to watch.

English has clearly been told to dig around for a personality – and promote it on social media. The result is a mawkish, awkward attempt to re-package him as something he’s not: John Key.

True that.

In social media terms the like-farming is working, the numbers are going up. But Bryce Edwards reminds us that social media and elections are different things – LOL! Politicians ‘keeping it real’ on social media

Next time English wants to show off his spaghetti pizza he might want to remember that success on social media does not translate to electoral success.

If it did, perhaps Kim Dotcom would be prime minister. Social media success is often in the eye of the beholder.

Alice Snedden goes further, and thinks that English is actively damaging himself – Keep up the good work, Bill English, Labour thanks you

For months now I’ve enjoyed the giving tree that is Bill English’s social media presence. I assume the point of his social media presence is to make him seem like he’s just an ordinary guy, one you could get a beer with after work. He’s the Pinocchio of politics; always trying to prove to the public that he’s a real boy. But the harder he tries to seem normal, the more he seems like the New Zealand’s new stepdad who keeps trying too hard to win us over and just doesn’t get that we need space. He’s awkward and hard to watch.

His continued efforts to seem like one of us are not happening by accident. Whoever is running the National Party campaign has clearly decided that Bill English is not your fun loving, drunk uncle, John Key type. And they’re right. He couldn’t be further from that.

I wish he would just stop, but the part of me that wants Labour to win hopes that he doesn’t. His public persona is disingenuous and it lacks authenticity. In many ways I guess that makes him the perfect leader of the National Party. I just hope people see through it.

Yeah I’d like to hope so too, but I’m sure a lot or people are buying counterfeit Bill.

31 comments on “Counterfeit Bill ”

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  1. Anne 1
    2 July 2017 at 10:11 am

    … a lot or people are buying counterfeit Bill.

    Just like they bought honest Kiwi John.

  2. Nick 2
    2 July 2017 at 10:15 am

    Whatever strategy he uses, as long as it leads to natz losing, I will be happy.

  3. Incognito 3
    2 July 2017 at 11:20 am

    Isn’t cringe-worthiness a sign of a good ad? I mean if you can’t rely (or fake) humour, authenticity or a strong explicit message, for example.

    I even suspect Bill’s cringe-worthiness is deliberate, be it real or faked.

    I thought it was all about brand awareness and all that bizz …

  4. marty mars 4
    2 July 2017 at 11:23 am

    And now the fun begins – Bill on social media is going to be so bad he might actually gain likes for the cringe value.

  5. Robert Guyton 5
    2 July 2017 at 11:26 am

    Catwalks, soap jokes, shower revelations, cannibal quips, nose-touching, pony-tail caressing, posing as All Black captain; those cringe-worthy things amount to nought, when the mood favours entertainment. Remember when Key fell from the stage at the Chinese New Year celebration and broke his arm? His cast became a great entertainment through an appearance on Trade Me – that’s how facile we have become. Addicted, we are, to anything that provides us relief from self-awareness.

  6. ianmac 6
    2 July 2017 at 11:39 am

    Top Cringeworthiness Award goes to Bill English for his performance cheering on the TV image of the winning Emirates Team. (Of which he was always a keen but secret admirer.)

    • Incognito 6.1
      2 July 2017 at 11:48 am

      Receiving the Top Cringeworthiness Award didn’t work for Don Brash, did it?

      Bill must have better ‘minders’.

      • ianmac 6.1.1
        2 July 2017 at 11:56 am

        Perhaps the Key effect has increased the public tolerance of inanity?

        • Incognito 6.1.1.1
          2 July 2017 at 12:33 pm

          Hmmm, possibly, and that would be a good thing, but I suspect the ‘minders’ are still calibrating the strategy for Bill. I also think Bill is not a natural talent like Sir John is; you have to play with the cards you’re dealt with (or change the rules of the game …).

          • Ed 6.1.1.1.1
            2 July 2017 at 1:07 pm

            Sir John. What a corrupt joke our ‘honours’ system is.
            Firefighters during the Christchurch earthquake deserve to be honoured, not dodgy politicians and shady psychopathic business people.

            • Incognito 6.1.1.1.1.1
              2 July 2017 at 2:22 pm

              I agree and personally I’d scrap it altogether partly because of the “joke” it has become and partly of the bias, both intrinsic and in the way it is administered.

              I assume you don’t use “corrupt” in a literal/legal sense.

  7. Chris 7
    2 July 2017 at 12:03 pm

    I take you didn’t notice Little’s sudden lack of glasses and ties, in-promptu video messages and confession that he has an acting coach, then.

    All politicians make out they are something they think people want to see.

    At the moment it’s both trying to pretend they have the easy going thing Key had.

    Both look stupidly fake and like they are acting trying to do it

  8. savenz 8
    2 July 2017 at 2:24 pm

    + 1 “The attempt to re-cast the prime minister as a fun-loving, hard-exercising, sheep-shearing, pizza-making family man – clumsily advised and poorly executed – is truly cringeworthy to watch.

    Even a miracle can not make Bill any of that.

    He’s a pious, out of shape, boring, double dipping Wellington Farmer, whose economic expertise has to led 8 or is it 9? deficits in a row .

    Similar to Theresa May, he’s more of a robot than a person. If he was a toy he could be marketed as Boring Billbot, more at home with spreadsheets, defending money than people.

    Not only that, soon he’ll be rolled before lunchtime, and someone else in the Natz will be leader. He’s the boring moderate ‘SAFE’ guy, so that the Natz don’t have to reveal who and what is to come.

  9. Ethica 9
    2 July 2017 at 10:24 pm

    If you want an example of an authentic, moving and effective way to use social media have a look at the Jacinda Ardern’s Facebook post today of her surprise trip to her sister’s wedding.

  10. Penny Bright 10
    3 July 2017 at 9:14 am

    Bland BILLSHIT.