A great thing about advertising is that it has always run with a tension between leading social trends and merely following them. I’m inclined to the view that the latter is where it goes mostly. Why? Because most advertising is paid for by commercial organisations who employ research companies to observe trends and then piggy-back the trends into the brand and messaging. It’s safer that way and it means the brand doesn’t have to invest in creating the trend, which can mean that a competitor brand can less expensively follow.

But it seems to me that if advertising is to pick up on social events or trend, it should at least attempt to push the trend or expand on it in some way. A notably bland example is happening right now with the slew of commercial ads that include reference to the current election campaign. None of it is particularly persuasive or relevant. Rather like waiting for Christmas so they can plonk Father Christmas on the ad!

The debate has raged again this week about ‘air brushing’ on the campaign photographs of the Prime Minister. In particular the Dominion Post’s ‘letters to the editor’ section has attracted much of the venom.

It may seem like an argument about truth verses distortion, but it’s simply about the choices made by each party campaign to present itself in the best possible light. But where it crosses into indecent idiocy is when people make the point based selectively on gender. Where is the debate, for example, about John Key combing his hair in a more fetching manner – obviously a bald-faced attempt to attract young female voters! Or were the National Party’s television commercials, featuring a private school choir with smoke blown into the room, a victim of the school incinerator, or was the smoke there to make the room look like heaven and Key god-like?

So what; a little smoke in John Key’s ad and some retouching on Helen’s photo?

When have you ever heard someone complain after they’ve bought a new car that the sales brochure of the car set against an attractive background misled them into a bad purchase, or that someone refused to eat the baked beans because the photo on the tin made it look too apetitising?

It seems like an age back since the media and NBR recorded the National Party’s first open exposure of its ad campaign with a headline, National fires a first ad missile.

In the article the National Party’s ad man, Steven Joyce had this to say, “We have our own plans…that is that John (Key) wants to run a very positive campaign, which means making sure that we do our thing and do it well. The other folk will do what they do, but we don’t react too much to that. You never say never but that’s not the plan.”

Time will tell if Joyce remains true to his edict. But of more interest to me has been the media’s response to the billboards – almost universally critical of the mixed messages and complete lack of cut-through.

But I remind myself that in campaign communications, it is critcal to strive for a combination of getting the right message, to the right people, at the right time, by the right method. In politics, timing is often the most critical factor but most frequently overlooked. National has been quick to release their billboards proclaiming choice for a ‘brighter future’. But right now the media, and many voters, are asking ‘who should we trust as we face uncertain times?’ In other words the natural mood of the moment may have been on ‘time for a change’ but it is increasingly looking less optimistic as the economic crisis bites, and the mood shifts towards a need for security.

As the 2008 election campaign enters a new phase into week 2, the next 3 weeks could seem like an eternity as voters weigh the choices.

It is almost impossible to watch a political television debate without an in-built personal filter of bias, but I gave it a crack last night.

I think most would agree that John Key did pretty well, but that Helen Clark probably did as well as most people would expect. For her this was a debate for her to lose and one for Key to make some gains – least we forget that National are currently ahead in the polls!

Most commentators saw it this way as well but tended to give credit to Key on the simple basis that he wasn’t expected to foot it with Helen Clark – so it was a handicap race!

One interesting aspect was the fact that Key appeared to me to interrupt Helen the most and certainly did it first, yet much of the after commentary pinged her for that offence. Again, this observation seemed to occur because of some preconceived expectation that the Prime Minister was likely to bully John Key.

The so called after-match public poll suggested that more than twice as many viewers thought Key had won the debate. This will of course feed through into the media as a victory to John Key. But it has to be noted that this poll is hardly robust – viewers pay 99c to sent a text, which throws a ‘why would I bother’ filter on many viewers. And I know of at least one person who spent the evening getting people to send texts from different phones, even if they weren’t watching the debate. It all of course assumes that TVNZ had a filter on people sending multiple texts from the same phone.

Last week’s failure by the Warriors put me in mind of a subject a little closer to my own patch right now, the coming General Election.

If you don’t mind the pun, a Key factor in this campaign will be the leader of the opposition and his lack of political experience and how that will translate into doubt for voters. ‘Likable’ John seems to perform reasonably well when confined to his own comfort zone, which will not be his cocoon when the glare of the campaign itself swings into place.

John Key’s rise has been off the back of a prolonged honeymoon with the media and a chunk of the electorate looking for anything to replace a three-term government. A smile and minimal amount of specifics and substance has been Key’s strategy. But the campaign will test him in ways that he can only guess at right now – confronting the massive experience and ability of the Prime Minister, the need to debate issues and policy in some depth and nous to think on the hoof. These things cannot be dialled up in a minute-long briefing with Crosby Textor.

Why did the Warriors illustrate this? At one point in last week’s commentary, a Warrior’s try was butchered early in the game. The player received the ball in a position where a try looked elemental, if only he had dropped his shoulder and safely scored. But in the split second the player appeared to lose his presence of mind and spun in a tackle, losing the ball in the process. A little later the commentator suggested that the player in question might have more easily scored a week earlier at Mount Smart – “was he out of his comfort zone here”.

On the other side, Manly played with the confidence and composure of a team that had seen it all before. They weathered an early onslaught in the sure appreciation that they were a better team, especially when the going gets tough.

It just goes to prove that true champions know how to win when the big occasion hits. They also know how to operate when things get uncomfortable. Labour is well behind in the polls and the electorate’s attitude towards long term governments will be a big factor, but does anyone expect Helen Clark to panic? It will be a tough fight and she will know that the electorate’s mood provides a significant barrier to success, but confidence comes from her own ability and the experience of many past campaigns.

But right now I’d suggest that John Key may be feeling a little uncomfortable about the test match to come.