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A soggy Rishi Sunak called the UK general election yesterday. So far, his party’s digital campaign launch has been just as damp.
Given that the Prime Minister was in control of the election timetable, you might have expected the Tories to slickly roll out a well-laid plan. And while they’ve been able to get some real world events and visits going, it’s obvious their digital channels aren’t yet where they should be.
By contrast, Labour seems to have made a fast start.
Let’s go through what’s happened so far in a bit more detail.
The Tories first 24hrs
Immediately after the announcement of the election, the party had a few graphics ready to go on its Twitter/X account, as well as some video clips of the announcement. These showed up on Facebook and Instagram later.
But from there, the follow up was slow to come.
Well planned, well resourced campaigns (such as those in the US), have a clear launch timetable, with all of their digital channels ready to fire out material immediately after the public announcement.
But, in keeping with yesterday’s announcement, the Tory digital campaign has so far been a slow drip-drip of activity, rather than a torrential flood of energy.
By 11pm last night we spotted they had some active Meta ads. These try to set out the turf for the election - “Stick with our clear plan” versus the risk of “No plan” with Labour. They look like this:
So far, there are 39 of these ads, costing a total of £7,000ish since last night, and they’ve been shown over a million times. They’re mostly reaching older voters.
Perhaps notably, for a campaign where the question the Conservatives are trying to pose is “which person is the right leader for the country?” (for example by offering Starmer six TV debates), Sunak has no active ads as of the afternoon of the 23rd. This is what you get when you search them in the Meta Ad Library:
Going beyond ads, the other basic pieces of a slick modern digital political campaign also seem to have been overlooked. There’s been no email to supporters to ask them to donate or volunteer, nor any changes made to the website, which looks essentially the same as it did a month ago.
And of course that’s just the party HQ controlled stuff.
Because of the surprise announcement, we’ve not yet seen any other collateral out there for Tory MPs and candidates to work with (as a result, most have just pulled their ad campaigns and are currently inactive). There’s been nothing from the local or regional parties, nor from the Scottish or Welsh Conservatives.
The only place where there’s some activity is the party’s “Share2Win” app/mini-social network, where activists are prompted to share posts created by the party in return for virtual coins. This post featuring Keir Starmer appears to have a hundred shares.
Overall though it’s quiet. Too quiet.
This will change of course over the coming days, but at this point of a campaign committed, enthusiastic supporters and volunteers are looking for things to do, but they’re being given nothing. The party has time to turn it around, but not that much. Some midnight oil will surely be burned in CCHQ over the coming days.
***STOP PRESS***
The party just launched these ads attacking Labour for opposing the Rwanda policy. They’re going negative early, and trying to push Labour-curious ex-Tory-voting Reform supporters back into the blue column (try saying that five times quickly). At least that’s what it’s being reported as.
***STOP STOP PRESS***
The party’s first email just went out, a fundraiser from Richard Holden, rather than Rishi Sunak.
Labour’s first day
By contrast, Labour, despite the election being as much of a surprise for them as it was for the rest of us, are up and running.
They have ads live for both the party and Keir Starmer’s page. Starmer’s focus on his “change” theme for the election, while the party’s ad tries to recruit volunteers (likely from existing supporters and members).
Clicking the “volunteer” call to action takes you off to a tool where you can input your postcode and get assigned to a target seat nearby (well, within 100 miles).
So far today, based on the counter on the site, it looks as if a couple of thousand people have signed up since the election was announced.
Overnight, the Labour website has also had a lick of election paint, with the (extremely simple) campaign slogan “Change.” plastered up on the homepage, as well as clear calls to action to donate and join the campaign.
The party has also emailed at least three times, with a quickfire message from Keir Starmer yesterday, followed by two fundraising appeals since. This suggests an operation that’s set up to get content out quickly, with a better plan, a more empowered team and clearer sign off processes than the Tories would seem to have at this stage.
And the others?
The Liberal Democrats have had some ads live for a few days. Fortunately for them, they still work. The Green Party got an email out almost immediately after the announcement. Reform held a press conference this morning and updated their website.
One down, 42 to go…
It’s only the first full day of the campaign, and it would be wrong to draw too strong a conclusion from it. Some of this early advantage is blind luck for Labour - they didn’t know the election was coming, but the continual rumours about various election dates throughout the first half of the year probably contributed to them feeling like they needed to be ready, whereas the Tory apparatus, knowing it held the calendar, looks like it was preparing for an election later on.
The big unanswered question as regards digital at this point is what resources the two main party campaigns will have. If the Conservatives have more money (thanks to the new spending limits) and run wave after wave of attacks on Labour in the coming weeks, that could start to have an effect.
Equally, Labour might be ready to match or even exceed the Tories’ resources, as they have done (just about) this year. Given their poll lead, that would give the party some comfort, as they’ll be able to respond to any negativity in kind.
Just 42 days to go… a long time in digital politics.
Until next time,
Team Full Disclosure
Links:
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You can also track spending on a per-party basis (just click a party name on one of the dashboards), and by way of a bonus, we’ve started doing some AI-generated content weekly summaries of the ads their top pages are running.
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