The Liberal party has outspent Labor by $425,000 in TV ads but Labor has spent almost four times as much on negative ads, according to a market analysis.
Although the Liberal party has so far accentuated the positive of its plan for jobs and growth, industry experts expect both sides to lean heavily on attack ads in the final two weeks of the campaign.
Ebiquity, a marketing analytics firm, has monitored TV, radio and print ads in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth and estimated spending based on price information from major advertisers and the time and number of ads.
Ebiquity found that until Tuesday the Liberal party had outspent Labor by $1.36m to $938,000 in TV ads, and $36,000 to $5,000 in print ads.
Labor spent $635,000 on negative ads compared with $308,000 on positive ads. The Coalition spent $1.2m on positive ads, almost all of which asked voters to “back the plan [for a] strong new economy”.
By Tuesday the Coalition had spent just $164,000 on negative ads, the “same old Labor, Bill Shorten against tax cuts” TV ads which started on 7 June.
Labor’s biggest campaigns have been the “Malcolm Turnbull – seriously out of touch” ad followed by its “100 positive policies” ad.
The chief executive of Ebiquity, Richard Basil-Jones, told Guardian Australia that based on the 2013 election he expected 75% of ad spending to occur in the final two weeks before the ad blackout on midnight Wednesday 29 June.
“It’s interesting the weight that the Labor party has put behind the out of touch negative campaign,” he said. “My sense is that the message is resonating and they would have their own research showing it is persuading voters and influencing beliefs and attitudes.”
He noted there was a relative overweighting of ads in Sydney, with 41% of spending compared with 33% of the population and an underweighting of Melbourne, with 25% of spending compared with 30% of the population. “This reflects that there are more marginal seats in Sydney,” he said.
Basil-Jones said Labor had cleverly targeted ethnic communities by running variations of its 100 positive policies ad with Arabic, Mandarin and Punjabi subtitles during SBS programs in those languages.
Since Ebiquity’s analysis the Coalition has released new negative ads targeting Labor over division on border protection and accusing it of being subject to excessive Greens influence.
Walt Collins, who owns the ad production company Brand Strategies TV, predicted negative ads would dominate the final two weeks.
“The strategy is generally to aim for positivity first, then you see more desperate measures closer to election day,” he said. “You want the last thing the fence-sitters see before they go into the polls to be emotive so that’s why you see a last-ditch push to be negative and personal.”
Collins said both parties had run safe, inoffensive campaigns so far.
“The ads have both got the leader standing, delivering a presentation with PowerPoint-type points on screen and a few cutaways to industry,” he said.
“Malcolm Turnbull is in a boardroom setting with no Australian flag, delivering a chief executive address.”
Collins said this presented Turnbull as a reliable “business-type leader” and avoided the nationalist symbols voters might associate with his conservative predecessor, Tony Abbott.
McCann’s head of strategy and media, David Phillips, said campaigns honed negative messages throughout the campaign and appealed to fear in the final stretch as it resonated more than positive leadership messages.
Phillips said the “Greening of Labor” ad was “very impressive”.
“It’s a straight alarmist piece of work aimed at a section of the electorate concerned with how close Labor is to the Greens,” he said. “They’ve washed Labor symbols and figures with the colour green to send the clear message that the parties are together or so they appear one and the same.”
Phillips said Labor had used a “lovely catalogue of smug shots” to emphasise Turnbull was out of touch. Those ads are about reinforcing voters’ existing opinions of Turnbull and giving them rational reasons for doubts they already feel, he said.
Phillips said it was notable how much parties had spent on traditional TV advertising, with very little on digital or viral content.
The chairman of the ad agency Traffic, Austin Begg, said the ads so far had been “self-indulgent and easily-ignored”.
“There’s no compelling message, they’re predictable, boring and don’t sell a vision,” he said. “They are patting themselves on the back for what they’ve done or what they say they’ll do. What’s missing is trust.”
Begg said the ads appeared focus-group driven, aimed at reinforcing attitudes voters already have about the parties and leaders.
