With the HUGE election in the states getting all the buzz it's easy for the Sunday announcement of the forthcoming Canadian election to get lost of the noise. Well, that and the fact that is looks like it will be a big waste of time.

Most signs point to the Conservatives winning a minority government, but there have been some reports today that they may indeed run away with it (I doubt it, once everyone else gangs up on them and people panic and vote Liberal)

The ad's have just started rolling out (NOTE: This post features criticism of the Conservative Party Of Canada's ADVERTISEMENTS, not policies. Also, it's not intended to let the other parties off the hook. Quite frankly I couldn't find any of their ad's on the internet... which shows you what an awesome job their doing at nothing... their time will come when I find them) and although there hasn't been the excitement there was in the States with Obama being compared to Britney and Paris i've found the ad's in typical bad taste. Not so much because they are offensive to candidates (remember this beauty) as they are offensive to bad taste.

The positioning of candidates in ads is blatent. You could cut through the symbolysim and canned emotion with a knife. My question is why does (or do marketers think) an average person get swayed by something like the following, which has about as much integrity as an infomercial.

Heres my favorite so far:

Tell me you didn't laugh. What was that? It looks like Harper himself is struggling to get through the lines. Who is he talking too in there? And who wears sweater vests anymore?

One interesting note is that this ad (and most others) were upped by the Party in an effort to tap the social media and win some youth votes (acting like that maybe an Oscar too) but the commenting and rating has been disabled. Typical move by big companies/political organizations. But kinda defeats the purpose from a social media standpoint because you are "sharing" professionally created and scripted content and take away any feedback and interaction you can have with the public on it.

My favorite part of it is the tag line: "We're better off with Harper". According to who? Harper? Why? Because he likes to vacation in the arctic tundra? What does one have to do with the other? This tag line shows the Conservatives KNOW they have effectively no one (yeah, pretty much) running against them and think "hey, you might as well". Nevertheless, I think this is far more suited to an ad where they may talk about why were better off with Harper. Or maybe thats just me?

...More to come on this, I'm sure.

BONUS: Heres another winner: