The FG Facebook ads….. February 14, 2016
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Irish Politics.trackback
Started seeing these ads from Fine Gael in my Facebook feed. Seem way too personal regarding individual candidates. Also it shows the you are being deliberately targeted due to the constituencey you live in (or in my case the half that has been asked to vote Holland 1 and Crowe 2). So I find that kind of creey too. Haveing worked in Online Advertising for a number of years , the ‘target’ shouldn’t really know that they have been targeted.
I’ve a feeling these ads could backfire on Fine Gael.
Anyone seeing them for anywhere else or indeed any other parties that FF and SF?
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
It’s pathetic and childish, but par for the course for FG. If the economy was really ‘recovering’ there would be no need to try to terrify people into sticking with FG/Lab. When all else fails the Irish establishment revert to their default of scaring the electorate. Fear tactics permeate every aspect of establishment political discourse and practice, particularly now where the gap between the government’s rhetoric and the lived experience of huge swathes of the electorate is so wide. I wonder what a certain Senator Lorraine Higgins thinks of this development which must surely meet her requirements for online harassment?
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I have a feeling – actually more than a feeling, a hunch, based on circumstantials – that they’re taking cues from the Tories and possibly the GOP on this. Works here in England because, in the immortal words of Burchill and Parsons before they became different kinds of idiot, you can always scare the Essex voter into thinking Labour will nationalise their patios.
Don’t see it working in Ireland
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Absolutely, they are clearing working from the Tory electoral toolbox. Yes, I don’t see it having the same impact here, but you never know. There are a lot of people who are starting to feel things improve and any suggestion that SF or the Left making an advance would threaten that improvement, would be a powerful incentive to vote ‘to keep the recovery going.’ Whether the latter is a factor or not it’s difficult to tell, but these ads are clearly being pitched at just such people, who FG clearly believe are malleable.
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But cmk i imagine the people you talk about would probably already be dyed in the wool FG supporters. Those who arent already are probably FF and will not see it as directed at them. At this stage anyone who has made the switch to SF or the left are going to stay the course for this election anyway. Anecdotally, people are weary of the ‘keep the recovery going’ shtick and the more its repeated the less it sticks. If they see those ads (and i imagine the numbers are tiny) they are more likely to be intrigued by the fresh faced young candidate who they may not have encountered before.
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Negative campaigning has a ‘whack a mole’ aspect to it. You can’t, I think, campaign negatively against two separate and very different foes, SF and FF, as FG is doing without simply looking cranky and mean spirited. Their best tactic would have been to hammer home that recovery narrative and try and look a bit statesmanlike about it. But they can’t help themselves in the same way that Kenny can never resist jibing an opponent in the Dail. Not helped by the fact that Burton is hardly a live and let live merchant either.
Not sure what Lorraine Higgins has to do with it, she did get plenty of abuse online and she’s not a Fine Gaeler.
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Well, I think the bould Lorraine wanted anyone who said ‘boo!’ online to a political figure, to be sent to prison for ten years, or something.
I see, in a classy touch, that apparently these ads only target female SF candidates. Read into that what you want.
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Should it be “kind of creepy ” in the article.What is it with misplaced letters and sinn feint?
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Slightly tangential, but if you get your adblockers sorted, you can remain blissfully unaware of the ugly side of the internet… or at least, one of its ugly sides.
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