AUSTRALIA—The Australian Sex Party has unveiled the most original campaign strategy of any state or federal election so far. The centerpiece is a new video titled The Victorian Election, filmed in an old Victorian mansion in the style of a Jane Austen novel and featuring actors who look uncannily like John Brumby and Ted Baillieu. The Sex Party bought the domain VictorianElection.com.au/ to run the campaign.
Fiona Patten (pictured), Sex Party president and candidate for the Victorian Upper House, said that the upcoming state election was the most conservative election ever held in Australia and was a worrying sign for personal freedom. She said that more than ever, issues like safe injecting rooms and gay adoption should be embraced by the major parties rather than rejected. Some Greens candidates were even in favor of recriminalizing prostitution.
“With the government and the opposition maintaining bans on adult films, jail terms for personal possession of drugs, crackdowns on Melbourne night clubs and now a threat to televise court cases, Victoria is in danger of becoming a police state,” Patten said. “Meanwhile public transport declines and a police presence in the suburbs and after midnight in the city, where they are badly needed, is almost absent.”
The Sex Party “conservative” ad campaign has been put together by the Fnuky agency, which created the record-breaking “Jerk Choices” ad for the Sex Party in the last federal election. “Jerk Choices” has now become the most-watched party political ad online.
Faced with an Australian population sick of the “attack dog” style of campaigning that the major parties had finessed over the past decade, the Sex Party figured correctly that using subtlety and satire—instead of aggression and anger—in order to get its message across, would send the message they wanted, and attract the attention they sought.
“Our message to voters is that smart policies and a fresh approach to the problems of society are not sold via a political boxing match,” Patten said. “Over the next few weeks, Labor, the Liberals and the Greens in Victoria will enter a three-cornered ring and beat the hell out of each other through broadcast and printed accusations, threats, ultimatums and guilt trips that the voters of Victoria are compelled to witness. It’s like a public flogging every few years.”
Ms Patten added that political advertising needs to follow the path of rock music film clips and engage people at the same level of sophistication they took to the cinema or a music concert.
“Political advertising,” she said, “is about selling the most important product that is available to a nation, so why not make it as entertaining and engaging as possible?”
For more information, visit the Australian Sex Party website.
