The 100-Year Life Health Education and Government
On Friday, people browsing the Mail Online and the Sun websites may have noticed something unexpected – both websites featured prominent red banners urging readers to vote Labour on 4 July. The Sun has not yet backed a party, while the Daily Mail newspaper has endorsed the Conservatives. But Labour HQ rushed to buy newspaper ad space last month, while the Tories missed out. It’s another sign of how poorly the Conservative overall digital ad campaign is going: Tortoise analysis of over 10,000 adverts reveals an campaign that is underprepared, lacking in focus and almost entirely defensive. The Tories are being outspent by nearly Labour two to one, with Labour spending £1.9 million advertising on Meta compared to £1.1 million for the Conservatives, according to Who Targets Me, an ad tracking group.
The party has also missed crucial opportunities – Tortoise has previously reported that the Conservatives largely failed to take advantage of the week before parliament dissolved before candidate spending limits kicked in, while Labour ploughed an additional £900,000 into local ads.
The campaign has been overwhelmingly focused negatively on Labour, a version of “Project Fear” targeting core voters that might be tempted to vote Reform. Analysis shows 84 per cent of Conservative ads shown on Meta focused solely on Labour, while just 16 per cent mentioned Conservative policies (for Labour, only 3 per cent of ads were exclusively attacks). The party has cycled through a wide array of attack lines, with various ads claiming that:
- Keir Starmer and shadow cabinet members want to abolish the monarchy;
- Labour will introduce “national” ULEZ zones across the country;
- Labour will increase class sizes and “flatten the greenbelt”;
- London mayor Sadiq Khan wants to divide us; and
- Angela Rayner wants to abolish the Trident nuclear deterrent.
The timing of these adverts suggest the party is trying out different approaches to see what sticks. Initially, ads promoted National Service policy and warned that Labour won’t control migration, as well as claiming senior Labour figures were anti-monarchists.
These were all subsequently dropped after Farage entered the race, and the campaign pivoted to warning a vote for Reform would hand Keir Starmer a “supermajority” (recent polling suggests this approach may have backfired by encouraging Labour voters), and that Labour would raise taxes. In recent weeks the Conservatives have also started running the greenbelt and nuclear deterrent attacks.
Some are examples of microtargeting. The anti-ULEZ adverts were run at the same time the party targeted those with motoring interests, including fans of Top Gear and Formula 1. In doing so, the campaign has largely neglected geographic targeting, showing many ads to voters in unwinnable seats.
Where the campaign is doing geographic targeting, it appears to only be showing ads to “custom audiences” made up of likely Tory voters rather than anyone in the area. “The conclusion we can draw is that their targeting strategy is very, very defensive,” according to Sam Jeffers, executive director of Who Targets Me.
Labour are running a very different campaign. Its targeting is mostly geographic in constituencies it hopes to win, and unlike the centralised Conservative campaign it’s allocating a greater share of money locally. Fifty-nine per cent of Labour spend has gone on local candidate campaigns vs 26 per cent for the Conservatives.
Keir Starmer is front and centre, and ads focus consistently on “Change” and reiterating Labour’s six pledges, being otherwise light on detail. In recent weeks, the party has run a relatively small amount of ads attacking the Conservatives on mortgage rates and sewage dumping.
