Norman Grindley/Deputy Chief Photographer
JLP candidate for St. Andrew South West, Garnett Reid, receives a hug from his rival for the seat, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, on nomination day, August 7.

With just a week of campaigning left (Hurricane Dean permitting) before the August 27 general election, the latest Bill Johnson polls, commissioned by The Gleaner, show the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has gained some four points from among voters who were undecided just four weeks ago.

The push means that the Jamaica Labour Party has boosted its support from 34 to 38 per cent, while the People's National Party (PNP) has remained standing at 40 per cent, a statistical dead heat.

Importantly, the poll results indicate that the JLP campaign has been more effective than the PNP's, or the PNP has not yet given uncommitted electors reasons to make up their minds in favour of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and the ruling party.

The JLP surge may also reflect an earlier (July) Johnson-Gleaner poll finding that the JLP advertising campaign has been more effective than the PNP's.

Even before the formal announcement of the election date, the parties had been waging expensive media advertising campaigns - mostly on radio and television - as there has been very little newspaper advertising by either party.

From the very beginning, JLP advertising has stayed on a message: Things are going wrong in the country; they must change; Mrs. Simpson Miller is not capable of leading the change; the JLP has the leader and the team to make the change happen.

Less ready

The PNP seemed less ready and certainly less wealthy. It was not immediately clear, from the advertising campaign, whether the focus should be on not changing course or presenting Portia as the change, given her consistently high favourability rating among the electorate.

Analysis of the television commercials from August 8 (the day after nomination day), to Thursday, August 16, shows that the JLP have shown eight different commercials in the prime-time hours, that is, 7-8 p.m. on TVJ, and 8-9 p.m. on CVM-TV.

The ads were: Portia's farmer, 38 times; don't draw mi tongue, 28 times; take a stand, once; better plan, 3 times; every vote counts, 8 times; Portia nah do nutten, 7 times; We are changing course, once; Shame on you, Sister P, 3 times.

By contrast, the PNP unveiled 12 different commercials in the same period: Not changing no course, 9 times; Can't stop Sister P, 6 times; Bruce's gunmen, 4 times; Bruce driving to disaster, 7 times; Portia leading the Way with performance, 2 times; Portia, good neighbour to all, 9 times; Don't let Bruce fool you, 4 times; Thanks Portia-Micro-business owner, 4 times; You can trust Sister P, never before, and three card, 1 exposure each; and individual candidateprofiles, 5 times.

Striking thing

One of the most striking things from the analysis is that the JLP has been consistently targeting Mrs. Simpson Miller. Also, they have used only three direct attack ads, clearly relying on heavy rotation and repetition to drive home their message.

The two most repeated ads, 'Don't draw mi tongue' and Portia's Farmer' have been the subject of bitter controversy as the JLP has succeeded in drawing Mrs. Simpson Miller's tongue; she has been counter-attacking the ads on the platform.

Regrettably, it has degenerated into an unseemly row after the Prime Minister told a campaign crowd that she had "investigated" the farmer and found out he was not what the ad portrayed him to be.

On Friday, the star of the ad, 'Farmer Jack', was on Nationwide radio with Emily Crooks saying he had received death threats on the phone from persons who claimed that he should die for "dissing" the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister appeared to be overreacting to what is clearly clever and effective advertising, which should be countered b messages rather than by prime ministerial investigation.

A second thing that stands out from the analysis is that the PNP has used more ads in the campaign, at least over the week we examined in detail.

Four themes stand out: not changing the course; affirmation of Mrs. Simpson Miller as trustworthy and even-handed in foreign relations (good neighbour to all); affirmation of her beneficence to the micro-business sector; attacking Bruce Golding as untrustworthy and with questionable connections to gunmen.

It is also significant that the PNP has not relied on any particular ad for excessive rotation. This suggests a lack of consistency or it could be that the party has been searching for the right approach to make the most impact.

Another thing that jumps out of the analysis is that there has been more focus on what and who the parties are against and less on what they stand for.

The first goal of advertising is to build awareness of the client orproduct. This requires minimum levels of exposure, particularly in a crowded media market where several brands are competing for attention.

The message must also come through clearly without clutter or distractions that could encourage the target to think about competing brands. So far, the JLP has been doing a more effective job.

The PNP campaign has now apparently settled for a two-track approach of trumpeting the gains over the past 18 years that have laid the groundwork for growing the economy much faster, while seeking to tap into the vein of goodwill that many Jamaicans have for 'Portia the people's champion'.

Advertising spending

It will be interesting to see if they can create some daylight between themselves and the JLP over the next seven days.

From their placements on TV, it is clear that the JLP is outspending the PNP as they had 89 placements compared to the PNP's 51 during the week we analysed.

We also looked back at spending during June and July, especially as the conventional wisdom was that an election would be held. The data are from Recon Media Intelligence, an outfit that monitors advertising spend in the traditional media in Jamaica.

The data are based on partial monitoring as the organisation only tracks advertising in the following media: Press (Gleaner, Observer and Star); Television, 7-9 p.m. on TVJ and 8-10 p.m. on CVM, Monday-Saturday; and Radio, 6.30-8.30 a.m.(IRIE, RJR-FM, LOVE, FAME) Monday- Saturday.

From that sample, they found that the JLP and its youth affiliate G2K spent $2,123,694 in June, accounting for 88.9 per cent of political advertising spend. The PNP spent $265,525 or just 11.1 per cent of the total spend of $2,239,219 for the month.

Television accounted for $1,781,350 of the total, which was shared almost equally between TVJ and CVM. We know that advertising has been increased substantially since then, and so we will be looking to see whether the early patterns still hold.