THE POSTER WAR SO FAR

Sue Cameron reports from the front,

line, and talks to the generals on both sides

TO dispirited Tories at Central Office, Clare Short's words had the ring of salva- tion. Things had reached such a pitch, they believed they would be crucified unless they could find some way to get party divi- sions over Europe off the front pages. Then came words of hope from Ms Short, the feisty but newly demoted opposition frontbencher. Tony Blair, she claimed, was being controlled by people in 'the dark'. And it was 'dangerous'.

Tory campaign managers and Saatchis, their advertising agency, went into over- drive. Within 24 hours they had decided the best way to exploit Clare Short's words was with a variation on the Conservatives' New Labour, New danger' poster campaign fea- turing demonic eyes. They would put Tony Blair's face behind the satanic eyes.

The devilish ploy worked. After one day much of the media was in uproar. The Labour Party protested about the demon- ising of its leader while the press and the broadcasters carried huge stories about the Tory attack on the Christian Mr Blair. Political ethics seemed to reach a new low. So did public concern about Europe.

To be precise, it dropped nine points. A Mori poll for the Times showed that in May last year 29 per cent of the public saw Europe as one of the most important issues facing Britain. By August — after the demon-eyed poster — the figure had fallen to 20 per cent.

Small wonder the major parties are now launching advertising wars on the nation's billboards. Both sides believe that posters are the single most important weapon in their campaign armoury. The Tories are expected to spend at least £5 million at the hoardings before the election. Labour too is launching a series of major billboard campaigns.

Posters are the visual equivalent of soundbites. A good poster will crystallise some hitherto half-glimpsed truth and bring it to the surface of public conscious- ness. It must do so in no more than three or four words, it must be simple yet strik- ing to look at and it must exploit the weak- nesses, doubts and distrust of the other side. It also needs to attract widespread media coverage.

The slogan 'Labour Isn't Working' used by the Tories in the late 1970s alongside the picture of a dole queue ranks as one of the all-time greats. As one adman remarked, 'It has prenatal recognition. Even people who weren't born in 1979 remember it.' By contrast, Labour's cam- paign last year on the theme of 'Same Old Tories, Same Old Lies', was something of a waste of space. Far from pin-pointing a new idea or image, it merely told a bored public what they knew already, which is that politicians of all parties are miserly with the truth.

In the battle of the billboards the Tories' agency is M&C Saatchi, while Labour has hired a firm with a string of initials in place of a name — BMP DDB. What will they be trying to achieve and who is likely to win the poster war?

Both will concentrate on what life would Heads or tails?' be like if the other side won — i.e. unbear- able. Both will also try to portray a positive image of themselves, but it is the destruction of the other side's image that counts most. Given the parlous state of the Tory Party, it might seem that Labour can go to the billboards with a built-in advantage. Surely all Mr Blair's people have to do is point the finger at the Conservative record of sleaze, divisions, incompetence etc. and announce that it is time for a change. Up to a point this is true. Labour's most suc- cessful poster so far is '22 Tory Tax Rises' with two clenched fists bearing the slogan `Enough is Enough'. The slogan is a proven winner — Labour has lifted it wholesale from the Australian Liberals who used it to bring down Paul Keating's Labour administration. The fists-and-tax- rises posters have been successful because they sum up general public weariness with the Conservative Government as well as the specific feeling that the Tories have been sneaky about tax rises.

Yet attacking the Tory record may have limited mileage for Labour. As one senior Conservative said with disarming honesty, `Our record is familiar and there's little Labour can do to change perceptions about us to make them any worse.' Labour knows it must do more. That is why its forthcoming campaign will warn of the `nightmare' scenario of five more years of Tory rule. The message is expected to con- centrate on the Conservative right wing which would, says Labour, be in the ascen- dant and would slash public services. Meanwhile the embattled Tories pri- vately admit that Labour has done bril- liantly in terms of reshaping and redefining itself as 'New' Labour. Where it is weak, they say, is in its plans for building a New Britain. The Conserva- tives believe they can perform a jujitsu manoeuvre against New Labour, turning its strength — its newness — against it. Mr Blair and his people are selling New Labour as the opposite of old Labour and therefore as safe. The Tories will depict Labour's newness as radical, risky and dangerous. They will ask voters whether they can trust the untried Blair team to keep taxes and inflation down and job opportunities up.

There are indications that the Tories are already having some success in sowing seeds of distrust about Mr Blair. The evi- dence about the impact of the demon- Blair campaign is mixed. They took the spotlight away from Tory divisions over Europe, at least temporarily, but there are signs that the public, including Tory vot- ers, disliked the demonising of Mr Blair.

Yet leaked findings on Scottish 'focus groups' carried out for the Labour Party by a firm called System Three suggest doubts about Tony Blair's leadership style. The survey talks of Blair's smile being described as 'smarmy'. It says that the demon-eyes campaign 'has amplified exist- ing concerns about Tony Blair amongst some voters and caused others to consider issues of trust and reliability and whether the face which is presented has been falsi- fied by spin doctors'. It adds, 'This cam- paign has inadvertently thrown attention onto the emphasis placed upon image by New Labour. The whole issue of a "new" improved product which has been carefully packaged to meet the desires of its "cus- tomers" causes some to question what they are buying.'

And therein lies hope for the Tories. Posters are about image and emotion, they are not about the finer points of policy. And in the absence of political television advertisements there is evidence that posters are being noticed by voters more and more — unlike all other campaign methods where there has been no signifi- cant change. A Mori poll found that in the 1987 election 45 per cent of people had seen posters. In the 1992 election the fig- ure was 55 per cent — roughly four million more electors. Poster power counts. The Tories have booked poster sites, including ones along the strategic route from West London to Heathrow, for the month or so leading up to May. The battle of the bill- boards is about to be joined.

The author is a broadcaster who appears reg- ularly cm BBC Ts Newsnight.