With 34 percent of 18- to 24-years-olds not enrolled to vote, Vice, JWT and Heyday have teamed up to gamify politics in a bid to get the country’s youth to the polls.
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Sparks flew during last night’s clash between Bill English and Jacinda Ardern, with Newshub reporting significantly higher ratings from its debate in 2014.
Combining the best of the old with the rise of the new, Newshub has implemented a new methodology that hopes to get opinion polling right. We talk to political editor Patrick Gower on the reasons behind this change, why polling matters, whether politics is becoming a two-horse race and whether we can still trust the polls (and the media) in light of last year’s shock political events.
MediaWorks’ channel Four is continuing along the same lines as its The Home of Not Rugby during the 2011 Rugby World Cup, with the current campaign with Special Group of ‘The Home of Not Election’. It has been promising an “entertaining escape from the political coverage dominating other media to Election Day and beyond: an invitation to take a break from the Judith Collins saga, and enjoy the brand new season of America’s Next Top Model; to get excited about upcoming new fast tracked episodes of [various shows].”
Politics is generally a pretty serious realm and this has been a pretty serious election. Dirty Politics. Moments of Truth. Colin Craig’s face. But over the years, parties like McGillicuddy Serious (best policies: mandatory homosexuality for 33 percent of the population and setting up a Frivolous Fraud Office to investigate any fraud deemed too silly for the Serious Fraud Office) and the Bill and Ben Party (best policy: “no policies, no promises, no disappointment”) have tried to see the funny side. Ben Uffindell, founder of satirical website The Civilian, added his name to that list for this election and, to the chagrin of many, The Civilian Party was given around $30,000 to spend on election advertising, which it’s used some of on a TV ad to promote its desire to declare independence from Hamilton.
There was a fair bit of concern after the last election, with the 74.2 percent turn out the lowest since 1887 (the highest was 93.5 percent in 1946 and 1949). So the Electoral Commission is aiming to improve that with a campaign via Saatchi & Saatchi—and it’s even roped in Lorde to try and convince the young’uns to tick the box on September 20.
For the past two elections, The Green Party’s messaging has been what national campaign director Ben Youdan calls “aspirational”. That’s worked very well, with its vote going from five percent to 11 percent in 2011, making it by far the fastest growing party. But for the 2014 election it’s getting slightly more confrontational, juxtaposing images of open-cast mines, oil spills, Auckland gridlock and poor children with its positive—and protective—campaign slogan of ‘Love New Zealand’.
The www.inthehouse.co.nz website, which hosts the video record of every session from the New Zealand Parliament since 2009, has been upgraded ready for this year’s general election by Christchurch-based company Tandem Studios.