Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them by Susan Delacourt
Authors: Susan Delacourt
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had a talent for advertising copy. That talent would be used for corporate clients, too, including Labatt’s, Inco and Telus, as well as the Clairtone Sound Corporation, founded by Peter Munk, who would go on to run Barrick Gold.
“Over the years of Diefenbaker’s ascendancy and decline, my Toronto office—otherwise and ostensibly an advertising agency—became a clearing house, talent bank, hiring hall and recruiting office for the Tory party… From there, forces were deployed to fight provincial campaigns in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Manitoba,” Camp wrote in his book Points of Departure .
All this advertising know-how and electoral success was obviously bad news for the beleaguered Liberal party and its new leader, Lester Pearson. The strongest hopes for the Liberals’ revival were concentrated in Toronto, home to that burgeoning ad business and a young radio salesman named Keith Davey. Davey, when he wasn’t selling radio ads, was living at the beating heart of the Liberal party revival, as part of what was known as Cell 13, a clubby backroom group of high-achieving Toronto Grits with lofty ambitions for the future—their own, their party’s and the country’s. They were meeting weekly, first at the King Edward Hotel, then at the Board of Trade, to plot the Liberals’ return to power. This being the 1950s, these ambitious Grits were attracted to all the things that were shaping consumer society: television, science, psychology and yes, advertising. All of them had witnessed how the advertising smarts of Camp and Associates had clobbered the plodding institutionalism of the Liberal party in the 1957 and 1958 elections. Davey, for his part, was also highly influenced by Theodore White’s book The Making of the President , which documented the slick style of campaigning that brought John Kennedy to power in 1960. Davey carried that book around as a bible, keen to import its lessons to Canada. His biggest import, eventually, would be Kennedy’s pollster himself, Lou Harris.
The Liberals’ chosen ad firm in these days was MacLaren Advertising Co. Ltd., which would bring its knowledge of the consumer marketplace into the world of politics. MacLaren knew its soap, too—the company had been putting together television ads for Macleans toothpaste, which boasted that it would make Canadians’ teeth “irresistibly white.” MacLaren also held the lucrative contracts for General Motors and Canada Dry. The ads for these firms’ products were aimed at Canada’s burgeoning middle class and the typical families of the time, and featured well-dressed men and women extolling the virtues of their new cars or ginger ale, the latter being an excellent mixer for the cocktails it seemed everyone was downing around the clock.
MacLaren also had significant input into the political soapbox of the time. The Liberals established a “public relations committee” in the 1960s, with heavy input from MacLaren, to help design winning political strategies that would ultimately seal the importance of PR in the business of politics. It was partly through MacLaren’s influence that the Liberals arrived at the idea—then revolutionary, as well as controversial—of picking ridings where they could win, and concentrating their efforts mainly in those places. Efficiency experts had been around the manufacturing world for decades, helping companies come up with labour-saving ways to churn out more profits. Why not apply the rigour of scientific observation and statistics to political prospects? Rather than mass-marketing their political campaign, treating all ridings as the same, the Liberals would target their efforts at the places where they could make gains. It was smart politics, undoubtedly. But it also put political contests into the same territory as business: a search for maximum profitability at minimum expense. In this case, though, profit was measured in votes, not dollars.
In a 1961
“Over the years of Diefenbaker’s ascendancy and decline, my Toronto office—otherwise and ostensibly an advertising agency—became a clearing house, talent bank, hiring hall and recruiting office for the Tory party… From there, forces were deployed to fight provincial campaigns in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Manitoba,” Camp wrote in his book Points of Departure .
All this advertising know-how and electoral success was obviously bad news for the beleaguered Liberal party and its new leader, Lester Pearson. The strongest hopes for the Liberals’ revival were concentrated in Toronto, home to that burgeoning ad business and a young radio salesman named Keith Davey. Davey, when he wasn’t selling radio ads, was living at the beating heart of the Liberal party revival, as part of what was known as Cell 13, a clubby backroom group of high-achieving Toronto Grits with lofty ambitions for the future—their own, their party’s and the country’s. They were meeting weekly, first at the King Edward Hotel, then at the Board of Trade, to plot the Liberals’ return to power. This being the 1950s, these ambitious Grits were attracted to all the things that were shaping consumer society: television, science, psychology and yes, advertising. All of them had witnessed how the advertising smarts of Camp and Associates had clobbered the plodding institutionalism of the Liberal party in the 1957 and 1958 elections. Davey, for his part, was also highly influenced by Theodore White’s book The Making of the President , which documented the slick style of campaigning that brought John Kennedy to power in 1960. Davey carried that book around as a bible, keen to import its lessons to Canada. His biggest import, eventually, would be Kennedy’s pollster himself, Lou Harris.
The Liberals’ chosen ad firm in these days was MacLaren Advertising Co. Ltd., which would bring its knowledge of the consumer marketplace into the world of politics. MacLaren knew its soap, too—the company had been putting together television ads for Macleans toothpaste, which boasted that it would make Canadians’ teeth “irresistibly white.” MacLaren also held the lucrative contracts for General Motors and Canada Dry. The ads for these firms’ products were aimed at Canada’s burgeoning middle class and the typical families of the time, and featured well-dressed men and women extolling the virtues of their new cars or ginger ale, the latter being an excellent mixer for the cocktails it seemed everyone was downing around the clock.
MacLaren also had significant input into the political soapbox of the time. The Liberals established a “public relations committee” in the 1960s, with heavy input from MacLaren, to help design winning political strategies that would ultimately seal the importance of PR in the business of politics. It was partly through MacLaren’s influence that the Liberals arrived at the idea—then revolutionary, as well as controversial—of picking ridings where they could win, and concentrating their efforts mainly in those places. Efficiency experts had been around the manufacturing world for decades, helping companies come up with labour-saving ways to churn out more profits. Why not apply the rigour of scientific observation and statistics to political prospects? Rather than mass-marketing their political campaign, treating all ridings as the same, the Liberals would target their efforts at the places where they could make gains. It was smart politics, undoubtedly. But it also put political contests into the same territory as business: a search for maximum profitability at minimum expense. In this case, though, profit was measured in votes, not dollars.
In a 1961
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