Matthew Abraham: Nick Xenophon’s Bollywood rap TV ad is so hokey that it might just work

AS election stunts go, Nick Xenophon’s Bollywood rap TV commercial is so crazy that it might just work, says Matthew Abraham.

• Music Writer Nathan Davies reviews the campaign TV commercial
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Of all the peculiar Adelaide social sins, dear sisters and brothers, one stands head and shoulders above the rest.

It outranks even the sinful practice of coveting thy neighbour’s near-empty green bin when thine is full, and in the dark of night dumping thine own clippings in it.

The grievous sin in question? Paying full price, for anything.

Compliment a relative on her new top and the response always goes something like this: “Harbour Town. On special. Forty per cent off.”

Mate got a new pair of jeans? “Gazman. Thirty per cent off. They’re that stretch denim, too.”

Back in 1987 I found myself on the campaign trail in Melbourne covering Liberal Opposition Leader John Howard for The Advertiser.

The Liberal team had booked the press pack into the ritzy Hotel Windsor for the night, one of those places where they poured chilled orange juice for you at reception.

When I declined the offer to have a bellboy carry my bags up to the room, a veteran Liberal advancer asked why.

Because, I explained, if they carry my bags up then they’ll stand there wanting a tip.

“You people from Adelaide are all the same,” he said, exasperated. “You just want to be told ‘Here are your keys, there are your bags, now piss off’.”

For a capital city, we retain the small-town pride in doing it on the cheap. It explains why, as a state, we felt so humiliated by the State Bank collapse right under the nose of the late Labor Premier John Bannon.

It also explains why Nick Xenophon is such a dangerous combatant for the major parties in this state election campaign and why his first election TV commercial – launched on an unsuspecting and agog voting public during the week – is so good.

A cheesy, rap-infused number with touches of Bollywood and Benny Hill, it is pitch-perfect for the Adelaide market. It slots into the grand Adelaide tradition of hokey but effective campaigns from the likes of SA Quality Home Improvements, Noel’s Caravans, Termie the Termite, Aquababe, the white-haired shouting guy from Stillwell Ford, Cafe Primo’s Nine-Ninety, and Makin’ Mattresses. Bellissimo.

PODCAST: OFF THE RECORD

This election campaign is impossible to call – we may not have a result for days or weeks – because it is what military boffins would call an asymmetrical engagement, defined as a war between belligerents with vastly unequal military power, strategy or tactics.

Xenophon is pioneering a “Jim’s Politics” franchise model with candidates buying or borrowing into SA Best. It is experimental, agile and in stark contrast to the Big Politics approach being deployed by Liberal leader Steven Marshall.

Marshall wants to position himself as the next Premier and that does require some gravitas, but the Liberal campaign looks and feels like they’re still fighting the 2014 election, only using the Labor playbook.

Opposition Leader Mike Rann demonstrated how to run a corporate campaign while using a box cutter to carve up your rivals.

He once used paper dolls of Liberal ministers falling overboard in a “ship of fools” TV ad to highlight divisions in the Cabinet led by John Olsen. Weird but effective.

And on the eve of the 1997 election, one of Rann’s advisers, Randall Ashbourne, bought 36 life-size corflute cut-outs of Olsen and his Cabinet nemesis Dean Brown. He arranged them in the House of Assembly facing Rann and his 10 MPs – dubbed the Tarago Opposition because they’d fit in one – to send a message about Olsen’s “unhealthy majority”.

Days later, Rann achieved a record 9 per cent swing that left the Liberals a crippled minority government. They’re still recovering.

Last Sunday, Marshall released his “First 100 Day Action Agenda”, a timeline walking voters step-by-step through his plans from day one as Premier.

It’s well worth reading, but you need to scroll down to step 13 to be reminded that the Liberals have promised a 50 per cent cut to the Emergency Services Levy.

On his timeline, he’ll get around to that after he has announced the dates for the new Parliament, dissolved the TAFE SA Board, banned gas fracking in the South-East and ordered a fresh batch of HB pencils.

C’mon Steve, this is South Australia. Haggle, haggle, haggle.

Why not deliver the ESL relief on day one? There’s bound to be jeans on sale somewhere.