Federal Election 2019: Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison in social media war
Bill Shorten has outgunned Scott Morrison on social media with more “sponsored” ad posts, analysis shows, and their strategy couldn’t be further apart.
Special Report: Bill Shorten has outgunned Scott Morrison in the social media war to win voters’ hearts and minds with more “sponsored” advertising posts in the crucial first days of the election.
The Opposition leader has run 20 advertising posts currently boosted to reach a bigger audience on Facebook, while the Prime Minister has just 13 — some of which have been running since January.
But political marketing and PR experts say Mr Shorten’s marketing strategy is to “remove himself” from ads to let Labor’s policies do the talking amid concerns about his personal popularity.
Mr Morrison is pitching hard with his “family man” “ScoMo” brand.
The stark comparison between their strategy can be seen on their official Instagram and Facebook pages.
An analysis for News Corp Australia, conducted by social media intelligence and news agency Storyful Australia, found Mr Shorten’s “sponsored” posts mostly focus on policies while Mr Morrison’s are mostly images of himself with family or voters.
“From the outside, looking at Bill Shorten’s images in the ads he’s running, you’d think that he’s the Liberal leader,” Australian National University political marketing expert Andrew Hughes said.
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“He’s in a blue tie and suit, there’s no images of him getting down and dirty with sleeves rolled up,” Dr Hughes said.
“His Instagram feed is him trying to be normal, going for a run, meeting people, all that type of thing but it feels manufactured.”
Labor appeared to be running a ‘small target’ strategy with Mr Shorten, Dr Hughes said.
“They’re trying to make their policies front and centre of the campaign because they realise that Bill Shorten is not the preferred prime minister of Australia according to opinion polls,” he said.
Mr Morrison’s Instagram is flooded with family photos, including one with his wife Jenny when they dated in high school, post-swim pictures at the local pool, photos with Aussies out at pubs, cafes and sports events.
The page also tags him as “Jenny’s husband” and “Abbey and Lily’s dad” before it says he’s “Prime Minister of Australia and Federal MP for Cook.”
Mr Shorten’s sponsored posts focus mostly on his policies.
His Instagram feed shows a mix of photos with his wife Chloe and family, running photos, and photos with voters, as well as policy.
It pitches him simply as “Leader of the Opposition”.
“(Bill Shorten’s) trying to remove himself as much as possible given he doesn’t track very well on a person to person comparison with Scott Morrison,” La Trobe University political communication expert Andrea Carson said.
“So it’s really putting the emphasis on the policy platform and bringing ordinary people into these ads too, which creates the perception that Bill’s one of the people — he’s in touch with the average person and what their problems are.”
Dr Carson added Mr Morrison’s brand is to hardly wear ties and roll his sleeves up.
“He represents the Liberal Party which often has the perception of the ‘top end of town’ which was an affliction that hurt Malcolm Turnbull. He’s also trying to position himself as the man in the street,” she said.
“There’s no baseball caps in these images, that’s more for out on the beat.
“But I was curious to see that Scott Morrison’s team have changed (his Facebook) page’s name four times, making sure they get ‘ScoMo’ just right.
“First it started off as scomo in lower case, and then it was scomo as an afterthought, and now it’s ScoMo with capitalised S and M and drop the MP and ‘ScoMo’ has replaced the MP part of his name on the page.
“They’ve obviously seen ‘ScoMo’ has good traction.”
A spokesman for Mr Shorten confirmed the sponsored posts were paid for partly by his office budget and partly by the ALP.
A Coalition spokesman would not confirm if Mr Morrison’s posts were taxpayer funded or paid for by the Liberal Party.
“Any advertising by the Prime Minister complies with all AEC requirements and other legislative requirements where applicable,” he said.
University of Technology Sydney marketing expert David Waller said Mr Morrison’s carefully crafted social media posts were about “softening his image” and making him “someone who is approachable and more people friendly and family friendly than Malcolm Turnbull”.
“For Bill Shorten, it’s issue, issue, issue,” he said.
“It’s not talking about Bill Shorten the man, it’s not about his background.”
Dr Waller added Australians had become disenchanted with leaders after six changes of Prime Minister in a decade, so personalities had become less important.
University of Sydney marketing professor Vince Mitchell said Mr Morrison “wants to be seen as the nation’s favourite dad”.
He added that eight per cent of communication was non-verbal and that the “politics of personality” were important.
Mr Morrison appeared to be “warmer” and more emotional, he said.
“Whereas your Shorten, we see him in suits, a shirt and tie, he’s got a slightly stilted way of coming across. He’s kind of wooden in his delivery,” Dr Mitchell said.
“In terms of how they come across on camera, there’s a very stark difference between the two. And I can see why ScoMo wants that.”
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