Go Canada.
Or maybe it's "go pound sand, US political ad geniuses," because our not-so-delighted neighbors to the north have just schooled us, big time, on how the doing should be done.
Talking here about the much-discussed:60 rink-side uplift of creativity and charm that features Mike Meyers in tandem with Mark Carney, the newly elevated Liberal PM (link at bottom).
What's so terrific about it is pretty much everything.
Start with the spot doing a fair Gretzky imitation by skating to where the puck will be; effortlessly demonstrating how clarity turns strangling complexity into liberating simplicity.
After all, they were facing a true shit sandwich of a going-in position: dragged by Trudeau’s Biden-like approval numbers, the Liberals seemed trapped, facing an eerily familiar situation — an election coming hard on the heels of a leadership switch.
Then Trump opens his trap, and, eh voila, the ice melts on the St. Lawrence in Spring.
The result is an elegant two-part reframing: first, turning the race into a referendum on Canadian enthusiasm for bizarre presidential lust. Then, having made the pivot, focusing on which leader, and which team, is best equipped to rebut American butt-headedness.
Point taken: to seize opportunity you have to be able to spot opportunity.
But then they needed to add creative clarity to the mix, developing a no-friction concept that would capture attention, deeply resonate with the audience, and — critical to the mission — unarguably reinforce Carney’s brand essentials of strength and competence in the face of novel challenge.
So, naturally, they chose to walk through a door that only a handful of our homegrown politicians have ever had the guts to even open — they went with humor. Not as some kind of creative indulgence, or a faux and phony celebrity ploy, but because in political advertising, as in the world of brands, putting a smile on the face is a damned smart way to win hearts and minds.
It’s a vastly different way of thinking than we saw in the 2024 campaigns around these parts. But maybe when you’ve got a cool $11 billion to spend— last year’s all-in total for both sides and all the races — you might think you can afford to skip the clever. The unique. The memorable.
On the other hand, maybe what we’re hearing from history is more of a shout than a whisper.
Maybe it’s time to turn over a new leaf.