I always find it amusing when a political party tries to entice the public into voting for them by saying they’ll cut a little here or cut a little there in the hope of swaying public opinion in their favour. The general public is not that gullible and we recognise that one size DOES NOT fit all. What’s good for the goose is often not good for gander and when one-person benefits it is often at the expense of another.

National Insurance will be one of the key issues at the forthcoming general election as Labour plans to increase the tax by 1 percentage point for both workers and employers, raising £7 billion in total. On the reverse side of the coin, the Conservatives have pledged to counteract the impact of the rise, by promising to raise the qualifying threshholds for National Insurance, effectively cutting tax for anyone earning less than £45, 000. But how are the Conservatives able to do this without risking the economy?

It is already rumoured that £6 billion will be at risk in our already fragile economy if David Cameron pursues this plan, whereas the Labour Government have promised more improved public services with their increase; such as high standard nurses, getting to see your doctor in the evening and at the weekend, better neighbourhood policing and even child care vouchers for teachers so that they can return to work sooner after having children. By stark comparision, the Conservatives have promised a cut in child tax credits, child trust funds and education budgets, which is hardly investing in the future of our children?

David Cameron is a great PR man and I’m sure that anything he dresses up will sound appealing to the many that are wooed by paying less National Insurance contributions. However, before you decide on who is right think less about your own pocket, but the impact that raising threshholds for National Insurance contributions will have on our economy… There is always a price to pay by someone.

What are you thoughts on this subject and how will this affect you?

So Labour has invited the public to ‘do it yourself’ and design their latest poster. You’ve probably seen the winning entry comparing David Cameron to the Ashes to Ashes character DCI Gene Hunt under the strapline ‘Don’t let him take Britain back to the 1980’s’.

The design was free, they received extensive PR coverage and even ticked the all important digital / social media box by videoing the winning designer Jacob Quagliozzi visiting the Saatchi and Saatchi offices which has been posted on YouTube.

Was this a genius strategy from the Labour party to bring user generated content in to the heart of their campaign? Or is this simply a gimmick?

Well, on first appearance this looks like it could be a good move with maximum exposure for minimum investment (something all marketers are striving to achieve). The Labour party isn’t the first brand to encourage their ‘customers’ to contribute to their marketing communications activity (the nation awaits with bated breath the results of Walkers next crisp flavour chosen by the public).

More importantly though, are the results any good? Jacob’s idea was judged the best of over a thousand submitted to the Labour Party but I’m not sure the guys at Saatchi and Saatchi need to be overly worried that Labour will be ditching their agency in favour of more work from the public on future campaigns.

The Tories didn’t seem too miffed either with Dave claiming to quite like the comparison and their own agency RSCG promptly brought out a version of the ad changing the strapline to ‘Fire up the Quattro, It’s time for change’.

This may have sparked a trend of using other parties posters as yesterday the Lib Dems launched their latest poster based on the Tories ‘tax bombshell’ campaign originally used by the Conservatives in the 1992 election.

So perhaps Labour’s DIY poster competition wasn’t the touch of genius it first appeared to be and we can put this particular battle down as a score draw with no clear winner. Unless of course Audi decide to use this renewed interest in their iconic Quattro brand with their own bit of retro marketing.

‘Vorsprung durch Technik’, as they used to say in adland.

P.S. for what it’s worth, I know where my vote will go – it’s got to be Spanish Chicken Paella surely?

I heard on BBC’s Breakfast News this morning that the Electoral Commission are using Facebook to generate some new business – in this case to encourage the 3.5 million people who are eligible to vote but are not registered to do so to get their backsides in gear.

Voter turn out amongst 18-24 year-olds is always poor, so anything that can be done to improve this must be good news.

With this in mind, it is one of the most useful campaigns I can think of in recent times and one which can genuinely be called “social marketing”, what with the potential benefit it could have on society as a whole – a truer reflection of how the people would like the country governed as the proportion of people having their say increases… unless of course these 3.5 million who have slipped through the net are complete morons or Nazis or something, in which case I’m sure it will be awful.

Of course, how successful it will be remains to be seen and the real challenge will be to actually get people off Facebook for 5 minutes and into the polling booths. So may I suggest to the Electoral Commission some sort of experiential marketing or sales promotion enticement to follow up – put your ballot in the box and you get the chance to live on an MP’s expense account for a year perhaps? I can already see the headlines now: “Counting still going on after three days – all parties stunned by highest turnout ever.”