All Eyes on the Party: Will AI transform the way politicians advertise this election?

As part of PMNs 2023 election coverage we are starting a new series called All Eyes on the Party. 

We will analyse the advertising campaigns (and antics) of each political party in the lead up to voting day. We’ll look at how politicians are - or aren’t - using storytelling, design, art, wit, humour, or maybe none of the above across different marketing platforms, including billboards and social media, as well as their cheesy slogans.

National bring AI to the party

The New Zealand National Party has a humorous history of roasting the Labour Party via social media. 

Social media is a platform where branding and design elements like imagery and colour help to engage audiences in a way to evoke specific feelings.

National has been effective in how it frames its party leaders, their policies and words against Labour's latest policy announcements.

For example, “more taxes” next to a grim image of Chris Hipkins and “tax relief” next to a grinning Chris Luxon.

Looking at their posts from this year so far, National has also adopted using memes to present their followers with their own comparison of National and Labour. 

Negative statistics are also employed in social media posts to reflect how unhealthy a particular sector in the country is. And they are particularly skilled at using this to their advantage to particularly drive engagements on Facebook, given the way this platform's algorithms operate​.

Paired with bold lettering, these statistics can be pretty powerful and will appeal to voters who care about them, leading to lots of emoji reactions, reshares and frenzied debates in community Facebook groups.

However the National Party have recently taken a new approach, when it was revealed the party has been using artificial intelligence for some of its social media posts.

Initially party leader Chris Luxon said he had no knowledge regarding the use of AI, but he would later defend its use after a party spokesperson confirmed it was using this rapidly evolving technology.

"Look, that's up to my social media team, but I have no issue with it - I think it's fantastic that they're actually adopting new technology in the way that they have,” Luxon said.

Social media users reacted when reports of images from the National Party’s social media pages, posted in early May, showed evidence of AI technology.

Luxon followed up by saying he didn’t see the difference between going to an agency, buying a stock photo of an actor playing a role, or creating an AI generated image.

“We're just using AI in a quicker, faster, better, more efficient way."

An expert's opinion

Geoffery Matautia (also known as Southsides​ on social media), is a South Auckland community photographer hailing from Manurewa, with experience working across photography, design and digital spaces.

As he is well-versed in capturing Pacific communities and says given the use of computer generated Pacific doctors, it shows a disconnect with their own Pacific members.

“I mean it’s kinda funny, you’d think they would have approached and engaged with their Pacific supporters to photograph them instead of having them up in a tick box. It just shows a lack of care and ultimately disconnect with who they’re trying to target.”