How to avoid a campaign blunder
Rule #1: When planning to use a catchy slogan for your local campaign, ensure it won't come back to bite you.
Case in point... a friend in Guelph gave me a heads up on a blunder by Frank Valeriote, the local Liberal candidate in Guelph. The Liberals out there just did a big mailing, sending out their literature piece to a whole wack of homes. Their slogan, boldly printed all over the piece, says "Frank Valeriote: Putting Guelph First!"
Problem for Frank is, the slogan is not a Frank Valeriote original... you see, it appears that it was shamlessly lifted from the website of Kenneth Morgan, who ran for Guelph City council last year with the slogan "Putting Guelph First"... Kenneth owns the domains www.guelphfirst.ca and www.guelphfirst.com, and runs a local affairs blog at guelphfirst.blogspot.com. He's also the first website you pull up when you Google the words Guelph First.
The BIGGER problem for Frank? The fact of who Kenneth Morgan is... you see, he's the President of the Guelph EDA of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Oops...
Case in point... a friend in Guelph gave me a heads up on a blunder by Frank Valeriote, the local Liberal candidate in Guelph. The Liberals out there just did a big mailing, sending out their literature piece to a whole wack of homes. Their slogan, boldly printed all over the piece, says "Frank Valeriote: Putting Guelph First!"
Problem for Frank is, the slogan is not a Frank Valeriote original... you see, it appears that it was shamlessly lifted from the website of Kenneth Morgan, who ran for Guelph City council last year with the slogan "Putting Guelph First"... Kenneth owns the domains www.guelphfirst.ca and www.guelphfirst.com, and runs a local affairs blog at guelphfirst.blogspot.com. He's also the first website you pull up when you Google the words Guelph First.
The BIGGER problem for Frank? The fact of who Kenneth Morgan is... you see, he's the President of the Guelph EDA of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Oops...
posted by Christian Conservative @ 4:15 p.m.
7 Comments:
At Thu Oct 18, 05:05:00 p.m. EDT,
Anonymous said…
Do you think it's easy to plagiarize your opponents?
At Thu Oct 18, 06:17:00 p.m. EDT,
Dirk said…
Bit of a stretch, no?
Unless Ken Morgan has a legal claim to "putting Guelph first", I don't think there's much of a story here.
If this was actually an original or interesting slogan, maybe there'd be something to write home about here.
Speaking of which...
One of my favourite slogans was from Mel Lastman's final run for mayor:
"Toronto runs with Mel"
At Thu Oct 18, 06:39:00 p.m. EDT,
Anonymous said…
Dirk, I think you missed the point. It seemed to me the point was that "putting Guelph first" was a bad slogan, not because it was unoriginal, but becuase Valeroite can not use his own slogan for a website name and that if voters google his slogan, they pull up the site of his opponents!
A little due diligence should have convinved him to choose another slogan - so, in other words, the slogan will likely "come back to bite him".
At Thu Oct 18, 09:10:00 p.m. EDT,
Ardvark said…
Any slogan other than "Putting Liberals First" would be a stretch IMHO.
At Thu Oct 18, 11:16:00 p.m. EDT,
Dirk said…
Attila...
I'm saying that "Putting Guelph first" is hardly unique -- Mr. Valeriote is using it, Mr. Morgan is using it, and many other politicians have used some incarnation of it -- "Putting Poughkeepsie first". My point is that it's not like Mr. Morgan came up with a slogan noone's heard before. So to me it's no big deal that Mr. Valeriote would choose the same slogan. It's not like he's running against Mr. Morgan. I just don't see this getting -- or warranting -- airtime. It's a superficial issue.
Also, why would anyone bother googling a slogan?
At Thu Oct 18, 11:21:00 p.m. EDT,
Dirk said…
Here I go giving this way more credence than it deserves... (I'm sleep deprived and my judgement is crappy)
Why is this the case:
"The BIGGER problem for Frank?"
What's Mr. Morgan going to do to Mr. Valeriote? Taunt him? He's got no legal claim to the words "Guelph First".
At Fri Oct 19, 07:59:00 a.m. EDT,
Christian Conservative said…
No legal claim, true, but the election was less than a year ago, so locally, people have heard this one before. It just makes Frank look like a shameless and unoriginal rip off, which is something you don't want going into an election.
And Mr. Morgan COULD have some fun with his websites, if word gets out in town... it just ironic that of all people who's slogan to rip off, he rips of the one of the guy who's running the campaign for the OTHER team.
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