In this week’s Cost Per Canadian, we take a look at the significantly increased spending by the Liberal Party of Canada, who they’re targeting and the new video ads that sound awfully familiar.

Frazer, Digital Director. Point Blank

Seven-Day Ad Spend
(8th November - 14th November)

Seven-Day Ad Spend By Federal Party
(8th November - 14th November)

Noted

The Liberal Party ad-spending machine has awoken with a suspiciously familiar tagline. The new ads are fairly generic “we’re-fighting-for-you” type videos that are common for incumbent parties, calling back to some of the policies they’ve rolled out to Canadians, such as free contraceptives, the Canada Child Benefit, and dental care.

Unfortunately, the most notable part of the ads came right at the end, with the closing line of “and we won’t go back.” If that sounds familiar, that’s because it is:

It would appear that Liberal Party is testing out one of the ill-fated Harris campaign’s slogans, less than thirty days after their heartbreaking defeat south of the border. Of all the choices they could have made here, this is definitely one of them.

Critique of the content aside, the ad strategy here appears to be broad-reach, with the majority of their ad spend focused on all of Canada rather than specific provinces or ridings. They’re not leaning particularly heavily on any “interest-based” targeting methods (such as “people interested in social issues” or “people interested in current events”) and are only targeting their existing contact list very sparingly.

The digital advertising landscape in 2024 is so precisely targeted that for many people, it’s impossible to know which ads your neighbours, friends and family are being influenced by. We track the biggest spenders and high-profile campaigns every week on Meta, keeping you in the loop regarding what the rest of Canada is seeing.