$214,750 was spent by the top ten advertisers in Canada last week. In this edition, we’re investigating some fishy ads by one of the highest spenders, looking at some new ads by the Conservatives, and highlighting the lack of spending by the Federal New Democrats.

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Frazer, Digital Director. Point Blank

Seven-Day Ad Spend
(12th May - 18th May)

Seven-Day Ad Spend By Federal Party
(12th May - 18th May)

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Noted:

A new page named “Affordability Advocates” has spent more than $30k in the last few weeks on a strange awareness campaign about the cost of living. 

The ads themselves are bleak, with sad infographics and headlines like “66% of Canadians 18+ have given up on ever owning a home”, “Shelters filling up as people can’t afford to keep their pets,” and “It’s never been harder to buy a house.” There’s no call to action or offer of a brighter future here, just a dark assessment of the current cost of living.

Typically, on a campaign spending this amount of money, we’d expect the ad to include a website landing page that captures people’s contact information so that they can be sent additional persuasion, donation or get-out-the-vote messaging. However, none of their ads or organic posts include links to somewhere else on the web. Their Instagram bio and Facebook “About” sections are also completely blank.

An alternative tactic could be that they’re trying to boost their follower numbers on their Facebook and Instagram pages, but that feels very unlikely, given they’ve only managed to gain ~74 followers since February.

It seems like the purpose of this campaign might just be to spread bad vibes across the electorate.

Their targeting reveals nothing other than that they don’t seem to care who they’re reaching with these ads. No additional interest-based or custom list targeting is being deployed here; they’re simply targeting all Canadians over 18 across the country (except Quebec).

Unfortunately, the final tactic we’d typically use to determine the motives of the group running these ads, their Meta political authorization document, was fruitless, too. The phone number they’ve listed was last registered as a plumber in Leslieville, ON, and the email is a generic Gmail address. We’ll monitor their spending and return to this topic if we can uncover more, but for now, all we know is that they’re spending a significant amount of money telling people that things are hopeless in Canada.

The Federal New Democrats have all but ceased advertising on Meta, spending less than $100 this week. The only ads they’re running currently are directing people in Elmwood - Transcona (Winnipeg) to share their email address with the party as part of a ‘thank you card’ for the current representative who has resigned.

The Conservative Party of Canada is pivoting their earworm “Axe The Tax” tagline in a new direction, calling for a summer tax break. The ads link through to a landing page that appears to be designed to look like a petition, using faux parliamentary language to make it seem hard-hitting and intelligent.

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 with what the rest of Canada is seeing.

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