The Voice campaign failed last year with a 32 % result. The referendum was a Marketing campaign because unlike a state of federal election there was no reliance on preferences! Over $500 million of taxpayer money was spent on The Voice. If the Voice were a consumer product, then only 32 % of the stock was sold which was a Marketing disaster! There were fundamental Marketing strategic errors executed during the 6-week campaign that included the following-
A WEAK GRASSROOTS COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN
Many community events were held during the 6-week Voice campaign. The majority of these events were held in community halls and gyms throughout Australia. Crowds at these events were predominately made up of Yes voters who had already made up their minds. Not enough undecided or potential Vote No voters were being reached. These communities really needed to go door to door in their local communities if they were going to sway voters to Vote Yes!
THE TVC CREATED WAS TARGETED TOO NARROWLY!
The TV ad that was run by the Vote Yes campaign was too narrow in its targeting. The ad was aimed at potential undecided voters who were white Anglo-Saxon middle aged and older men. The campaign completely disregarded first- and second-generation migrants who had lived in Australia for most if not all of their lives. This segment of the population was forgotten in the Vote Yes strategy. Later research proved that a high percentage of regions that Voted No had a high concentration of migrant voters. The Vote Yes campaign ran a hurried campaign targeting migrants in the last week of The Voice campaign, but it was all too little too late!
USING CELEBRITIES TO PREACH TO PUNTERS
The Vote Yes campaign wheeled out celebrity dinosaurs such as Kerry O’ Brien and Ray Martin. These so-called celebrities were flown around Australia at taxpayers’ expense to push the Vote Yes vote. All these celebrities did was look down at potential voters and tried to preach to them. But in the end, all they did was piss off punters with their elitist attitudes. The biggest learnings from this celebrity campaign were that punters don’t like being told what to do and how to think.
IN SUMMARY
The Voice campaign was a monumental failure that was riddled with strategic Marketing errors. Major Australian companies backed The Voice and put their names and logos up to support the referendum. Like Australian taxpayers, Shareholders from these companies who backed The Voice should be outraged at the amount of company and taxpayer money that was wasted on the worst Marketing campaign I have seen in 30 years!