Catchy jingles spread the message for JLP

Published in the Jamaica Gleaner : Thursday | September 6, 2007

Marlon Vickerman, Gleaner Writer

On a recent visit to Montego Bay, St. James, an aunt told me tales of how my nine-year-old cousin gets into a mad frenzy when he hears "Labour Party marching on" playing over the radio. She said he would dash to the back of the house for a piece of green cloth and bolt around the yard screaming, "Me and my neighbour, voting for Labour". Among other things, she also related how the brave lad shouted, "Jamaica needs a change now", at a passing orange motorcade.

One may argue that the youngster is not fully aware of what he is saying, but one thing is certain, he knows every word of the political jingles, especially the green ones.

Hard work, planning

Although this youngster has almost a decade to wait before he gets to ink his finger at a polling station, Delano Seivwright, public relations (PR) administrator for the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), hails the advertisements' resonance with the young and old alike as just one of the many examples that proved the party clearly got its message across to the electorate after much hard work and planning.

Crucial tag line

"We tried to ensure that everything we did struck and was cost-effective, we wanted something catchy, something that would create a kind of hype that the people would love, therefore, a tag line was crucial and this attracted supporters to the party," he said. "The tag line 'Jamaica Needs A Change Now', took some time to come about. We were experimenting with other phrases like 'a change is going to come' and so on, until we arrived at that."

All credit should be given to the member of the JLP's PR unit who came up with the jingle and, from there, in Seivwright's own words, "It sold off!"

The PR administrator said the JLP's advertising campaign had been in the pipeline since September 2006, setting up a unit to search for clippings and footage that would be used for the ads,the most prized ones being those featuring members of the ruling People's National Party (PNP) making controversial statements or shooting down fellow comrades. One such ad is K.D. Knight's comments about Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller being popular but not able to 'hold' the PNP machinery together.

Core demographic target

With the search for the clips and footage aside, Seivwright continued that another important component of the campaign was its core demographic target, to which he attributed much of the campaign's success.

"The campaign focused mainly on those between the ages of 18 to 35 years, because they represented about two-thirds of the electorate and were more likely to not be die-hard PNP. We also tried to reach those above that age limit but our theme of change was really aimed at those aged 18 to 35 years," he said. "We believed this was the group that would most likely want to see a change after 18 years of failure."

marlon.vickerman@gleanerjm.com