Here in Ontario, we’re in the early days of a provincial election and the three political parties are on the campaign trail.
This post could’ve been about the fact that the Conservatives don’t even have a business portrait of its leader and that several of its candidates also don’t have headshots. No portrait = invisible.
Or this post could’ve been about the NDP which had to cut-and-paste its candidate headshots onto a matching background since the party couldn’t figure out how to organize consistent portraits in the first place. [Edit May 13: It appears that the NDP’s first attempt at cut-and-paste onto a high-school blue background was so bad that they did the cut-and-paste all over again.]
Or this post could’ve been about the media handout pictures from the three parties. Those photos have no captions, no IDs, no information whatsoever. They are useless as media handouts.
Instead, I’m going to write about the Ontario NDP party recycling its policy book from three years ago and the NDP’s love of being cheap. And yes, I’m going to recycle a blog post :-)
The NDP is so cheap, or negligent, that the party decided not to update its policy book which still says the election is October 6 (2011) when it’s really June 12 (2014). Maybe all the NDP policies in that book are also out-of-date?
Except for the party leader, some trees and a flag, no one pictured in this NDP policy book appears to live in Ontario. The many stock photos used in this booklet show that:
• The woman and two children live in the US so I doubt they care about what’s happening in Ontario.
• The grandfather and young boy appear to be in the UK.
• The female “construction worker” is in the US.
• The photo of medical devices seems to be in the Philippines.
• The hospital sign is from a US hospital.
• The doctor and male patient are in the US.
• The two girls in the swimming pool are in the US.
• The Canadian flag was shot by a tourist to Canada.
• The photo of the Ontario flag was shot by a local photographer.
• The picture of a doctor examining a baby was shot by someone in British Columbia.
The Ontario NDP is saying one thing, yet its actions are the exact opposite. The party talks about “creating and protecting jobs”, that it will “grow our economy”, that it supports “Buy Ontario to build Ontario’s economy” and it “will help small businesses.” But then it completely ignores Ontario photographers and buys cheap photography from a US stock photo company.
Cheap stock pictures don’t work. They’re not effective. They don’t communicate a unique message. They’re boring to look at. They scream “cheap stock picture!”
When a company or political party chooses to buy the cheapest, lowest common denominator, meaningless photography, it shows that they have nothing but disregard for their public.
Imagine what would have happened if the NDP had put its money where its mouth is and used Ontario photographers to take pictures of Ontario people in Ontario locations. They would have produced authentic, meaningful Ontario stories.
But instead of producing an interesting, information-filled, relevant and up-to-date policy book, the NDP decided it wasn’t worth their or the voters’ time.
By the way: The NDP is reusing a three-year-old policy plan that failed to get them elected last time. The provincial Liberal Party’s platform policy is missing in action and the Conservative Party doesn’t even have a platform yet. [Edit May 13: The Conservative plan was unveiled and, like the NDP plan, it makes use of cheap stock pictures of anonymous people.]
The election is in five weeks and no party seems to have a working plan.
It’s dark and we’re wearing sunglasses. . . . Hit it.
Added August 2024: The federal Conservative Party released a campaign video titled “Canada. Our Home.” But viewers quickly realized that it was filled with stock video clips from other countries.
Again, imagine if the Conservative Party had lived up to its promise of creating jobs and hired Canadian filmmakers and editors to produce an authentic video?
Political parties and businesses are always burned by their use of stock photos and stock video. Why do they continue to make fools of themselves?
