On positive messaging, 2017 to 2019: a quick thread...

Compare end-of-poll videos in 2017 & 2019 elections. 2017: : a positive vision of the country & the movement, stressing what is good about both, backed by song the positive attributes of (implicitly) the leader of the Labour Party as “someone to rely on”...

Here’s 2019 version: clearly inspired by the previous, produced to a very high standard, it is a series of images about what is wrong with the country, set to a cover of a Radiohead song about despair, ending with a child making a plaintive Xmas list...

The form in both is very similar, but content is inverted in 2019: it is a negative view of what is wrong, not what could be; and, critically, the agency for change shown in 2017 - the movement and the party, as seen through its leader - is removed, becoming literally a wish-list

I don’t know the broader audience reactions to either. There’s always a vague suspicion with these things that the least important audience (people like me: the politically engaged and already-convinced) is the one who responds the best. But the contrast is striking. ENDS