Four lessons from Hollywood to win a blockbuster election
COLUMNIST
AN ELECTION is a serious business but there is more than a dash of showbusiness in the battle between the parties to capture your attention, your support and your vote.
The Tory campaign team may feel a shiver of dread if they read the reports of disastrous opening weekend ticket sales for the much-hyped King Arthur, which had an estimated budget of $175m.
Millions were spent marketing the movie, knights in armour rode down Hollywood Boulevard and the power of social media was harnessed to try to crank up excitement.
But the Hollywood industry journal Variety has just described this Guy Ritchie-directed epic as a “massive flop”, taking just $14.7m at the US box office and $29.1m internationally (it is released in the UK this week).
Why might this send a quiver of anxiety rippling through Conservatives? Well, just as King Arthur’s producers had the job of delivering a box office smash, Tory politicos are charged with ensuring Theresa May is re-elected as Prime Minister with a landslide.
It was an epic gamble to go for a snap election.
Just as Hollywood is already conducting a postmortem on why some of the best minds in the movie business could not turn King Arthur into a hit, anything less than a major increase in Tory seats will make this look like a flop of an election.
Here are some of the key lessons that election campaigners could learn from Hollywood: Casting is everything... Studios pay stars multi-million dollar salaries because the script can be great, the costumes fantastic and the cinematography spectacular but without wonderful performances a film might as well not exist. Producers have the task of persuading you to pay to spend two hours in the dark in the company of extraordinary actors who play a role you can believe in.
Political parties face a similar challenge. A campaign can have a marvellous manifesto, beautiful brochures, luminous endorsements and burning moral conviction – but convincing leadership is critical to success.
There are reasons why Woody Allen is not in the running to play the next Batman. Likewise, if the public cannot conceive of a party leader becoming Prime Minister (or can’t stand the idea of seeing him or her in Downing St for the next half decade) the campaign is over before it has started. Plot is crucial Producers search for stories so enthralling people won’t be able to stop themselves telling their friends and family to get to the cinema and see that movie as soon as possible.
Political campaigns need to communicate just as compelling a sense of narrative. Think of how Margaret Thatcher portrayed herself as the person who could rescue Britain from national decline and protect the free world from Communism.
Labour’s 1945 team captured the imagination of a country with a vision for change that included the creation of the NHS, housebuilding and nationalisation. The call was to follow-up “victory in war” with the building of a “prosperous peace” and ordinary men and women could play a part in this democratic adventure by voting Labour.
The Conservatives presented the 1945 election as an opportunity to “confirm your confidence in Churchill” – but voters were enchanted and excited by the Labour storyline they wanted to help make a reality.
Theresa May has portrayed this election as a drama about Brexit, arguing that the future of the country is at stake but voters have the chance to build a better future by boosting her powers at the negotiating table by handing her a landslide. Jeremy Corbyn is inviting the country to join him in building a “country for the many, not the few”.
On June 8 we will see which plotline cut through with voters.
You have to know your audience...
Even the most energetic party leader can only shake hands with a fraction of the population. Parties have to direct their messages and resources at the people who are most likely to vote.
Likewise, Hollywood makes movies for people who are the most likely to buy a ticket at their local cineplex this weekend.
This is one reason why (a) your local cinema often seems to be showing nothing but noisy special effects-driven movies featuring characters with biologically impossible “superpowers” and (b) parties are so afraid of angering the pensioner population.
In 2015 just 43% of 20-24 year-olds took part in the election but 78% of people aged 65-plus voted.
If 78% of pensioners went to the cinema each weekend we would see more movies crafted to appeal to a mature demographic; if 78% of young people were guaranteed to go to the polling booth then manifestos would be packed with policies to win their loyalty. You get just one shot... Careers of Hollywood producers rise and fall according to their movies’ success in the opening weekend.
According to Box Office Mojo, the recently released The Fate of the Furious had the biggest global opening of all time, taking $541.9m, forcing Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($529m) into second place. When a movie can instantly make back its entire production budget in a weekend it’s easy to see why the producers behind King Arthur will feel especially sore.
If a blockbuster fails to perform in this critical first weekend it may vanish from cinema screens and be declared a box office bomb. That’s why studios invest gargantuan sums in marketing and focus grouptesting, and send stars on global publicity tours.
Similarly, once the polls close on election day there is no second chance to win around voters. Political parties compile databases of the voters they absolutely have to get to the polls on election day and strategists decide which media opportunities to take up; Mrs May has gambled it’s worth appearing on the One Show with her husband but not taking part in a live leaders’ debate.
If Mrs May does make it back to No 10 with a cracking majority there will be more champagne flowing at central office than at a Hollywood premiere. But when Tory staff next turn up for work they will already be thinking about the sequel due in 2022.