Patrick Brown is bringing a softer touch to the Ontario Progressive Conservatives in a bid to win over centrist voters – and he's starting with the ads.
His first two commercials as PC leader even borrow a page, if not entire chapters, from Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne's playbook.
One spot is structured around Mr. Brown's love of running. As a montage of feet and legs jog down dirt roads and across snow-covered fields, gentle piano music plays and Mr. Brown speaks in a soothing voice-over.
“Why do I run? I run because I like to break a sweat, on or off the pavement,” he says. “Challenges are won through hard work.”
The effect is only slightly undermined by the fact that most of the shots of running are not actually Mr. Brown – they are helpfully identified as “actors in stock footage” by a small-print disclaimer at the bottom of the screen.
Mr. Brown does show up, of course: there are images of him winning the party leadership, meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and taking part in a marathon on the Great Wall of China, interspersed with footage of life in Ontario including a tractor tilling a field and a Pride parade.
It’s a classic “introducing the politician” spot – meant to brand Mr. Brown for Ontarians who don’t know much about him.
Its parallels to Ms. Wynne’s equivalent ad are unmistakeable. That 2013 commercial by Bensimon Byrne showed the Premier determinately jogging along a back road near Orangeville, Ont., on a drizzly day, similarly accompanied by gentle piano music and a soothing voice-over.
“I set goals. Really hard to accomplish goals,” Ms. Wynne tells the viewer as she runs up a switchback. “I never stop until they’re done.”
Mr. Brown's second ad begins with him in his shirtsleeves in a kitchen, gazing off camera. Do I even need to mention the gentle piano music?
“It may surprise you to hear me say this: I think Kathleen Wynne is a good person,” he begins. “But I strongly disagree with her plan to sell Hydro One.”
After a few more words about how the privatization plan will drive up electricity prices, the scene switches to Mr. Brown strolling down a leafy residential street in Etobicoke.
“Like many of you, I thought Kathleen Wynne might be different. But the truth is, the Liberals just aren’t in it for you any more,” he finishes.
Mr. Brown likes Ms. Wynne so much, in fact, his hydro ad borrows from her once again. The street scene is similar to a pair of spots Ms. Wynne appeared in during the spring of 2014, in which she was filmed walking through a suburb speaking into the camera about the PCs and New Democrats.
The PC leader’s ads are a sharp contrast to those of his predecessor. Tim Hudak favoured fast cuts, frantic violins, high-contrast shots of city skylines and footage of himself speaking confidently in the legislature. Subtlety was not the name of the game. (One attack ad, for instance, showed a massive red “CANCELLED” stamp over top a picture of a gas plant.) The dramatic tone fit perfectly with his penchant for bold policy prescriptions, such as slashing the size of the public sector and battling organized labour.
Mr. Brown’s kinder, gentler approach is part of his attempt to sand off the party’s sharper edges to broaden its appeal. His ads also try to head off the Liberals’ attempts to cast him as a radical right-winger and social conservative. Hence the shot of the Pride parade. Hence the counterintuitive decision to praise Ms. Wynne and identify with moderate voters who might have supported her in last year’s election.
Whether this strategy will work remains to be seen. For now, the ads are online only. And three years from the next election, none of the parties has yet launched any serious salvos in the air war.
But in the race to define the PC party before 2018, Mr. Brown is looking to be first out of the blocks.