TV Attack Ads and Social Media Spending Adds Up for Conservatives, Liberals and NDP

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Oct. 15, 2015) - Before the votes are counted election day, IPG Mediabrands has delved into consumer Twitter data, party ad spend information and debate transcripts to gauge the success each party is having in connecting with Canadians.

Twitter tells us a variety of different stories according to Loraine Cordery, Insights Manager at IPG Mediabrands. "Harper and the Conservatives take the lead on Twitter in terms of the number of followers and Twitter volume, but digging deeper into the data reveals the fact that many of the mentions are negative."

Prime Minister Harper may have the most followers on Twitter, but Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair have enjoyed the biggest percentage increase in adding new followers since the election call on August 4^th.

Twitter Handle	Total Followers (as of 11th Oct)	Twitter Follower growth (4th Aug - 11th Oct)
@PMHarper	907k	+6% (51k new followers)
@JustinTrudeau	775k	+11% (77k new followers)
@ThomasMulcair	184k	+25% (37k new followers)

Tweets Per Party

The federal election has generated over 2.3 million related Tweets since the election was announced. Once again, Harper and the Conservatives have had the most Twitter chatter:

• Conservatives - 1.6 million
• Liberals - 960,000
• NDP - 914,000

According to IPG Mediabrands, however, the Conservatives are 60% more likely than the Liberals and 51% more likely than the NDP to get negative tweets. The #StopHarper hashtag, for instance, was used over 30,000 times in Conservative related tweets. There was no equivalent hashtag for Trudeau or Mulcair in the Top-100 used hashtags.

Top-10 Surprising Twitter Hashtags of the Campaign

1. #stopharper - 34,860
2. #duffy - 29,450
3. #heavesteve - 11,419
4. #niqab - 8,715
5. #peegate - 8,114
6. #barbaricculturalpractices - 5,409
7. #votetogether - 4,808
8. #harperman - 3,906
9. #oldstockcanadians - 3,606
10. #bluejays - 3,305

"Peaks in Twitter conversations occurred during the debates, but volumes have dropped over time," explained Cordery. "Perhaps this is one impact of the long campaign period as Canadians appear to have become less engaged. TV attack ads have also been prolific, which may also be turning people off."

Tuning In or Tuning Out?

Since the election call on August 4^th to September 27^th, Canadian television viewers were targeted with over 9,800 TV political party spots from the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP:

• Conservatives - 6,032 TV spots (61%)
• Liberals - 2,534 TV spots (26%)
• NDP - 1,249 TV Spots (13%)

• 66% of all TV spots were attack ads (that's over 6.5k ads)

• 65% of these attack ads were from the Conservatives targeting Trudeau

• 15% of attack ads came from the Liberals denouncing Harper

• 11% of attack ads came from the NDP denouncing Harper

• 77% of all attack ads were from the Conservatives

"When we look at the timings of the attack ads, you can see that the Conservatives went heavily anti-Trudeau from the beginning," said Cordery. "The Harper attack ads coming from the NDP and Liberals have been predominantly aired throughout September."

The research and analysis conducted by IPG Mediabrands was based on Numeris (4^th Aug - 27^th Sept), Radtracker (4^th Aug - 20^th Sept), Sysomos (4^th Aug - 11^th Oct) & Macleans.com (6^th Aug, 17^th Sept & 28^th Sept).

About IPG Mediabrands

IPG Mediabrands was founded by Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG) in 2007 to manage all of its global media-related assets. Today that means we manage and invest $37 billion in global media on the behalf of our clients, employ over 7,500 diverse and daring marketing communication specialists worldwide and operate our company businesses in more than 127 countries.

A proven entity in helping clients maximize business results through integrated, intelligence-driven marketing strategies, IPG Mediabrands is committed to driving automated buying, pay-for-performance and digital innovation solutions. In Canada, IPG Mediabrands is represented by UM, Initiative, m2, Reprise, Orion and Cadreon,.