Comments on: Does negative campaigning work? http://allday.cc/blog/does-negative-campaigning-work/ Creative Communication and Conceptual Copywriting Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:08:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Turning your weakness into strength, how to beat negative campaigning | Freelance Copywriter, London, UK http://allday.cc/blog/does-negative-campaigning-work/comment-page-1/#comment-297 Turning your weakness into strength, how to beat negative campaigning | Freelance Copywriter, London, UK Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:22:04 +0000 http://allday.cc/?p=737#comment-297 [...] pranks (well documented by TechCrunch) this spoof by The Guardian really caught my eye. In my last post, I talked about negative campaigning in politics, and how only a campaign based on hard fact is [...] [...] pranks (well documented by TechCrunch) this spoof by The Guardian really caught my eye. In my last post, I talked about negative campaigning in politics, and how only a campaign based on hard fact is [...]

]]> By: Keith McDonald http://allday.cc/blog/does-negative-campaigning-work/comment-page-1/#comment-296 Keith McDonald Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:02:35 +0000 http://allday.cc/?p=737#comment-296 This is really interesting, as was the last post. Thanks, Al. My last two months have been spent working with the new webmaster on the new-look knightmare.com, and it’s an interesting case to compare. This 80s show for young teenagers is still a cult favourite, but the site had been dwindling for years, had not been updated enough, and consequently the interest for much of what has been garnered since has fallen. The last few years have offered much promise that the game would be coming back after 15 years off-screen, but it has always fizzled out, and the company(ies) behind it were wound up in late 2009. One of the last realistic material hopes for the show is getting the money together to buy the rights to episodes and make them available for sale online, or even onto DVD. It will need a few thousand to commit to get them down to £1-2 per episode, and a fair number to get the price down low enough for the rest of the hardcore fans to be able to pay. Not so long ago, that would have been an easy task, but because the community/fan base/page visits have been drying up [relating to your last post on blogging], the main resource to keep the interest alive has faltered. Now trying to build it again could be tough. So, the new site launches seeking renewed interest and potential customers. How to ‘campaign’ for them though... On the one hand, is there any point in putting effort into nostalgia projects? Our efforts could have been fuelled by a purely negative stimulus: ‘Knightmare is dead. This is all that’s left’. That could well be a fact, but it’s one that reverses much of the ethos behind nostalgia, especially for a show that has flirted with a new format until just recently. Instead, because we want to build something, we have had to look forward and treat the whole concept like an ongoing story or work in progress: ‘These are the plans for the future’. I think people want to ride on positivity, and that a positive ethos (with plans) works. Then again, I acknowledge that politics is a whole new ball-game. The ‘negative bottom line’ works for me. I’ll try change, because it could scarcely be worse. This is really interesting, as was the last post. Thanks, Al.

My last two months have been spent working with the new webmaster on the new-look knightmare.com, and it’s an interesting case to compare. This 80s show for young teenagers is still a cult favourite, but the site had been dwindling for years, had not been updated enough, and consequently the interest for much of what has been garnered since has fallen.

The last few years have offered much promise that the game would be coming back after 15 years off-screen, but it has always fizzled out, and the company(ies) behind it were wound up in late 2009.

One of the last realistic material hopes for the show is getting the money together to buy the rights to episodes and make them available for sale online, or even onto DVD. It will need a few thousand to commit to get them down to £1-2 per episode, and a fair number to get the price down low enough for the rest of the hardcore fans to be able to pay. Not so long ago, that would have been an easy task, but because the community/fan base/page visits have been drying up [relating to your last post on blogging], the main resource to keep the interest alive has faltered. Now trying to build it again could be tough.

So, the new site launches seeking renewed interest and potential customers. How to ‘campaign’ for them though… On the one hand, is there any point in putting effort into nostalgia projects? Our efforts could have been fuelled by a purely negative stimulus: ‘Knightmare is dead. This is all that’s left’. That could well be a fact, but it’s one that reverses much of the ethos behind nostalgia, especially for a show that has flirted with a new format until just recently. Instead, because we want to build something, we have had to look forward and treat the whole concept like an ongoing story or work in progress: ‘These are the plans for the future’. I think people want to ride on positivity, and that a positive ethos (with plans) works.

Then again, I acknowledge that politics is a whole new ball-game. The ‘negative bottom line’ works for me. I’ll try change, because it could scarcely be worse.

]]>