The Green Party rolls out an attack ad…on attack ads.

In my mind, this is a great ad. Likely the best so far of the pre-election cycle.

It’s well produced but, as the Tories have shown, production value isn’t the most important trait of a political ad. The key is to have a the right message targeted at the right audience.

With the environment fading as an issue since the downturn, the Greens’ target audience right now is very much the “disillusioned voter”. The people who want to “send a message” or vote “none of the above”. This add plays directly to them, and captures the feeling of disgust they have towards the major parties.

There are, however, two possible problems with this campaign.

The first is that I doubt a “politics sucks” message is going to motivate Canadians to go to the polls and take the time to vote. There is a twinge of hope at the end of the commercial, but I wonder if it will be enough.

The other, larger, problem is that the Greens are reportedly spending less than $10,000 on the ad buy. These ads have great potential to go viral – but as a viral campaign, it’s primarily going to reach Canadians who are already engaged in the political process. To reach disillusioned voters, you really need to be advertising on mainstream TV shows.

As I said, it’s a great ad. But it will only do the Greens any good if their target audience actually sees it.