Have Labour decided who will run their election advertising?

Labour could be preparing to hire the creative company Lucky Generals to play a co-ordinating role in advertising strategy for the election campaign, report to the Campaign Live website.

Lucky Generals may be best remembered by LabourList readers as the creative force behind the less-than-well received “Un-credible Shrinking Man” election broadcast from May and the Easter Clegg pictures from April.

While those campaigns were met with some scepticism, most of the criticism was about the messaging. Mark Ferguson said it “lacked a positive message”, and Owen Jones said it was “politics with the hope stripped away”. Richard Morris, a Lib Dem blogger, wrote on the New Statesman that he was also unimpressed, but he did have this praise for Lucky Generals:

“I was fortunate enough to spend some years working side by side with the three partners who formed Lucky Generals, the ad agency that produced the broadcast for Labour. I can tell you that they are creative, accomplished and – most pertinently – highly intelligent individuals. Indeed, one of them has received more awards for advertising effectiveness than anyone else in the business.”

The company have also worked with the bookies Paddy Power, most notable their World Cup claim to have carved the words “C’mon England” in the Brazilian rainforest (which was praised by Greenpeace for raising awareness), and more recently the anti-homophobia in football rainbow laces campaign.

According to Campaign Live, Labour had talks with Lucky Generals on Tuesday, although a quote from a source did not confirm that an official co-ordination role had been discussed:

“We are very pleased with the work Lucky Generals has done for us. We are sure that it will have a big role to play, alongside other agencies and individuals, at the general election.”

Based on their previous, this could make the campaign a little more interesting.