Episode 1848E: A tight 102 minutes on the Liberal leadership brands

Zain 0:01

This is a strategist episode 1848e. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, there's one Corey Hogan, and there's also one Stephen Carter. Guys, what's going on?

Zain 0:14

Don't care, Carter. Do not care. Yeah, video. We have a massive

Carter 0:16

massive update. Corey told me to dress up, but I didn't know this was going to be a jacketed affair. I'm a little... Yeah,

Zain 0:21

Yeah, we've... Why are we got three various definitions of dressing up?

Corey 0:26

the memo at all.

Zain 0:28

No, I usually come without a t-shirt. to share your

Corey 0:30

so this is an upgrade

Zain 0:32

uh cory's wearing a suit jacket and a what is

Zain 0:36

is this like yeah it's

Zain 0:40

knowing cory it's probably a suit jacket carter it's not even a blazer he doesn't even shop blazer he shops straight suit jacket he's that guy he actually

Zain 0:47

he's that guy doesn't even know the difference cory can you tell us the difference between the

Corey 0:50

the two oh man a lot to do with the cut and the way it kind of fits below so generic sounds like a a generic answer

Corey 1:00

that's all you're gonna get for me you

Corey 1:01

know the difference cory you know what we're gonna get the menswear guy on here as a guest once we get through all of our other great accounts that we've got great

Zain 1:07

account um yeah this is that's why i dress like this he's inspired me to to not even try to give up and wear whatever this is um i

Zain 1:17

call this the aziz ansari on fifth avenue outfit um now cory you have a massive update just to remind our our listeners, we have invited every liberal leadership candidate onto this program for an unlimited amount of time, their discretion, whichever episode they want, up to them to pump themselves, their cause, their candidacy. And the only caveat is that they have to host the show. And Corey, I suspect we are getting flooded in our inbox, which of course is media at cartersmonthlynut.com. Corey, give us the update.

Corey 1:51

Well, it does feel like you'd have to be insane not to take us up on that offer it's pretty amazing with our with

Corey 1:56

with our seven million monthly listeners yeah give or take for sure give or take yeah uh give or take but uh i i'm a little embarrassed to tell you zane we have uh we

Corey 2:07

we have no emails i uh i did check no emails at all or no

Corey 2:13

registered i mean actually none like you literally put out an email address on a podcast that is listened to by as we already discussed seven million people that doesn't seem right hang

Zain 2:21

hang on it seems like nobody you problem

Zain 2:23

nobody has the fact that nobody's emailed is is more of a you problem no

Zain 2:27

no you know it's

Corey 2:27

it's problematic though because this was our um well

Corey 2:30

well this was our plan for next week like because you were going on vacation i do have a vacation

Carter 2:37

this was a way over carter

Zain 2:39

carter this was a way for us to get chandra aria to host the show uh but can we pump this again this is a public episode okay so can i just say media at carter's cartersmonthlynut.com, okay? I

Carter 2:50

I can't believe I touched my nut.

Corey 2:53

need that. That wasn't a good bridge. But we have been told we have a bit of a credibility problem here.

Corey 2:59

And I don't know, we might have hurt our chances of people emailing by using the email

Corey 3:04

email address that you just picked. So what is

Zain 3:06

is the alternative email address?

Corey 3:08

I mean, let's just use that one. Okay, so alternative email. I'm not going to set up another one.

Zain 3:11

Media at cartersmonthlynut.com. That's right. Also, inquire, I-N-Q-U-I-R-E at thecraispoliticallymotivated.com That is where you can inquire at thecraispoliticallymotivated.com That is where you can email us. In fact, you know what? Scrap the first email. If you are the person who wants to be Prime Minister, send us an email at inquire at thecraispoliticallymotivated.com to get your spot on the show to host what I guess is next week. okay we're now

Carter 3:46

now actually in the room when someone pitches this to their boss you

Carter 3:50

you know i want no no when someone says you know what wait a minute is this

Corey 3:54

this your way of saying you have not pitched okay

Carter 3:56

okay we're gonna listen to the carney campaign why

Zain 3:58

why have you yeah why have you not why have you not pitched this to the carney campaign is it because you're not high enough on the like

Zain 4:04

what's going on i'm

Carter 4:05

i'm trying to i'm trying to hang on to a shred just a shred of credibility

Zain 4:11

yeah too late yeah it's a tough crowd i i get it carter um but you know often they are looking for new bold and innovative ideas um

Zain 4:18

um no no you're thinking

Carter 4:21

thinking of a different campaign the carney campaign is just going straight ahead to become prime minister yeah okay wow wow carter

Zain 4:28

carter admits on the episode yeah shots fired against one's own campaign that's good no

Zain 4:40

That's what Mr. Freeland would say. Exactly. Listen,

Zain 4:43

Listen, this is our long-promised brand episode. We're going to get into the brand of each of the liberal candidates now that the field has gelled, now that the field is solidified, Corey. But before that, can we spend, let's say, 10? I'm going to give it 10. It might end up being 15. It might end up being the whole show. We may never get to the branding episode. There are three strategy questions on the table that I think are worthwhile to consider before we get into the branding episode, which we are going to do, Stephen Carter. And I want you guys to give me your take. I'm not going to do the strategy scale. I'm not going to do the fine, fabulous, or fucked. You guys just give me your take. And thing number one that I want to start on is Christopher Freeland. It's the reference I just made, which is on the house this

Zain 5:23

this week. She was on the CBC radio program, and she mentioned that Mark

Zain 5:30

Mark Carney is getting all the endorsements of her colleagues, the cabinet ministers, because it's clear now that he's the insider candidate, and

Zain 5:39

and it is clear now that he is the PMO's pick for prime minister. And

Zain 5:45

I'm curious, on a strategy level, Carter, you're clearly conflicted. If not conflict, well, maybe you're not, because you're willing to, you know, speak truth about your campaign's lack of innovation. So who knows where you'll go here. But Carter, we just want to disclose your relationship with the Carney campaign as thin as it might be. Your words, not ours. But Corey, what do you think of this strategy by Christopher Freeland? And I mentioned this earlier because there was talk of her team putting this out there to seed the ground prior to lunch, but now we've heard it from her that Carney's the insider, he's the PMO-driven candidate, like this is the guy you want if you want more of the same. Strategy-wise, and then how is it landing for you? Give me your take and the card will come to you on the same.

Corey 6:29

Well, first of all, um of

Corey 6:31

course he's the the pmo pick right like we do know that that doesn't necessarily mean he's continuity the pmo might i mean it's unlikely but it's possible they know they need change in order to go forward too so she's not she's not wrong about that and in a funny way i think her argument is more more

Corey 6:48

more true and more accurate than it's possibly going to come off and that sort of gets to the point where we're talking about her on the house here she was the fucking deputy prime minister. She was at the center of the Trudeau government forever until she was fired, apparently for a lack of competency. So like, I just don't, I don't know that this argument is going to work very much. I think it's likely to antagonize a lot of the liberals. And I do, I do worry a little bit on behalf of the liberals for, for the amount of, I guess, tape she's creating for the conservatives to create an attack ads, right? Like, so the liberals best shot is they can break from this time. Freeland might win, Carney might win. It does sort of feel like the consensus is Carney is in the pole position at this particular moment, right? But if Carney does win, Freeland is starting to poison the, you know, the Carney brand before going forward. And she might make the calculation, this is how I win, this is how I do it. But it does seem like a pretty high risk strategy, because if you end up running for this man, and you've convinced Canadians along the way of losing that he is continuity i

Corey 7:55

don't know i mean i just don't know that's a very wise idea it makes me think back to that 2006 liberal leadership race when stefan dion as you know shouting at they like um you know in toronto this debate of liberal leadership candidates like do you think it's easy to make priorities which became that soundbite right in all of these ads you know dion almost shrill hysterical yelling this uh became a conservative attack ad and then there's you know ignatiev saying we didn't get the job done we didn't get had the job done.

Corey 8:22

And I just wonder, did the liberals learn nothing in the past 20 years?

Zain 8:27

In the scope of the attack, and perhaps what it could be utilized for, Corey, or the effectiveness of the attack? Sorry, just so I'm clear. How

Corey 8:36

How the attack can be used is a challenge. I think it is also a challenge that this attack is not likely to be effective. And when you combine those two, I can't give it particularly high marks, because you're essentially taking a line of attack that with a more general audience even people watching the house i'm going to call a more general audience they're going to say yeah but that doesn't really ring that true christia you were the deputy prime minister you were the finance minister i hear what you're saying but it just doesn't ring true and

Corey 9:04

and you have in the meantime also created this potential attack ad for the conservative carter

Zain 9:08

carter what do you think of this um and i'm giving you the strategist hall pass which is of course will be give stephen carter to speak the truth even if he's actively sitting on a campaign. It seems like you've already used it on the show, but I'll keep granting it to you for this particular question. What do you make of the Freeland strategy to say Carney's the insider, he's the PMO pick?

Carter 9:25

I think there's a credibility problem, to be sure. The

Carter 9:28

The credibility of being the person who's the deputy prime minister, standing beside Justin Trudeau for how many years now, was it, Corey? Six years? Something like that? I

Corey 9:37

I mean, if you want to count it just in that tenure, but the fact of the matter is she was like an early by-election person under his leadership 2013

Carter 9:45

she was right there and and uh

Carter 9:48

uh i mean it's not like it the uh uh

Carter 9:50

uh the carnies and the freelands are estranged i mean godfather

Carter 9:53

godfather to her children um this is a this

Carter 9:57

this is an in the in the in the family spat that is coming outside of the family and i think it's because of desperation because

Carter 10:04

because she's finding that that the person who holds the knife very

Carter 10:08

very rarely wears the crown.

Carter 10:09

And that is a

Carter 10:11

sparking requirement for, I'm

Carter 10:15

I'm not the insider, you're the insider.

Carter 10:18

And it just comes across as really weak. I suspect both

Carter 10:22

both of them have managed to pick up their fair share of cabinet ministers. Both of them have managed to pick up their fair share of members

Carter 10:31

members of parliament. and

Carter 10:32

i suspect both of them are picking up their fair share of people who used to work in the prime minister's office so this is it's a fake it's a fake call let's

Corey 10:42

let's be clear they're both fucking insiders right

Corey 10:44

like them sitting there saying no you're more insider than me is just just like the the

Corey 10:49

the most glass houses stones argument they could possibly be having you have a former deputy prime minister arguing with a former bank of canada governor who was going to to be the handpicked replacement for said finance minister, they're

Corey 11:01

they're both insiders. And so to have this spat out there and create this ammunition, I think is, it's a choice, but I'm not sure it's one that she's going to not regret. Let's

Zain 11:10

Let's do a B-side on each of these. Corey, don't change her strategy, but optimize it.

Zain 11:15

What would have made this play better for Freeland? You guys both talked about the credibility problem. Let's just say she had to be the messenger on this, because I don't want you to just be like, oh, hand it off to someone else, hand it off to a reliable proxy. seat no what would have made this message better from coming from freeland cory to you than to carter well

Corey 11:33

well it's not a message for a general audience like so i i guess i'm going to play a little bit with the premise that you've given me here i wouldn't make her the messenger to everybody if she wants to make that argument like i said at the start i think it's actually kind of true right he is clearly the pmo pick pick up the phone call influential liberals work that phone of yours get your team to work the phone and have that conversation there but like to have that conversation with the next level out, with those registered liberals who are only going to ever know you based on your persona and your brand, which is very Team Trudeau, like what is the point? You know, all you're doing is creating a sense of mass in the party and you're throwing stones. Let's not forget, okay, you're not just throwing stones at Carney, you're implicitly throwing stones at Justin Trudeau and everybody around Justin Trudeau.

Corey 12:21

And we have had this conversation many times on this pod. He's still very, very popular in the Liberal Party. He still still has very strong control over the Liberal Party. He built up the executive, he selected the candidates, he picked the cabinet, and

Corey 12:33

and you're fighting with them. And I do not know that that's a particularly strong case to make internally, and I just don't think it's going to resonate externally.

Zain 12:42

Carter, make it better. Make Freeland's strategy better here.

Carter 12:46

Number one is timing. You don't do it when everybody's just signing up. It looks like you're just sad that everybody decided not to come for you. plant the idea in people's heads first of all give them uh uh you know like through back channels start to plant the idea that that uh carney's the insider who's getting help from the pmo that had started give it two more weeks to actually take hold where the idea itself isn't preposterous and all of a sudden now you come out in two weeks and say you

Carter 13:19

carney's the insider uh carney's got all the prime minister's help here

Carter 13:22

here are the 26 people who used to work for Justin Trudeau, who are now working for Mark Carney.

Zain 13:28

corkboard with the red string.

Carter 13:32

You know what? I actually would, just because I think that would be hilarious. But, you know, you

Carter 13:38

you have to set the expectation before you can meet the expectation. So set people thinking about this before you actually start talking about it. And Chrystia Freeland just jumped before people were ready to hear her argument. Hmm.

Zain 13:53

It's a parallel sort of point to one that a former colleague of ours used to make, Susan Elliott, if you remember Susan. And I'll always remember

Zain 14:02

when Susan said that politicians who solve things that no one knows is a problem never get credit for solving it, even if they did it tremendously well. Problem definition needs to be what you spend a lot of your political capital on, and then you can come in as the solution, either your candidacy or your position on said

Zain 14:18

said policy. And I think this is a cousin to that in many ways, where, you know, you're driving right to the conclusion without kind of setting up the, not the theatrics of the problem, but in some ways, the theatrics and the casuals and the gradual sort of build up to the problem. Okay, I take that in stride. I don't want to spend too long on this. Number two.

Zain 14:38

We're only on number two? Pierre Polyev, Stephen Carter. No Hall Pass needed for this, unless you're working on the Pierre Polyev side of things, too. because

Zain 14:46

because if you've started the last two weeks that makes sense because

Zain 14:50

because he has not had a lot he

Zain 14:53

has not had really it's been a rough time i think so and i think this letter at

Zain 14:58

at least i'm gonna put myself out there i think this letter also speaks to a rough two weeks he has written a letter this morning and i'm gonna read you two three paragraphs i'm gonna read you two of the three paragraphs uh so we record on sunday he writes his letter january 26th mr carney i will get straight to the point the reason that the there is a liberal leadership race for you to run in today is that the Liberals admitted that Canadians were done with Justin Trudeau and all the damage he's done to our country over the past nine years. I'm going to skip to the last paragraph. You could be the Prime Minister in 43 days, and if you were to be any different than the man you were trying to replace, will you commit now to banning any prior Trudeau minister from serving in your cabinet, or will you hire the same Trudeau ministers to pursue the same Trudeau agenda and and continue the same Trudeau failures that the country has rejected.

Zain 15:44

Carter, I'm going to start with you on this one.

Zain 15:46

What do you make of the Pierre strategy to put this letter out, this three-paragraph letter addressed directly to Mark Carney? So the first strategy question is, you know, the conservative approach just on Carney alone. And the second one is on this particular question, to wedge him against the endorses that are coming to support him, him, of course, being Carney. What do you make of this strategy? I

Carter 16:09

make very little of this strategy, Zane. I think it's a terrible idea. I think that the best thing that Daniel Smith did during the NDP leadership was shut the fuck up and stayed out of it. This isn't a thing that he can win. This is a thing that is an internal party battle. The general population is not involved and not paying attention. And he's just bringing more light to Mark Carney. That's something he does not want to do. Oh, the person that Pierre Polyev is afraid of is Mark Carney, says the Liberal membership.

Carter 16:43

This is a tremendously stupid idea. And I don't know why on earth Pierre Polyev would do it. And talk

Carter 16:53

talk about weak sauce. I mean, this isn't something that, I mean, are people going, are people thinking about this? Are people thinking about this every day? Hey, I wonder who will, Mark Carney will appoint as his ministers. I mean, come on.

Carter 17:06

There's going to be crossover because the best people are still the best people. I mean, it's just, it's absolute weakness.

Zain 17:13

Carter goes with the why you so obsessed with me angle on this. Corey, is

Zain 17:17

is this weak sauce by Polyev or is it actually a helpful wedge to him, even if his execution you may not agree with in terms of how he did it? What do you think?

Corey 17:28

No, this is not the trap he thinks it is. This is a bunch of people in a room who clearly thought, oh, you fucking got them. Yeah, we've been sitting here for two weeks not able to react to the changing environment and the fact that we're now in this big fight with America and that the entire landscape has changed and all of our election plans for two years need to be thrown out the window. We're not getting that carbon tax. No, but we fucking got them because we'll just point out that, listen to me, people couldn't even point out who the current ministers are. They can't compare list A to list B because they don't know what either fucking list is. it's a pointless exercise and look i get it you really want the election that you planned but you've got to reorient yourself that's just not it's not going to be helpful here's what i would do if i were mark carney one not respond that's okay nobody gives a shit it doesn't give pierre poliev anything to work and just because i know what

Zain 18:16

what he did just i'm going to just jump in quickly carney carney into the media today said something to the extent of pierre poliev needs to find better things to do on a sunday morning than write me letters that was a version of the response

Zain 18:26

response keep keep going yeah

Corey 18:27

yeah that's basically one two just

Corey 18:29

just say no again you lose nothing and maybe you just want to say no because you don't like the guy very much that's fine so what do you mean by saying say no like

Zain 18:36

say no that i'm not going to appoint the same ministers just to

Corey 18:39

to be clear yeah

Corey 18:40

yeah like you know like i don't recommend just getting into a conversation back and forth but if you just said no one ever engaged again nobody would ever hear about it because see all of my points before this point or

Corey 18:50

or three just say hey listen man this is a time to build we are we're not going to exclude anybody from the cabinet my god i'm not even sure i would exclude you pierre we got to work together as a country and just you know you've got you could basically respond any way you want with basically no downside like i i normally when you see something that somebody has tried to establish as a trap you think hmm tricky how is he going to get out of this oh

Corey 19:12

for me it's almost the opposite it's like how's

Corey 19:14

how's he not going to get out of this like how could he possibly hurt himself on this particular letter like get a paper cut maybe if one of his staff prints it out it's about about all i can think about like it's it's it's a pointless exercise option

Zain 19:24

option number four put out a press uh release tonight and do only one thing send the meme of the mean girls gif that says why are you so obsessed with me uh and add no further comment uh gen z's

Corey 19:35

z's gonna shred that to pieces is

Carter 19:37

that how we're sending that by fact whatever central

Zain 19:40

central bankers use to send info i don't know if it's that pipe that they have that sucks up the the canister uh the pneumatic one yeah i I like that. I like that. That's a very central banker.

Zain 19:50

banker. Hey, Carter. I love those. Optimize this strategy for me. Don't change it. Don't not do it. Optimize this for Pierre for me. What would have made it better? I'm asking you to help on the margins. I'm not asking you to change this thing.

Carter 20:07

probably would make it a list. And again, I would have waited. You know, you in the last five days have been endorsed by Dominic

Carter 20:19

yeah you've been endorsed by uh i don't even know if he was endorsed by dominic i don't think john said anything um

Carter 20:26

um but he's champagne and

Zain 20:28

and anita nand champagne

Carter 20:29

champagne and yeah nand and all of

Carter 20:31

of these ministers can

Carter 20:34

can you pledge that these ministers who are

Carter 20:36

are clearly coming to you because they've been promised something can

Carter 20:40

can you pledge that they will not be ministers in the next government what

Carter 20:43

what have you promised them and

Carter 20:44

and what is it that they're coming because the

Carter 20:46

the shit that justin trudeau promised them has turned out badly for the country you

Corey 20:51

still fucking say no yeah or just listen

Carter 20:54

listen he's trying to as he said he's giving me a big pile of shit and telling me to turn it into something good i'm

Zain 21:00

guys think this is a bit i mean i think i think this will be a letter that goes nowhere um but maybe the the other question is that do you think this will actually do harm to pierre like do you feel like oh so it's like one of those no it's not going to

Zain 21:13

it's just it's just a miss it's it's not it's not a hit it's just a it's just a strikeout per se but

Carter 21:19

landed one time had the same impact yeah

Corey 21:22

yeah if i were a conservative organizer my anxiety from this letter would not be oh he's done damage to himself it's oh my god he's he doesn't actually get what's happening right now yeah

Zain 21:31

yeah or we just

Corey 21:32

just continue a bad streak right

Zain 21:33

right the streak is not broken well in in some ways and if i'm not talking about days not the the years than in the in the upswing of polls but you know you people in in in that world still live in days what have you done for me recently cory i'm gonna ask you the same question optimize this don't change it optimize it for me what would you what would you have written differently

Corey 21:51

okay well nobody knows cabinet people know one cabinet minister pick one pick one that people know commit to not putting our disastrous finance minister christia freeland in the cabinet can you do that oh

Corey 22:03

and then if the the answer is no you've still got a very interesting conversation conversation.

Carter 22:06

Really interesting variant on my idea.

Zain 22:10

I think Carter's trying to say it's his idea. No.

Corey 22:16

took Pierre's bad idea and made it a mediocre idea, and I took your mediocre idea. It's a long time since we've talked about variants.

Carter 22:22

You made it a decent idea. You didn't make it a great idea. He

Corey 22:27

so that you could crap your pants while toddling around, and then I took it and I ran with it. That's what happened. That's what what

Zain 22:32

that's what you get when

Zain 22:33

you wear a suit jacket

Carter 22:34

no it's good to know it's good to know the guy in the suit jacket yeah

Carter 22:37

yeah not a blazer on a weekend suit

Corey 22:41

suit jacket prove it's a blazer yeah

Carter 22:42

yeah suit jacket in my

Zain 22:43

suit jacket on a weekend is a real pure polyamory morning

Corey 22:46

morning my kids art right there look

Corey 22:48

look that's a pretty nice picture that ben made he calls it the derpy beetles it's the beetles but they're kind of derpy you said what does derpy mean yeah does

Carter 22:56

does he know that you're putting that out to uh seven million people this month why are the beetles not not white all

Corey 23:03

right are you coming at my eight-year-old's no interpretation asking

Zain 23:08

asking the hogan family i guess why the beatles are not white i

Carter 23:12

really the music they made they can't be this

Corey 23:14

this this sounds like there's no way to several dwarves

Corey 23:18

let's just let's just move on okay

Carter 23:20

interesting i'll pass along

Carter 23:21

23 minutes in we haven't gotten to the premise crt

Zain 23:24

crt that's being taught at our schools i tell you okay cory final one uh three of three third Third strategy question. Melissa Lansman, the conservative critic of something, is out giving a press conference talking about Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, now the housing minister, a Toronto MP, talking

Zain 23:41

talking about his endorsement of Mark Carney, calls him a radical drug advocate, in a presser which seems to be on the street. People can find this video. It's much better than me explaining this to them. So go and find it. Oh, but do it anyway. Sure. So she's giving this explanation, being like hard drug advocate. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith has endorsed Mark Carney. I wonder what he got from that kind of talking to the media. And then he seems to be in the wings. I don't know how or why. And he's like, you're talking about me? Comes up to her and like hugs her and be like, oh, welcome to my writing. I'll buy you a drink. And she's like, what did you get for endorsing Mark Carney? He's like, nothing. I got nothing. And she's like, okay, what'd you get? He's like, I got nothing. thing and then i

Zain 24:18

don't think it was a moment either of them wished it was cory but like i'm not sure what that was so like the reason i'm putting it here is i was so confused in terms of how to yeah the online discourse is fuck this guy dunked on her the other thing's like what a creep like that's kind of the that's kind of like the pendulum right like how dare you touch a woman why are you hanging around other people's press conferences all the way to what a sociable interesting guy who just like undercut the conservative argument in a matter of mere your seconds.

Zain 24:45

from a strategy perspective on both of their parts, what am I to make here? And please watch the video rather than me having to explain this to people.

Corey 24:53

I mean, first of all, those are somewhat

Corey 24:56

somewhat mutually exclusive positions to put it mildly. It's a bit of a Rorschach test for people, right? Like, did he do a great job or did he do a shit job? Did they do a great job or did they do a shit job? Well, I don't know. I kind of feel like the whole thing was awkward to watch. That was my basic feeling. Like, I'm not sure that anybody who who wasn't already a diehard partisan, is going to leave it feeling great about either party. Because on one hand, we're so used to the sociopathic nature of politics that it doesn't faze us when somebody walks into somebody's neighborhood and starts basically calling them borderline a murderer and a degenerate, right? And then somebody comes up and says, hey, I'm not, come here, we'll talk about it, I'll buy you a drink, right? And so on one level, the actions of Lansman are like, they're just so weird. Like when you think think about it and his reaction in some ways was like almost like a shot of normalcy but i also think if you look at it through the lens of hey she's just doing her job she's being a critic and this guy comes up and starts getting in her business and being kind of handsy it's

Corey 25:56

it's fucking kind of weird so like it really does depend on your frame and your lens but i think generally speaking there was enough where just like you feel uncomfortable watching because you're like i don't know who's right i don't know who's wrong it kind of feels like they're both both just playing fucking games and being children. I don't like this. And I just, I feel like the general feeling of the public is going to be,

Corey 26:14

fuck, this is the best we've got in both parties? Like, Jesus Christ. Carter, what do you think?

Carter 26:20

I think sins were committed by both sides. I think that the sin of the conservatives continues to be the half-truth, the implied, you know, what did you get? What do you, you know, what was the deal? I mean, they have absolutely no evidence. was that

Zain 26:35

that the sin or was it just the aggressive hard drug advocate line like i i i wasn't sure where the center maybe there's multiple but i'm curious

Zain 26:43

curious in your mind where it

Carter 26:43

it was the i think that the whole fucking thing that the conservatives are up to right now they they don't tell they

Carter 26:49

they they don't tell small lies about their opponents they tell big lies about their opponents and that's

Carter 26:54

that's a problem that's the sin that's what i'm trying to get across is their sin but

Carter 26:59

but then you know nate comes into the picture and uh the sin he commits which

Carter 27:04

which you know what i'm fine with you

Carter 27:07

stand up to to those who are saying how you know falsehoods about you i am a big fan of that but

Carter 27:12

but then he puts hands on her

Carter 27:14

and i don't care if you're being friendly i don't care if uh it it it looks like you are trying to intimidate whenever anytime you put hands on someone and that's the sin that he committed so i can see how both sides are taking this um you

Carter 27:31

you know you know and seeing their own their own narrative because the sins are being committed on both sides this is a this was a stupid thing for nader skinsmith to do it was a stupid thing for michelle for lanceman to do michelle lanceman am i thinking michelle rempelgarden melissa um it was a mistake it was huge and And one

Carter 27:52

one of them could have come across as the true winner in this if they just played it a little bit differently.

Zain 27:57

Oh, this goes to the optimization.

Zain 28:01

How and who, Carter? How could they have changed their behavior with this interaction still happening to come out the winner? And who would have been the natural winner in this situation for you? Who would you have picked between the two characters that are involved, or the two people involved, I should say? I

Carter 28:17

I think that Nate Erskine-Smith has some unique points of view on drug consumption that would have been really strong. I think that there's an opportunity to make that a wedge issue, to make Mark Carney answer for Nate's position, I think would be a very strong action. And I think if Nate Erskine-Smith simply comes in smiling and says, you know what, Melissa, we could have had a we could have had this discussion over a beer instead of maybe we should take this to a pub right now. Well, I'll pay for the media. Let's go have a drink and we'll sort this out.

Carter 28:51

Right. Right. I think that there were both of them could have very easily

Carter 28:55

easily solved the problem.

Carter 28:57

But instead, we have, you

Carter 29:00

know, each one of them just kind of doubling down and really making

Carter 29:04

making a mess of their of a of

Carter 29:07

of a perfectly good Sunday afternoon.

Zain 29:11

I like Carter's optimization. Corey, do you have one for me on this scenario, on this situation? You don't have to choose Nate as your character to go to me. You may want to choose the other side, but you can. It's your choice. yeah

Corey 29:20

yeah well he picked nate so i'll pick lanceman i i think that if you had assumed that he had done exactly what carter proposed which is the obvious optimization they're like don't keep your fucking hands off her right like just show up do the rest of the stuff but don't get so chummy that it looks weird right um i

Corey 29:38

i i probably if i were her if he's like let's have a beer you know i would you just say like i

Corey 29:44

i try to keep better company and you're being exactly the example of why i think it is absolutely ridiculous that mark carney's decided to accept your endorsement and i would have turned like that into that without like you know i think just a little bit of a different tone and keeping the cool a little bit and and then pivoting it back to that main uh point it

Corey 30:03

probably would have been fine as we talk this out though i actually think that she's probably like you know in this test i think that she's probably done less her acts were less egregious than his i've decided decided as we've talked so interesting yeah

Zain 30:17

her acts were less egregious than his because she was what i did why because she was doing a standard partisan standard

Corey 30:22

standard it was just like normal politics versus

Zain 30:26

versus basically versus him who was trying to break the norm and and went too far is that like a fair assessment of what you're trying to say yeah

Corey 30:33

yeah well and i think it's really it's like the minute he went up and he you know he started like grabbing her shoulders or whatever there carter's right about the intimidation component i

Corey 30:42

also think i often will try to put put this into like a workplace setting like even if i thought somebody was being a real jerk and out of line at work if the other person came up it's like hey let's just talk this out and like grab their arms around it i mean hr would be fucking involved so i think uh that's where i land has he convinced you carter no

Carter 30:59

no i mean i just think that uh both of them did bad things and both Both of them should be shot at dawn.

Corey 31:11

Tough but fair, Stephen. That's

Corey 31:13

That's one way to optimize. We're

Zain 31:16

our next segment, Stephen Carter. That was a tight 10. That was a tight 10. Real

Zain 31:20

work, man. That was a good tight 10.

Zain 31:24

Listen, I give folks a lot of value, okay? I give

Zain 31:28

folks a lot of value on this show.

Zain 31:29

show. You get like 25 minutes of content in 10 minutes. We have got a set field in the liberal leadership race. I've promised the audience for a while now a episode on the brands of the

Zain 31:41

the various candidates that are running and their teams, Carter, that have set up these brands.

Zain 31:46

However, before we jump into it and start saying what we like and what we don't like, I think it's worthwhile to maybe spend, and I'm going to use this number again, 10 minutes, to assess.

Zain 32:01

what we should assess as a modern brand, Corey, because I think it's actually a fair question, right? I think that piece has evolved from just simply what the website looks like and

Zain 32:12

and what the logo looks like to other elements, things that we may not see, what the emails look like, what the ad library might look like, what the social accounts look like, what the grid looks like on IG, you know, how they're doing. And, you know, in addition to the website and how well it converts and all those sort of things. So give me your thoughts on this. I'm kind of putting it out in the broadest sense with a few examples. But in your mind, as someone who works in communications and as someone who's worked in politics, what are the things we should be assessing in a modern political brand?

Corey 32:43

Yeah. Well, first of all, we are saying brand, but I just want to be clear, brand is ultimately the end result. It's what people think of you. It's how you come off. What you've listed there is largely identity. Those are components of a visual identity, written identity, the words you use. And that's the kind of stuff a campaign has control over, but ultimately you judge its success or not based on what your brand is. So the brand is the outcome. The brand is not the action. Love it. And I think that's important to keep in mind, especially as we go into some of these candidates, and maybe I'll keep my powder dry on that. But like a lot of these folks have a brand coming in, like we already think things about them, which means the identity that they're presenting, visual words, all of that, it

Corey 33:25

it pings off that in a different way. It pings off the times we're in a different way. And when we talk about brand, I

Corey 33:32

I guess the point I want to make right now is it's

Corey 33:35

it's the combination of the identity, the audience, the times, the context, right? And so you've got to weigh it all. And what might have been a killer, quote unquote, brand, a visual identity 10 years ago, even

Corey 33:49

even if it's not that the style has changed, that same style might just be totally out of tune with what we're looking for right now. And

Zain 33:55

And the audience piece could even make it out of tune with not even a dated 10

Zain 34:00

10 years ago, but also the moment. Like you're missing the

Zain 34:03

moment in a sense, even if you think you're

Corey 34:04

you're hitting the moment

Zain 34:04

moment sort of thing.

Corey 34:05

Absolutely. And like on our strategist discord, which, you know, pay your six bucks, get in there, gang. We created almost a, well, not almost, we created a fake creative brief for the Carney brand, like the Carney visual identity when it went down. And we went through all of the topics and even just writing it out. One of the things that occurred to me is you're creating a brand for a leadership campaign, but it's also got to be the start of your brand for the general election campaign. Which in extension has got to be the brand for the liberals in the cycle. Michael, so

Corey 34:31

so audience is a little bit polluted right now, too, right? You're not just talking about a narrow liberal voting audience. You're talking about the general

Corey 34:39

general public potentially down the road, too, because you got no time. Like, you got no time to sit there and say, we're going to retool everything eight months from now. It's got to be the foundation of whatever your general

Zain 34:48

general election is. That's so interesting. And not to keep my powder dry, Carter, I'll get you a take on this, but like that could have massive implications. Let's say Freeland is elected, her brand extremely distinct, right? With the red everywhere, and we could talk about it, right? And what implications will that have on the overall liberal brand? So it's an interesting point. We've talked about the politics, like all three of us in various forums, including this one, have talked about the politics of being able to run a race literally within seconds of winning this one. but then that's also got

Zain 35:14

got this this this tie-in as as folks on the discord and you point out cory to how you present yourself today having implications on how you present yourself in as pierre polly of wood note 43 days uh well

Zain 35:25

thing yeah and you

Corey 35:25

you almost have to work backwards

Corey 35:27

right like so what's the brand i need then what's the brand i need now how do i bridge between them where do i put like the give and like what's the what's the shift got to be and when's the shift going to happen should i be successful and the risk always when you're dealing with two audiences is if you create a product that's good for both it's probably optimal for neither and that's a real challenge i think and and so what you generally will see in

Corey 35:49

in these things is the person who thinks they're going to win is

Corey 35:52

is going to have their eyes furthest down the field like okay well i don't i don't want to win just to lose or at least lose big or go to go down in flames the way trudeau looked like he was going to i want to i want to win win and if you are somebody who thinks this is a fucking hail mary i don't know i've got almost zero percent chance if rounding up i've got zero percent chance of winning this fucking thing then your brand is going to be all focused on that first contest because why not like like are you really going to waste your time dealing with the the brand down the road and so i think that the way they present themselves also tells us a lot about how they think about themselves and i would argue based on that rubric there are two candidates who actually think they can win and that's freeland and carney and everybody else is is they're

Corey 36:34

they're they're playing for the party and they're not they're trying

Zain 36:36

trying to get their brand to lift them up a bit or to make it uniquely distinct enough so that they punch through is that fair to say well

Corey 36:46

kind of are but you've brought up a really interesting point yeah and i'll let you get in here yeah

Zain 36:49

yeah but and this is well i'll just say final point

Corey 36:52

for a lot of them it's about their brand and what they're going to be able to do down the road

Corey 36:56

once they've elevated themselves that's exactly right right and so are are they elevating who they are? And I think Karina Gold is a perfect example of this. She is presenting herself as a fresh, young, new face. The way she's doing it has value, win or lose, right? The way Freeland is presenting herself only

Corey 37:15

only has value if she wins.

Zain 37:18

Corey's thrown some interesting things on the table, including what brand is. Brand is the output and outcome. It's not something you can assess on the front end. This is what I'm talking about. And rightfully so, to Corey's point, is more visual identity or broader identity, including the words, etc. So what the pieces we should be assessing today, we can continue to have that discussion. If you've got any thoughts on those in terms of which pieces you find most important, like even like tactically, like I like that, for example, like the hero image means a lot to me, like I'd love to hear that sort of thing. Because we will get deeper into this. But your thoughts on what should matter in a 2025 25 brand analysis well

Carter 37:55

i think that everything begins with the audience um who is it that you're trying to change who is it you're trying to impact what do they what do we want them to remember about us and

Carter 38:05

and i think that you

Carter 38:07

you know the two leading candidates be the carney and freeland i'd

Carter 38:11

i'd agree with the assessment that that cory's made that the other brands tell us that they're just

Carter 38:15

just simply trying to compete um

Carter 38:18

those two are telling us a very different story about themselves very different

Carter 38:22

different story about what the challenges are that they're faced with uh

Carter 38:25

uh you know and i don't want to get ahead of myself and start saying well this is what the brand is and this is how the brand is being interpreted but both of them are telling a story to canadians in general not just to liberal members the 250 300 000 people who will sign up but

Carter 38:42

but a much much broader conversation

Carter 38:44

conversation and And not only that, they're both trying to put a spin on the past, right?

Carter 38:50

right? Mark Carney's launch, for example, very

Carter 38:53

very much definitive of the overarching brand.

Carter 38:57

The choice of doing it in

Carter 38:58

in a small community hall, when

Carter 39:01

when it was very easily he could have filled a much larger room.

Carter 39:04

But that small community hall was a choice. That

Carter 39:07

That was something that took the brand in

Carter 39:09

in the direction that the campaign

Carter 39:11

campaign actually wanted to go. And

Carter 39:13

we saw from Freeland's campaign launch that

Carter 39:15

that she was denied that, mostly

Carter 39:21

but also in part by her own campaign and her own campaign choices. So

Carter 39:26

So the brand structure is, you know, this really emphasizes that you control the input. You

Carter 39:32

You don't necessarily control the output of how the brand is perceived and received. I think it's a great point.

Carter 39:38

Emphasize that for young Corey. Great

Zain 39:40

Great point by both of you. Corey, round us out with any thoughts, and then I want to go through each. We'll start with the top two, and then we'll go down the line.

Corey 39:49

So what Carter said about Carney's launch is super important, because you can look at various launch techniques, and you can say, well, does a big event make sense? Does a small event make sense? Does streaming make sense? Does not make sense? And a lot of the time, you'll argue the pros and cons, merits of those things. But anyone who's worked with me knows I've got a bit of a shorthand for this, which is brand answers all questions. if you work backwards from how you want to present yourself those things resolve relatively quickly and relatively easily so i'd be curious to hear steven the conversation that might have occurred in the carny campaign so much as you can provide it but that to me and you don't always get it right like right sometimes you fuck it up but like that to me is like well who are we trying to be well then of course this is how we have to launch right and uh when i see the carny launch video video and how it started with the graphics of you know i was born here and then i lived in edmonton and then a lot of his canadian origin story is in

Corey 40:44

in edmonton you know i i played for this team i went to this high school and then i got a scholarship to go play hockey here and by the way what a flex just to show him in like his hockey gear at harvard not mentioning he went to harvard just you know he's a hockey player at harvard i guess we could figure out the rest right in

Zain 41:00

in the middle of

Zain 41:02

crimson-colored jersey. Oh, I'm sorry. It

Corey 41:05

It was a school just outside of Boston. It was an NCAA school. Don't worry about it. Oh, my God.

Zain 41:09

Close to Somerville, if you know the area.

Corey 41:14

So, all great. My point is this. It's clear what they're trying to do, what you're trying to do, I guess, because I don't know what credit... You don't deserve shit for credit. What Brayden is trying to do, and the smart people around Brayden, what they're trying to do is create this sense of... And just so people know, Braden's

Zain 41:31

Braden's the guy with the title of campaign manager. That's

Corey 41:36

When your campaign slogan is, it's time to build, and your story becomes about how you built yourself and what built you,

Carter 41:44

You know, that idea and the idea of emphasizing the hockey, the Edmonton and the Laurier Heights, that all came from Carney.

Carter 41:52

We were trying to find the right location.

Corey 41:55

That's the right answer. You should have done that with the Shehol.

Carter 41:58

I'm learning. and it all came from carney because he he was

Carter 42:02

was the one who really wanted to make it about uh hockey and his his absolute passion for hockey like it's not put on some

Carter 42:09

some people i think put put on their passion for hockey uh his is not it is a legitimate passion and to be in edmonton uh and to launch in edmonton made a lot of sense for him because

Carter 42:20

because of the childhood but also because of who you know how he perceives his own growth.

Carter 42:28

the brand structure was rooted

Carter 42:31

rooted in reality. And I think that that's one of the best brand structures you can build. Like

Carter 42:38

Like when you're actually building a brand that

Carter 42:42

that is built off of the truth of it. And I think that Freeland also has this. When we get to talking about hers, I think that she is talking

Carter 42:50

talking about the exact same, like she has developed a brand that is as true to her as this Mark Carney, it's time to build is true to him.

Carter 43:02

And both of them can be quite proud of their brands as they're unfolding.

Zain 43:06

Okay, let's let's jump into this. I think that that's that's enough on the table in terms of what we need to assess our brand. And we'll start with the websites, because they do, while they are not inclusive of everything that is a visual identity, an identity, or an outcome of a brand, I think they house a lot of the items, including, you know, photos, the language, the overall sort of taglines Carter talked, and Corey, you've both talked about the Carney one. Let's start with Krista Freeland. She's at kristafreeland.ca is where her campaign's at. She's leaning heavily on the last name. People can look this up. That's better than me explaining any of it. So I won't. I won't explain any of it other than turning it over to you guys if you want to talk about it. Let's start with this. What did you like? What did you not like? And where did this overall kind of land with you? So plus minus delta, right? Plus minuses delta. Corey, can I start with you on Krista Freeland? Give me your plus minus delta on her.

Corey 44:00

Well, the plus is the word. She obviously is most comfortable when she's dealing with the written word and she's telling a story. And I think that makes perfect sense. That's her background. That's who she is. And I really do believe she has a good sense of what she wants to do. However, I'm going to give you a couple of minuses here. And unfortunately, they do somewhat stack together. One minus is the polish of her visual identity here. And I think it is such a fascinating example to me about graphic design and how there is such a fine line between stellar graphic design and bad graphic design. And I think, unfortunately for her, she's on the bad side of the graphic design. you're not saying

Zain 44:40

good and bad you're saying stellar like oh this is stellar

Zain 44:45

like historic and bad that's

Corey 44:47

that's right and so she is clearly the one who's got the most unique like like you know what she's going for and it's quite unique and it's got a certain like uh almost like a explainer video now this like the kind of the overlays that she's doing free land

Corey 45:01

but the font size not quite right the font weight not quite right the way the maple leaf and the a is there just it's just not quite right and you know kerning not quite right everything's not quite right and it's a great example about how i think if i don't know i don't want to denigrate anybody who's did it and obviously everyone's doing this under absurdly short timelines yeah

Corey 45:21

but i think either another two weeks or another two professionals in the room they could have made that sing they could have figured it out and they could have made it sing their concept is so good but the execution is so middling and as a result unfortunately you don't get the concept score, the

Corey 45:36

the concept almost plays against you unless you can land the concept. And so that's why people do tend to take it safe on design. And you can say to her credit, she didn't take it safe, but I'd say to her detriment, she didn't deliver on it. It's also by far the sloppiest of the pages on some technical components. It was driving me up the fucking wall today when I was looking at it, and she's got all of these buttons at the top. And with

Corey 45:57

with any luck, it'll be fixed by the time you good viewers are looking at it. But as you mouse over, hover over them, it's changing the weight around it and there's like a one pixel difference so there's this bar is just like shivering it's just moving one pixel exactly what you're talking

Corey 46:12

as you're doing it come

Corey 46:14

come on man it's 2025 we should be able to figure out basic css at this point and they didn't and so again it just creates a sense of rather than like here's

Corey 46:23

here's the thing you can go for that super minimalist super polished super slick super like posh thing that she was going for but the minute shit like that starts happening it's gone it's over it's done so that's that's one of

Zain 46:35

of them that's an interesting point because she is going for like a real rich and

Zain 46:39

and i don't mean that like in a wealth sense but like a real rich like depth like the the comparison i've jokingly sent to you guys and i think it floats online too is the current king charles portrait right

Zain 46:50

right like king charles and like it's like a very rich royal textured sort of thing and you could see what she's going for but can i ask Jessica, clarifying question to you, Corey, before I jump over to Carter, because I do want to get both of your deltas, too, in terms of what you change. When you say, really

Zain 47:07

really like the concept, can I be clear? Is that the free land concept? Is that the red? Is that the, what is, what do you mean? Can you clarify that for me?

Corey 47:15

So I mean the visual identity specifically when I'm saying I really like the concept, because the one other thing I want to put, and maybe Carter will expand, so I'm not going to dwell on it, is the

Corey 47:25

the other minus I give her is the story. right but but just to wrap off like the visual identity i do want to say it is a great concept and if she were to win and if there were like an army of party designers and external designers working on it you

Corey 47:41

you could do something you could do something really good with that with this with what she's put out

Corey 47:44

this is not it this is not it and

Zain 47:46

and you know i i think your point around the fact that you know people have had to release their drafts is

Zain 47:51

is a good one right

Zain 47:52

right like people have had to release v1s and v2s is a good one i'm not making excuses for anyone but i think it's it's fair given the timelines in some ways well

Corey 47:59

well sure and carney had to like drop his logo because it's the same as a as a fucking uh like collections agency so oops but i will say that the others drafts are in my estimation stronger like they did but they played it safer so i mean you know judge accordingly i judge negatively because outcome matters carter plus

Zain 48:17

plus minus delta what do you like what do you not like and then we'll do uh the the changes together what would you change how would you make it stronger let's

Carter 48:25

let's begin by saying there's nothing easier in the world than to pick on someone else's creative um

Carter 48:30

um so i don't want to come across like i'm just picking on creative i'll leave that to cory uh i don't disagree with his freeland um comments i don't i

Corey 48:39

i think be fair literally what i do for a living i know i'm not i'm just saying there's

Carter 48:43

there's nothing do neither of you like that's

Carter 48:45

that's why you do it can

Zain 48:46

that no i don't either

Corey 48:47

either of you like free land?

Carter 48:50

I like free land.

Carter 48:51

And I'm going to put it into the context in which I like it. I don't like the design.

Carter 48:56

I really don't like the font choice. There's a number of choices that were made in the free land design that I don't like. And Corey, I think kind of, he

Carter 49:06

he said it better than I'm going to say it. So I'm just going to leave that with him.

Carter 49:10

What I'm going to talk about is the literal wrapping in the Canadian flag and

Carter 49:14

and the red that is is the Liberals, and

Carter 49:17

and everything that she has done now

Carter 49:19

now looks like you are looking at it through a Canadian flag.

Carter 49:23

You are looking at the free land through

Carter 49:26

through a Canadian flag. You're talking about our

Carter 49:29

our land strong and free. You're looking at it from

Carter 49:35

point of view at a time when our nation is literally under threat.

Carter 49:39

And I like it. The ballot box

Zain 49:40

box question, I think, is an interesting point there, right? She's

Zain 49:43

the the clearest on trump canada i'm canada like i i get what you're trying to say well

Carter 49:49

well and she is saying i am the liberal party right

Carter 49:52

right justin trudeau was not the liberal party he does not own this liberal party mark carney does not own this liberal party i own the brand of the liberal party and the wrapping herself in the red while i i am not necessarily a big fan of it i you know it's not about whether or not i'm a fan of the brand it's about whether or not the brand has got a clear statement that is being made and i think that the statement that is being made between the free land the wrapping in the in the in the in the in the colors of the nation in the colors of the liberal party it

Carter 50:26

it does remind me of the king charles portrait it does make me wonder how much of this was emphasized and yeah i don't think it's a great idea that you necessarily put your picture and you look like the devil personally but

Carter 50:39

but yeah i see where they were going and the the direction that they were going is very clear to me this

Carter 50:45

this i am the liberal party i am wrapped in the flag of canada and

Carter 50:49

and this is and i'm not going to be ashamed of it and

Carter 50:53

and i'm i'm super impressed by that direction i think that they could have had a lot more stuff on the website um you know it could have been a lot more detail that could have given us more um and

Carter 51:08

and i don't like the you You know, like the video just being kind of embedded from YouTube is kind of, you know, 15 years ago, too. Like it doesn't look like it's polished the same way that I would like it to be polished. So I'll leave it at that because

Carter 51:23

because I don't want to come across like I'm being some sort of critic.

Carter 51:28

I do see where she was going and I like where she was going. I like the brand story that she wanted to tell.

Zain 51:34

Corey, what do you think in here?

Corey 51:37

well you asked about the freeland thing yeah i want to get your comment

Zain 51:40

comment on that that's sorry that's what i meant in particular well

Corey 51:43

one of my big concerns with it and this is going to sound really small and and maybe even petty but the way she presents her name is not how anybody says her name and and there's just something about that that actually challenges me right and to me it says almost like you're trying too hard i feel like it would have been a much stronger creative concept if it had been more subtle like it's just it's like just too much you know there's just like sometimes you can go too far with an idea and you're trying to shoehorn the idea and it's yeah of course like what a happy coincidence your name is free land at a time when we're talking about defending ourselves from the united states that that must have felt like such a fucking gift and in a way it was but it's

Corey 52:20

it's it's like gilding the lily right it's it's just a little too much it reminds me a lot of um a story about when they were creating the original macintosh and anybody who had a macintosh in the 80s or 90s will remember there was like the closed apple and the open apple button that was on like your apple 2 or whatever and this little thing that looks like uh i don't even what you call it like the box with the nubs around it that's on the command button on a modern mac that symbol didn't exist at the time and steve jobs there's a story about him losing his mind because he's looking at a menu in this mac because this is a this is the first time there's like drop down menus right and it's just showing the hot keys for all of this this stuff and every single one of them has an apple logo either a closed apple or an open apple and he says you're denigrating the logo you're using the logo too much you're just saturating it's starting to mean nothing like you you've got to put more reverence on the logo and so then they went they found the command logo and the rest is history but the point is what he was saying about the logo like the minute you're taking like your name and you're trying to distort it to do all of these other things there's risk and you're just you're just you're trying a little little too hard there and i know that might sound out

Corey 53:27

out there but it's you know i think it's a challenge when you start fucking with your core brand yeah

Carter 53:31

yeah but this is this is you saying again you know she's trying too hard it was it it goes too far it doesn't quite get there it doesn't quite hit all

Carter 53:39

all of this is true right

Carter 53:41

she but she chose a direction she

Carter 53:44

she chose something significant to try and achieve and

Carter 53:47

and she went all the way there she

Carter 53:50

she just fell a little bit short on the final execution given

Carter 53:53

given that this was all implemented within you

Carter 53:56

you know seven days yeah

Carter 53:58

i'm still super impressed um that they went as far as they did and they reached as hard as they did

Corey 54:05

you're now i think you're being too charitable because at the end of the day they

Corey 54:08

they have a campaign to run and they knew the parameters of it being seven days right and at a certain point there is a conversation about risk that needs to occur where it's like like hey we can play it safe and we can deliver that or we can swing for the fences and we can fuck that up and you know

Corey 54:23

know i'm not sure that i would say they fucked it up i think that would be a little harsh

Corey 54:29

just didn't land it it's mediocre i would say of the big you know the big three websites i'm only going to count carney freeland and gold it's the worst of the three and it's it's not the least ambitious it's the most ambitious it

Corey 54:42

it could it has the concept that that could be the best, but it's the worst of the three. Okay,

Zain 54:45

Okay, I'm going to ask a few pointed questions on these just to kind of make sure I get your opinion. The image that she uses. So, like, I know it's wrapped in red. What do you kind of think of that hero image? It's on every single... So if you go to Party Renewal Plan, or other than that one, I guess, Donate, Volunteer, you see that image kind of underneath of Krista. Thoughts on, like, the portrait-style image, singular of Krista Freeland versus what you see with other candidates, people around them. um more sort of surrounded by by everyday folks from a launch etc i'm kind of curious on your on your take with freeland right at the heart and the center of it not necessarily surrounded by by by people almost like a like a intense portrait shot there any

Corey 55:28

well just that it's part of the this is an example of how she tried to answer the story with brand right she uh by the way carter it's so funny that you're on the website and your face is more red because all of the red of the website is reflecting back on you right now um and he likes that like that's the positive for carter he's yeah but no it's and it's fine but like it

Corey 55:48

it is uh i

Corey 55:50

i lost my point entirely what the hell was i talking about the portrait photo the portrait

Zain 55:54

portrait photo any any thoughts on that and it's and it's use case versus uh having folks around her or anything like her in community or humanizing her in that way that political campaigns often think about and do no

Corey 56:05

no i think that it's fine it was a choice it goes to the idea that you are trying to stand alone and that you're strong and that's the point that i was trying to make that i lost that it's all consistent with brand she's telling the brand story that's all well and good that's fine she's showing that she's the person who can stand up and she can stand tough and and part of that sometimes means standing alone visually like i get all that like it all kind of works i don't have a problem with that i think that's one of the cleaner parts of the implementation but this

Corey 56:32

this is one of my when i said the minus part Part of it is the story. Like, I worry that

Corey 56:37

that she has not quite calibrated her story. You know, I think that the story is a little bit too

Corey 56:43

too much about how she's going to fight and be tough. And I think that Canadians want a path forward, for

Corey 56:47

for sure. Canadians want to defend their country, for sure. But I think that all that's present for me in a lot of the material on that website, and even her speech, is the fight. And I don't think that's enough. And I don't think at the end of the day, Canadians say the

Corey 57:03

biggest pricks, the biggest fighters are the liberals. Nobody's saying that, right? You have to be very careful that you're not presenting a question where the obvious answer is the other guy. And I think if you're actually looking for somebody who's going to fight,

Corey 57:15

Pierre Polyev is the more obvious answer there. So you've got to find a different framing of that defend and that construct argument than

Corey 57:22

than Chrystia Freeland is currently at.

Carter 57:24

That's where I thought she got there with the wrapping and the Canadian flag. I think that she's closer than you think she is.

Zain 57:30

Yeah, so Carter's already thrown down this constructive sort of delta for her. Anything you want to add, Corey, to like constructive changes that you would suggest for Freeland, you've talked everything about the font, the weighting, the cartoning, all that sort of stuff. You can address anything specific or you can

Zain 57:45

can address something much broader in terms of constructive changes.

Corey 57:49

Yeah, I mean, clean it up. That's the obvious one from the visual identity point of view. in terms of story, I think you need to think about chapter two in your story. Chapter one is I stand up. Chapter two is what do you do when you stand up? And I do actually believe that Chrystia Freeland's pretty deficient in that one right now. And I think part of it is because she

Corey 58:08

she was fighting in December. She's fighting now against Trump. You know, fight is what she's got.

Corey 58:12

Fight is what brought her here.

Corey 58:14

She needs to move past that in her own storytelling. telling let's

Zain 58:17

let's move to mark carney uh mark carney.ca cory can i start with you again on on the carney campaign so we've got a a website that looks very different um maybe i'll let folks look at it so that they can interpret what i mean by that and of course can as compared to the freeland website not very different in terms of like a um an absolute on absolute terms cory plus minus delta start with what you like what you don't like and then we'll get into constructive changes together

Corey 58:45

again if you go to brand and you think about the story that he wants to tell that's part of it but i mentioned earlier you also bring your brand into it and he's a banker right he's a staid finance guy who has helped save two different economies at two different times he's a professional and his website by far is the most staid of the websites again of the big three i'm talking about here is the most traditional of the websites it's everything that a website site for a leadership candidate is supposed to be and it's fairly well executed minus that logo snafu that we already talked they've changed

Zain 59:16

changed that to a different way

Corey 59:18

way which they've changed to a different logo exactly right it's professional it's polished it launched with you know all of the websites are threadbare but it launched with enough content it told the story it basically was the the flat version of the video that came out it's well done it's crisp it's responsive it has the things that you need on a website like that and

Corey 59:39

I think that's the point right like he is basically saying I'm going to be the adult I'm going to be the professional who comes in and I'm going to just professionally manage things and I'm going to do it with positivity and yeah there's some quirky sides of me and you know I'm a I'm

Corey 59:53

I'm like I think I mentioned on another show like I'm the banker who's the neighbor who you'd like love to go over and hang out with like he's just super nice neighbor and super erudite and has these things but also can talk to you for 40 minutes about you know the draft picks that the oralers are looking at three years out or something like that right i think it does exactly what it's trying to do and i think it does a pretty good job of of being what he needs it to be because of the brand he's trying to present i

Corey 1:00:18

i will say however

Corey 1:00:20

that's a lower bar when your brand is to be boring and it's not really his brand and i think carter would probably take exception well carter

Zain 1:00:25

carter is actually almost indicated as such at the top of the show it's not to be innovative per se it's just a power through so if

Corey 1:00:30

if your brand is just to to be professional and polished mission

Corey 1:00:34

mission accomplished you don't need to do crazy swings in fact if you took the exact same christia freeland approach and you executed it perfectly for mark carney it would be it would be a cacophony it would be dissonant it's like who the fuck is this guy versus this brand it doesn't make any sense right so again when you think about audience and all of that and the brand that they bring into it that matters the negative that i give it i don't know i mean like it's hard to give it too much of a negative because it does exactly what you want it to do i think that i throw one at you

Corey 1:01:02

you potentially yeah go for it way too many calls to action or am i wrong about that when

Corey 1:01:07

you go to this front no

Corey 1:01:09

no you're you're 100 right i was trying to limit more to like the visual sorry yeah yeah but i'm sorry i'm getting right

Zain 1:01:15

right into the web aspect of it we

Zain 1:01:17

address go where you're going and then i'll take my point and i'll carve it

Corey 1:01:21

it out because the other thing my the point that i had but i thought was maybe not brand related but i certainly think all of the candidates do poorly but it's almost inexcusable that carney does it did it poorly was like how is there not just a big sucking funnel taking you to register to be a liberal like it's gotten a little bit better i think over the past couple days but uh yeah it's um the website was not really like it had to your point there's i think there's four ctas right at the top and then there's additional reiterations of it all the way through the particular thing no i think that my bigger problem with the brand is that like The story feels like it's

Corey 1:01:58

it's only part of the story. There doesn't seem to be a lot of wraparound content, because even the others, you can point to their various social channels, and Mark Carney just doesn't quite have that same feel right now. And I think that he needs it more, because he hasn't been in politics more. So if you're Chrystia Freeland, if you're Corinna Gold, you can get away with

Corey 1:02:17

a little bit less content. That's interesting.

Zain 1:02:18

He doesn't. So can I address that point for a second before I come to you, Carter, on Carney's website site and and his brand and any insider tales you may want to tell us as associated with that cory you know is there a case to be made that carney's kind of like running the the banker former central banker like the vibe he's running is a bit more premium i'm going to use that term because i don't have the right one

Zain 1:02:44

and that i actually want to add more friction i don't want to be too accessible like i don't want to be like doing i'm not tiktok dances are on one end of the the spectrum but you get what i'm trying to say yeah yeah right like i actually want to be buttoned down all the way through i don't want to actually have you get to know me beyond what i want to put out there because that's kind of what i'm trying to do i'm going to wear the same sort of thing every time very rarely you're going to see me hanging beyond you know the collar and the sweater is probably the most casual like i wonder if there's something to be said about that carter may have an inside track being like these fucking idiots don't know the hell they're talking about but i'm going to posit that as a hypothesis back to you to react to well

Corey 1:03:22

well i definitely you know i don't think premium is the word but that goes back to my professional and polished right and yeah and i think that in part that is the contrast with justin trudeau who was seen as obsessed with social media so carney not having it maybe is a conscious choice too or maybe not leaning into it as hard he has social media but not leaning into it as hard i i know there were some conservatives say oh he doesn't have a youtube channel who fucking cares right like that's pretty easy i mean we have a youtube channel you can watch this right now on a youtube channel right but um the uh the interesting thing that he has to contend with is if you're freeland if you're gold there's a lot of content as to where you stand on various things yes it's always been kind of the party positions but you

Corey 1:04:03

you know you start to put out like the planks about how you would deal with like and both of them have actually put out plans for the party itself

Corey 1:04:10

carney because he's coming from outside because we don't really know what he stands for i think that the brand would have been served by having a little bit more on policy and i don't mean a 30 page paper i mean a one line i'm gonna get rid of the carbon tax and i'm gonna do something else yeah

Corey 1:04:27

yeah and i can understand maybe

Corey 1:04:29

maybe why they might want to hold that in reserve and maybe that's all coming but you're

Corey 1:04:34

a giant basically asked me you've basically asked me to come up with a minus and i don't have a ton of minus okay but that would be my one critique carter

Zain 1:04:41

carter plus minus delta it's it's it's it's a bit unfair to ask you this but i'm curious to see where your head's at and frankly correct any misconceptions cory and i may have if if you can uh around the uh impulse to do certain things that that that cory suggested at the very least

Carter 1:04:55

number one calls to action are

Carter 1:04:57

are everywhere and that's what what should be that is the you never

Corey 1:05:02

never have enough you can never

Carter 1:05:03

never have a car right

Carter 1:05:04

this is this is what happens um in a political campaign pain now this this hire a ux you need you need to meet mark

Zain 1:05:10

mark i get to know mark uh i've already known mark i'll tell you that you can actually and then zane knows mark button can you add his zane knows mark button onto the website this is people can have that choice this

Carter 1:05:21

this is a very professional website it does what it's supposed to achieve uh

Carter 1:05:25

uh it tells us a story however there is one glaring weakness and i i'm actually surprised that cory didn't pick up on it and And that is that the story that is being told in this website is missing a giant chunk of the story that's being told about the brand in general. The brand in general, the best thing that they have is the video.

Carter 1:05:47

And the video is not here.

Zain 1:05:49

I don't see that. Are you talking about, just so I listen and I'm clear, are you talking about the newest video that they've done or like the daily show? It's not on the website. no

Carter 1:05:57

no no the the one that um the one the video uh the video that starts off with the daily show clips and then goes into his his his history as a as a hockey player the one that you guys were referencing earlier with the big h on the on the jersey that video is money in the bank it

Carter 1:06:14

it tells a story about who mark carney is and it really defines the brand in a way that this website does not and

Carter 1:06:21

and this website while it is good while it is functional while it does the job that it's supposed to do it

Carter 1:06:26

isn't doing the job of establishing the brand in the same fashion that the webs the video is the very first thing why is

Zain 1:06:33

is it not there i don't ask you i'm not asking like be responsible for it why do you think it's not there because you're also the same guy because we made the comment you're also the same guy who made the comment that embedding youtube is like a 15 year old exercise which is what freeland's done so i'm curious what you're like to me that i almost thought of you saying that about her as a rationale for why you don't have yours on

Carter 1:06:54

you're gonna have the video or you just got to make it look like you know you don't want to watch the next video is you know um whatever you're streaming right like you don't want it to pop up with now watch the next video on your streaming application you know this is great for

Zain 1:07:09

for that if folks ever wonder you can

Zain 1:07:12

can yeah but the

Carter 1:07:13

the point of the exercise should be to put up a video on this and why it's there i think it's just a factor of not

Carter 1:07:21

not wanting to make too many any changes to

Carter 1:07:23

to a website that's doing one job, and

Carter 1:07:25

and that one job is supposed to be registering liberals.

Carter 1:07:29

We can debate whether it's doing that job well enough. But I suspect that most of the liberals that have been registered have actually been registered through the Liberal Party's own

Carter 1:07:38

own portal. I know that that's where things seem to be.

Zain 1:07:42

the front door of the campaign, so to speak, which

Carter 1:07:44

which is what every campaign is

Zain 1:07:45

is kind of first form, second form, right?

Carter 1:07:46

You're not getting that data capture. It doesn't work. You can't build a website that does the data capture we talked about this a little bit in the last episode you can't get that data capture on

Carter 1:07:58

on the website you can get the data capture for why why sign up because

Carter 1:08:02

because it just won't allow you to do the sign up it's a technical thing and then flip

Carter 1:08:06

flip it through to the to the primary site at the liberal list or the liberal side it just did that on nenshi

Zain 1:08:12

nenshi but i guess it was is different portal different sort of different

Carter 1:08:15

different portal different softwares so

Carter 1:08:17

so this is instead

Carter 1:08:19

instead it's sign up for updates which is sign up so we can get you know contact you and find out you know more if but it's not the same as register now and get your and be registered with the liberal party carter

Zain 1:08:32

carter but while i have you any other constructive deltas and constructive changes you would make uh you mentioned the video you i feel like you're you're you like the brand that it doesn't take too many shots does it tie into your first comment though which i know sounded like a bit of a throwaway at the beginning of the show which is like you guys are looking 100

Zain 1:08:49

100 years down down 100 yards down the field, right? This is just the first step. So, like, you're not necessarily looking for groundbreaking innovation. You're not necessarily looking for certain things. You're looking to get through this process.

Carter 1:09:03

this a website for the next prime minister of Canada?

Carter 1:09:08

And I think the answer is yes and no.

Zain 1:09:10

You want people to hold

Carter 1:09:11

hold you to that bar, though? Yeah, I do. I think that this should be something that, you know, is it is it close to the website of the next prime minister of canada it's pretty close is it the website of the next prime minister of canada maybe

Carter 1:09:26

maybe with the video and a few design tweaks like i think that if you were to if

Carter 1:09:31

if i was running the campaign i'd probably be saying okay we're doing a significant overhaul

Carter 1:09:36

we're going to pop a brand new website tomorrow once the register is liberal is over and

Carter 1:09:40

and that new website is going to have the

Carter 1:09:43

it's going to tell more of the the story it's

Carter 1:09:45

it's going to throw up a couple policy pieces it's going to be talking about mark carney the prime minister not mark carney the guy who's trying to shill for registrations interesting

Zain 1:09:55

interesting yeah and there's to be said you make a good point we are going to reach a sort of chapter change in this leadership race where the sprint for registrations and selling i guess selling memberships was it's conventionally said is going to end and we're going to enter this new sort of era in terms of what that looks like. Corey, I'll get to your constructive delta, but Carter makes an interesting point. Minimal policy, if any, on the Carney page, I'm just looking at that right now, versus Freeland, minimal policy, but does have a party

Zain 1:10:25

party renewal plan, a six-step party renewal strategy, which I think is interesting from the perspective of audience as well, right? Carter talks here about, hold me to the standard of next Prime Minister of Canada. Freeland is wrapping wrapping herself in the flag, making sure she's centered as liberal, and then talking about the party. So they've, you know, deliberately or not chosen distinct swim lanes, even in their lack thereof, and or chosen policy prescriptions that they've put out there. Respond to Carter, anything else on your constructive delta list for Mark Carney?

Corey 1:10:57

So I'm not fussed with his video not being on the website. First of all, we live in a more of like an ecosystem environment now. And there are a lot of channels that can carry that. But there's a a very practical reason not to rely on people going to your website to find your video i think actually i will say the carney campaign i tried to find it on youtube and i really struggled and i think that's a big miss right because sometimes you just go to where you think videos are and you want to find it but the reason you want to drive people to those other channels the social channels whether it be twitter or facebook or

Corey 1:11:28

or youtube or any of them rather than them going to an embedded edit version on your page is drum roll please nobody fucking shares it when it's on your page all of the social shareability that's built in and the way that the systems try to ping you to kind of retweet and like and move it forward and propagate it does not exist on an embed which is why people have moved away from an embed they want if you're going to look for the video for you to go use it in a way that you are then going to further propagate it here so i take steven's point but i actually think if you create a video with buzz you don't want to embed it you actually want You want it to run its life cycle on social channels, and then you warehouse it on your

Carter 1:12:05

your website. What's it like being so wrong all the time? It's an interesting dynamic,

Zain 1:12:08

dynamic, though. Corey makes, which is that if the video is what you watched, and the link associated with the text on that tweet sends you to markcarney.ca, and then you're thrown the video again, you're kind of sent into a boot loop. But Carter also makes a compelling argument, which is if you go to the website, the video is the greatest sales pitch in order to get you to sign up, and it's missing. so i could see both sides of like the constructive tactical argument i'm

Corey 1:12:33

i'm going to point out to both of you that we talked about this a decade ago more than a decade ago when we all worked together do you recall we we discussed how people end up on homepages yes right and we talked a lot about this there's a hub and spoke model and increasingly people go in through the spokes they're not going to the hub and then going out they're coming in through one place they're ending up at the hub and then they're going out to another spoke and that to me like carter i just assumed it was was intentional i assume they were saying to be honest i did find the website especially based

Zain 1:13:01

based on the freeland content through the

Corey 1:13:03

the video yeah they

Corey 1:13:04

they go here and then we get them to do other things respond

Zain 1:13:06

respond to this carter i think it's a nerdy but very interesting debate to me

Carter 1:13:11

i retain the position that

Carter 1:13:13

that telling the story was the most important thing and

Carter 1:13:16

and it is a better story when told by the video and that's what the website is designed to do the

Carter 1:13:22

the website is not just designed to simply register members. Now, I think that we'll probably see a change in the coming days.

Corey 1:13:30

Yeah. Well, look, I just also assume the website will be refreshed now that the call to action is being refreshed. And I assume now that it's run its course through social media, you're going to see the video warehouse there. But I assumed it was all pretty

Corey 1:13:43

pretty practical strategy. Anything

Zain 1:13:44

Anything else on Carney? Can we move to Gold? I think we should.

Zain 1:13:51

Carter, can I start with you on this one? Please. An interesting website, hero image, large hero image of Karina Gould on it. The KG being used on the main page with the Canadian flag, but not necessarily just like a standard issue Canadian flag. There is some unique design elements to this, including the little triangle at the bottom. Once again, for folks, go see this. So you don't rely on my descriptions for this. has a singular call to as a donate register singular call to action videos on it and then has some written text visual

Zain 1:14:25

visual identity brand carter start where you want what did you like what you did not like and then we'll talk about the constructive deltas there on in queen of gold.ca i

Carter 1:14:34

i love this site i

Carter 1:14:35

i think the picture of her in action as the hero shot is super strong i think that uh the kg makes a tremendous amount of sense for the generations that that she's trying to talk to um you

Carter 1:14:47

you know she's this

Carter 1:14:49

this is a introductory page for a person who's not well known um outside of the political circles uh

Carter 1:14:57

uh certainly not well known between the 300 000 people that are going to be

Carter 1:15:01

be participating in this and i want to know more this

Carter 1:15:04

this is this a site that that says to me uh this is someone i want to talk to this is someone i want to talk about and i quite like it i love the uh the

Carter 1:15:13

the maple leaf is the a and the katrina as well or karina as well um

Carter 1:15:17

you know a little bit further down the page i like this page a lot it's simple it

Carter 1:15:24

but it does it tells me that she's she's

Carter 1:15:28

wanting to to brand herself and wanting to create a true brand to last for longer than than the 45 days of this campaign but is

Zain 1:15:36

is it important the precursor to what Corey mentioned for herself. Rad, this is a Karina Gould exercise. This

Carter 1:15:42

This is a remember me in the future exercise.

Zain 1:15:46

Before I come to Corey, because I do want to give you a fair shake like

Zain 1:15:49

do with him, I'll go through your list. That's what you like. You

Zain 1:15:52

You noted the strategy. What do you not like?

Zain 1:15:56

What do I not like? It doesn't even have to be the website. The overall sort of brand presentation could be the text, could be any elements of this. You've seen the video. I

Carter 1:16:04

I don't like the maple leaf.

Carter 1:16:07

thought you just said you like that

Zain 1:16:08

you just no i like you like

Carter 1:16:09

like the maple leaf in the in the letter i like that oh i see the k but

Carter 1:16:14

i do not like the actual maple leaf there's too many points on it and

Carter 1:16:18

and by the way i'll mention

Zain 1:16:19

mention to people this is not going to be the podcast where we take this particular logo put it into illustrator uh look at the particular weighting uh you know do all that sort of design analysis other people are doing that online we're here to talk about the overall sort of brand, the story, what they're trying to communicate, and these aspects are part of it. So just to be clear, Carter's comment there and whatever Corey thinks about the Karina Gold logo, that's the extent of what we're going to do. We're not going to spend every second talking and dissecting the K, which I think is interesting. But I

Carter 1:16:48

I really like the site.

Carter 1:16:51

site. I really like the image. I would be hard-pressed to

Carter 1:16:55

to come up with more things I would change.

Zain 1:16:58

plus minus delta. Let's start with plus minus. we'll go to delta together okay

Corey 1:17:03

okay well absent any brand

Corey 1:17:05

brand goals which would be a huge mistake but i'll just say absent any brand goals this is the nicest looking web page in my opinion and there's a couple of reasons i say that i think that the palette is the nicest it's the most modern it's got the most interesting types uh you know fonts and typesets but i

Corey 1:17:22

don't love all of the choices but it's the most interesting it certainly is trying to you know convey a youthfulness i think think it's really funny and i was uh i was kind of smirking to myself here when steven said uh the kg makes sense for generations she wants to talk to because in my notes here i have

Corey 1:17:39

this gets into the negatives a bit this is an old person's idea of a young person right like this is this

Corey 1:17:44

this is this is what the website feels to me it feels very stuck in the era of around 2010

Corey 1:17:50

2010 to 20 well

Corey 1:17:51

well hey man it

Corey 1:17:53

feels stuck between 2010 2015 it's got a very like Like Roots Olympic attire and the Vancouver Olympic Games do

Corey 1:18:02

And I mean, that's even with like the choice of like the outdoor shots and all of that, right? And in some ways, it is the one that is the closest and most direct line from the existing liberal brand. And so this is kind of the paradox of Karina Gould's campaign to me. Like in some ways, she's youth and change because of who she is. But a lot of what she's saying is probably the most consistent with the Trudeau liberals and how the liberals have presented themselves over the past bit. And she's a very good communicator. But my negative is, I think this has not actually changed. I think that if you put this to Canadians, unless they are so wowed by the fact that you are younger, and like, you know, it also just wrecks my brain that she's a fair bit younger than me even, right? I

Corey 1:18:47

she's my age, yeah. yeah

Corey 1:18:50

when if they unless they're just wowed by that like it actually is the one that feels the most like the liberal party right now so when i was talking earlier about creating a brand maybe for the general maybe just for right now maybe for yourself i don't think this plays in the general i think this is not what the liberals need in the general they need that professional they need that polish they need that fight even that christia freeland's got i don't think they need this and um and it's fine but it is actually not that young like if you compare it to a gen z aesthetic if you compare it to a gen z aesthetic it's

Corey 1:19:24

it's not a gen z aesthetic does

Zain 1:19:25

does that status quote for you extend beyond the website though cory into her video and how she's communicating what she's saying it's

Corey 1:19:31

it's a walk and talk zane it's like the most played out state thing like don't get me wrong i'm not i'm not taking a shot at you you rode the wave at a good point you did really well with the nenshi walk and talk but this is like the

Corey 1:19:43

homage to your video and it's not done as well as your video right like it is a pretty traditional approach our video

Zain 1:19:48

video was a uh was inspired by dozens and hundreds that came before this is my point like

Zain 1:19:54

not to say anything that we've done is original and

Corey 1:19:56

and again i'm not and like you don't need to be original in politics but my point is it's not as young and not as hip as i think that it's coming off to steven that's

Corey 1:20:06

that's all all i'm saying it's

Carter 1:20:07

it's an old man's young and hip it's

Corey 1:20:11

it's an old person's idea of a young person

Zain 1:20:12

person you know when you guys are saying how the crane and gold uh being the youngest person in the race that's actually not true um there is someone else running uh that's true zane belch is running um for for later of the party and you can um you can of course uh find my website at full confidence

Corey 1:20:28

i actually think you're older than her zane how old are you can

Corey 1:20:31

can we dox you on this oh

Zain 1:20:32

oh that's fine I think she, she's also an 87 born, but

Zain 1:20:35

but she might be, uh,

Zain 1:20:37

I'm, I'm an 87 born. So Jesus,

Zain 1:20:39

full confidence, full confidence.ca. That's where you can, um, Carter, when you go to full confidence.ca, okay. That's a website that makes a lot of sense because it's got too many calls to action, but they all lead you to the same spot. I'm like Mark Carney.

Carter 1:20:54

I got to tell you, really good work. Full confidence.ca might be my favorite one.

Zain 1:20:59

Constructive Deltas about the creating gold website. site cory so you've got a criticism there it's more so a criticism of carter than it is karina gold yeah

Zain 1:21:06

that's true so but but like what what what would you constructively advise her to change well you know um what would you what would you suggest that this and i also find another comment interesting which i may want to hit on before i ask you for this absent any brand goals is what you said uh now insert the assumed brand goals of karina gold which

Zain 1:21:28

which i guess we'll borrow from Carter, remember

Zain 1:21:31

remember me in the future.

Zain 1:21:32

How is it that there's a remember me

Corey 1:21:33

me in the future website? If that's your brand goal. Let's just use

Zain 1:21:36

use it as a case, because

Corey 1:21:37

because Carter's put it on the table. Can I at least discount what we would assume the brand goals are, which is to try to win an election? I've already said why. I think it's actually continuity too much for the Liberals. It doesn't feel like the type of change that Canadians have talked to us about wanting, right? Right. Which is to be like a little more economically minded, to push forward into, you know, some of the, you

Corey 1:22:01

you know, more right wing impulses

Corey 1:22:05

impulses that the liberals sometimes have, shall we say. Right. But if your goal is to be remembered in the future, it's different from the other campaigns. It comes off a little bit younger simply because it is using a choice of fonts that's a little bit different than the other campaigns. pains right you don't have the serif sans serif debate you've got some of these like really chunky like blocky uh fonts and um you

Corey 1:22:29

you know i think it does okay on that front i definitely think because it feels both different and polished it will be remembered and she will kind of be perceived as the future and moving forward but uh but that's an internal uh perception that i'm not really sure that the public would necessarily feel that it needs to be a fair bit different I think, from the current liberal brand, to really align with the brand that she's trying to present, which is, I'm new, I'm change, I'm young.

Corey 1:22:57

The visuals don't say to me, new, change, young. They say, I found a really good liberal designer who's been working on liberal campaigns for 10 years, and they're the best at the version of liberal party that we have right now, but it's the liberal party we have right now.

Zain 1:23:11

Answer my question of, does this meet the objectives of remember me in the future carter's goal i

Corey 1:23:18

i mean the the the visual identity does not i think the combination of uh of all of the elements she's getting there and certainly i think just the raw talent that she has in speaking is

Corey 1:23:30

is why she's going to be remembered carter

Zain 1:23:33

carter anything else to to add on this list from a constructive delta or should we should we power through some some of the other individuals beyond what we'll call the top three. If

Carter 1:23:42

If we don't make it to number four, five, and six, then I think we're going to be disappointing the listeners.

Zain 1:23:47

Yeah, well, I think we have to. Let's do a – should we do the closest thing to a rapid fire? Let's do something

Corey 1:23:52

something like lightning round.

Zain 1:23:54

Yeah, who do you want to go for, Corey? You choose the person and you start, and you can direct them. So we've got a few other folks at the – Ruby Dahl on the table, Frank Bayless on the table. Who else do we have? I'm missing

Carter 1:24:04

missing – Damien Batiste.

Zain 1:24:05

That's right. I missed the final candidate that rounds out our six. uh chandra aria of course told today that he's not going to be an official candidate for the liberal party cory who do you want to start with of the three well

Corey 1:24:16

well let's start with ruby dala let's take it in the order you've done it here um this is a great example of your brand not just being what you present on a website it's really hard to get past the fact that ruby dala's brand is the stories about and i have no idea about how the office and authenticity played out but the the caregivers for her mother who came to like uh you know another town hall and said they she She took my passports away and I couldn't go anywhere. And the idea that she took a limousine to a liberal convention and the idea that her colleagues thought that she was very self-absorbed and her brand when she sort of reached the end of her political career or what we thought was the end of her political career was

Corey 1:24:55

not fucking stellar. And

Zain 1:24:57

to be clear, if someone's watching, ruby4pm.ca is this website. Keep going, Corey.

Corey 1:25:02

Yeah. And so, of course, she's been doing other things in the interim, like she's a human being who has, you know, days

Corey 1:25:09

days to fill. And this website is, I think, I wouldn't even say it's a throwback to like 2011 or whenever she lost her seat. It's a throwback, I think.

Corey 1:25:21

I don't even know what it's to, but like, it also doesn't feel like it's even remotely connected

Corey 1:25:26

connected to or aware of the modern Liberal Party and the way it presents itself. In a good way? no not in a good way or connected to or aware of what her personal brand is like you know i'm not saying that you want to background your mother when you are running for office like it'd be a pretty weird thing to be ashamed of but to have your mother as part of that prominent story as i'm reading through that content i'm like oh fucking right her i remember that story about her mother right and it's the story i just told you and so i think it doesn't yeah

Corey 1:25:59

yeah here's what what i'll say and i'm trying not to be too shitty it

Corey 1:26:03

it is so clueless of context that

Corey 1:26:06

that it is almost baffling right it's clueless of how she is perceived it's clueless of how the party has evolved it is just like time

Corey 1:26:14

time froze and she just walked out of a 10-year trip in a parallel universe and created this website and created this candidacy and it blows my mind it just it seems like i just don't understand you know what's missing on this website more than anything for me

Corey 1:26:30

anything that makes me think she is a rational person for thinking she should even be in this race.

Zain 1:26:36

Carter, what's your, what's your take when you see this?

Carter 1:26:39

I agree with Corey 100%.

Zain 1:26:42

Well, okay, let's, let's talk about the politics beyond the brand for a second. Why do you think she's doing this?

Carter 1:26:47

I have no idea. I think that, you know, if this is a re-entry into politics, she's not going to win this, this leadership. If this is a re-entry into politics, I mean, It's being done, I think, in a very ham-handed way.

Carter 1:27:01

not doing anything to defeat the idea that she's self-centered and has an

Carter 1:27:08

an inflated sense of self. I mean, she's

Carter 1:27:13

she's kind of doing the exact opposite of Mark Carney by floating all of her credentials and trying to make herself into a

Carter 1:27:21

a story, frankly, that hasn't existed for a decade plus. us um i

Carter 1:27:28

i'm not a fan of

Carter 1:27:29

of this website i'm not a fan of the brand that she's trying to to establish i

Carter 1:27:34

the photographs alone i mean she's

Carter 1:27:36

she's a very beautiful woman

Carter 1:27:39

and that becomes the driving force of the campaign there's

Zain 1:27:43

there's something to add here into the mix cory this is this could be brand this could be motivation we can kind of all of it's all tied together at some point um 775

Zain 1:27:53

775 000 instagram followers like

Zain 1:27:59

there may not be a there there conventional

Zain 1:28:02

conventional political wisdom says there's not a there there but

Zain 1:28:06

but it's perhaps part of her motivation to say you

Zain 1:28:10

you know maybe there's a there there and and we talk about other candidates having social media and their presence on social media this is different this This is nearly a million followers on IG, and I haven't

Zain 1:28:21

her other platforms. But there's something to be said about that. Or is there?

Corey 1:28:27

Well, there might be. I mean, I honestly don't know. And wouldn't it be funny if like, so Carter has dropped this a couple of times, but certainly we're hearing that the liberals have had quite a surge of registrations, and they're probably going to end up around where they were in 2013. And wouldn't it be fucking, I mean, peak comedy if half of those or more came from Ruby Dallas, like whatever her version of the K-Hive is, right? I just think that would be really, really funny because

Corey 1:28:52

it doesn't mean she's going to be successful going forward. Even if she somehow managed to win the Liberal leadership, I don't know. This just doesn't look like it would do anything

Carter 1:29:03

Liberal's fortunes. This is not a winning Canadian brand.

Zain 1:29:07

Let's go with Baylis. Let's move on to Frank Baylis. Frank, B-A-Y-L-I-S dot C-A. Carter, can I start with you? Plus minus delta. You got a hero image of Frank. Um, you know, um, portrait mode, uh, interestingly lit, uh, folks can check it out. And then a, uh, white, black and, uh, and red website across the board. What do you think of this brand?

Carter 1:29:32

What do you like? What do you not like?

Carter 1:29:34

I have this feeling like I've

Carter 1:29:36

I've entered a mob era with the second photograph. I mean, he comes straight out of the Sopranos for

Carter 1:29:43

for me. um but the the

Carter 1:29:48

is unknown to us right like he's known to to a small group of people he's known within his own community but

Carter 1:29:54

but he's not known to Canada and

Carter 1:29:59

really don't get a real sense of who the guy is um he does have some policy elements but we really don't get a sense of what this brand is trying to create because it's not really a brand it's

Carter 1:30:11

it's the candidate page from 2011, right?

Carter 1:30:14

right? Like it's, that's what it feels like to me.

Carter 1:30:17

This is the same page that you would get, um, in the standard website package from the liberals in 2011. Am I close to the right year or is it 2015?

Corey 1:30:30

Yeah, 15. But like, I think your point is well taken. It's a, it's a weird one, right like uh uh

Corey 1:30:38

you know it has a real connor has always followed politics vibe which is not fair to him because uh there is uh there is certainly like some there there like he was a member of parliament and i think we have to acknowledge that but it it feels um i

Corey 1:30:53

i don't know i mean like i think when the reaction of everybody is like frank bayless is entering the race and he's the first one in that's fucking weird right you think okay well how do i make that not weird and you have to start thinking about that mission and

Corey 1:31:05

in a funny way like if you're going to be the candidate that comes from nowhere you have to own it a little bit more than he is and so this is a great example of like audience expectation versus so whenever you're creating a presentation i like to tell people you need to there's three things you need to know right like know your goals know your audience know yourself and

Corey 1:31:24

and if your goal is to be liberal leader and

Corey 1:31:26

and you know your audience has deep skepticism you

Corey 1:31:28

you have to have the self-awareness enough to know like i can't put up a page that just says look

Corey 1:31:33

look at all of these random awards i've won look at the fact that i sold this company that my mother started for a billion dollars clearly i should be prime minister you've got to fucking lean into that a bit and say like you're probably like i'm imagining a video almost where it's like you're probably thinking who the hell is frank bayless well let me tell you who frank bayless is he's an entrepreneur of the year he's a business person he's experienced politician he's somebody who passionately cares about politics who's been involved in montreal politics who's been involved in canada politics who's done international deals like you all you know there is all we always say don't repeat the charge but this is not this this is meeting people where they are and taking a few steps with them right like i am going to be that outsider that you're all so crazy for and the funny thing is in a funny way like ruby dala has a like he was a trudeau mp you know like he was an mp under the trudeau government it's just like i'm not even quite sure the outsider thing works for him in its current construct so that's that's kind kind of my overview my final point is how many fucking logos do you have frank like there was one logo when i googled you like there was this little like i don't know like looks like a sprocket then there was the maple leaf and a shield and then there was a version that was just the shield without the maple leaf pick

Corey 1:32:40

pick one and you know what tell the story that starts from a common understanding between you and your audience which is they have none as to why you're in this race

Zain 1:32:51

before i leave frank corey your comments about the logo i didn't get a chance to ask us about the carny logo what impact do you think it had on his brand or image or whatever you would want to call it the the i'm going to call it the logo fuck up you may not think it qualifies but but where and but what sort of impact does something like that have on on a day one basis i

Corey 1:33:13

i think almost none when you clean it up as quickly as he did which he did uh that's the kind of thing that people are always pointing to and they say no it's a bit of a gaffe and obviously if you're trying to present as a professional that's not great but they cleaned it up so fast it's hard these

Corey 1:33:29

these things happen right and um they shouldn't as regularly as they seem to have in canadian politics the last bit but they fucking happen but it's a classic fail fast don't sit there and and fight with this you know collection agency or say no no it's okay this logo is here say holy fuck it's a logo for a leadership campaign it has zero value just put up a new one make sure there's a maple leaf in it let's fucking go which seems to be what they did carter

Zain 1:33:53

carter yeah you're on the inside of that thing what do you think i

Carter 1:33:57

think the speed with which they reacted was very good i mean it came across almost like the

Carter 1:34:03

the first one didn't happen it happened so quickly right

Zain 1:34:07

we've got one final candidate to discuss jamie batiste he's the mp from sydney victoria and also the first indigenous indigenous person running for uh the liberal party of canada leadership were

Zain 1:34:21

were you guys able to track down his website yeah

Corey 1:34:25

of it's interesting right he

Corey 1:34:27

he has a website yeah it is got an expired security certificate and it's for his re-election campaign however it seemed to be a lot of this is what's interesting however

Zain 1:34:36

however what's interesting is that if you spell his name name j-a-m-e

Zain 1:34:47

you land on a website a balanced vision for canada uh

Corey 1:34:53

then i guess i didn't

Zain 1:34:53

didn't land on his website no this is what's fascinating i actually wanted to bring i know you guys didn't find it so i wanted to bring this up i think this is really interesting how

Zain 1:35:00

do you spell it how are you spelling

Zain 1:35:03

so his last name is the same b-a-t-t-i-s-t-e spell the first name J-A-I-M

Zain 1:35:11

So J-A-I-M-E-Y-B-A-T-T-I-S-T-E dot com You get onto a Squarespace site

Zain 1:35:18

just to make sure this guy gets

Corey 1:35:19

gets a fair shake. I can't even get to it. I mean, you're going to have to drop this

Corey 1:35:22

the chat. I'm going to

Zain 1:35:23

to link this to you. I think this is what's fascinating about this. Okay, I think you might have found an unlaunched website. No, it's

Corey 1:35:29

it's on his Twitter.

Zain 1:35:30

It's really interesting. It's on his Twitter.

Zain 1:35:31

It's not linked many places. It's not in the bio. No,

Zain 1:35:35

not .ca. No, not .ca. So I've sent

Corey 1:35:38

sent it to you

Corey 1:35:40

Okay. Because I do want to give him a fair shake.

Corey 1:35:44

Wow, we get to react in real time. This is exciting. You do,

Zain 1:35:47

do, you do, you do. This

Zain 1:35:50

And this video is also on his socials, that part you've seen. Interestingly, he does use the Liberal logo, which I believe you're not supposed to.

Corey 1:35:56

You're not supposed to do that. And

Zain 1:35:58

he's got this J and NB, which seems to

Zain 1:36:02

to be surrounded by some artwork around it. Carter, you're wincing, which means you're going to go first.

Carter 1:36:12

I mean, it's not great. You

Carter 1:36:15

You know, I really want

Carter 1:36:18

want to see the First Nations story. i really want to see um you

Carter 1:36:25

you know jamie take

Carter 1:36:27

take off and be as strong as possible but even

Carter 1:36:30

even in his his video he's got a different spelling of his first name so it's going to be a little tricky to find him um

Carter 1:36:38

so yeah that is

Corey 1:36:39

a weird one i i'm wondering if he lost control of the site somehow i

Carter 1:36:45

know i hope for the best for him i i always think that we we root for For the

Carter 1:36:49

the underdog, and we root for First Nations in Canada,

Carter 1:36:54

it's an important story to be told. This does not tell it.

Zain 1:36:59

Corey, give me your quick reaction, and then we'll wrap it up here.

Corey 1:37:04

Well, look, I think it is actually summarized, and his goals and his brand and what he's trying to do are so well summarized by the quote that he has at the end. He says, before there was a premier Wap Canoe, there had to be an Elijah Harper. Harper. Before there was a President Barack Obama, there had to be a Jesse Jackson. There must always be people willing to try and there must always be people willing to take the first steps, even if their journey is one meant to pave the way for future generations. He's basically saying, he doesn't think he's in it to win it. He's in it to be a trailblazer so that the next, you know, up and coming, maybe even himself in a future contest, but the next up and coming Indigenous leader says, fuck yeah, I won't, you know, there are people who've done this before. Jamie did this this back in 2025 why there's a path here i can do this and i think that's great um i think if anything he's selling himself a little too short uh even if you're not in it to win it act

Corey 1:37:57

act like you're in it to win it okay

Zain 1:37:58

okay i'm gonna ask you guys final three questions here as we can go rapid fire carter three more questions

Carter 1:38:04

did rapid fire for the last 30 minutes best

Zain 1:38:07

best visual identity overall so excluding everything what looks and feels the best to to you, if you were associating this without the political goals in mind, without having the Stephen Carter strategist hat on, and you were assessing this as just simply a, oh, I like how that looks, who

Corey 1:38:22

who would you choose? Oh, the aesthetic.

Corey 1:38:23

yeah, best visual identity. Just

Zain 1:38:25

purely visual identity aesthetic. You're assessing this purely on like, oh, I like this a lot. You don't have to explain to me if it aligns with the audience and the political goals, but who's your best visual identity? I've got two other questions after this.

Carter 1:38:36

I think it's Mark Carney.

Zain 1:38:38

Carter's going to go with his guy, Carney. Corey, who are you going with? On just the aesthetic alone um just the visual identity alone aesthetic

Corey 1:38:47

aesthetic goes to carnie uh uh the logo goes to gold

Zain 1:38:53

interesting do you like the the the carina or the kg with the maple leaf in between to talk specifics

Corey 1:38:58

specifics about kg i actually don't like the use of both of them we didn't get into that but if you're going to use the maple leaf as an a in one context and then use it in another it starts to feel like an a and that's confusing to me like

Carter 1:39:09

like all of a sudden it's a tag yeah

Corey 1:39:11

yeah like like all of a sudden it's CAG, right? And so that's my problem. CAG.

Zain 1:39:16

Corey, I'm going to start with you on this one.

Zain 1:39:18

Best personal brand. Who's done this best for themselves? Who's branded themselves the best?

Corey 1:39:26

Oh, I think Carney. I think if you, because now we're bringing it into an idea of how you're coming off and how that brand might be useful in the future. And yeah,

Corey 1:39:36

I mean, that's pretty solid work he's done. But you know, again, I do want to say like, Like in some ways, I

Corey 1:39:42

I don't want to take anything away from him because he understood the assignment and he did it. But he also had an easier assignment because his job is to be the state professional banker. And that's a lot easier than what Chrystia Freeland was going for.

Zain 1:39:55

Carter, best personal brand that you saw or that you've seen in this liberal race?

Carter 1:40:01

I want to say Carney, but I also want to say Gould. I think that for someone that was as unknown as she was, she's really leapt off the page for me. So, and if I say Kearney back to back, I'm going to just look like a shell.

Zain 1:40:15

already look like a

Zain 1:40:17

a shell. No, it's fine. Yeah, don't worry about it. Here's a final question. You can answer this however you please, but I find this to be interesting as like three practitioners talking about this. Which of these brands would you want to take and find your most talented designer in your network and say, give me 10 hours with this? i want to do something with it so it could be it could be you know any of these that we've seen even the the final three that we rapid fired and said i've got i'm going to take my favorite best most interesting designer and 10 hours uh and i want this project which project would you choose uh between the six that we have uh discussed today freeland

Corey 1:40:55

freeland um but i do want to caution caution, I

Corey 1:41:00

I don't think, and I said this, but I really want to underline, you could make that brand amazing. You couldn't just hand it to one of the other candidates and make it work, right? Your brand is really tied to who you are as an individual, how you're perceived as an individual and what your goals are. And so, well,

Corey 1:41:16

well, I think that it's the one with the most

Corey 1:41:18

unrealized potential, I suppose I'll say. I also don't, I think it's the least transferable.

Zain 1:41:25

Carter, last question to you. 10 hours, a designer or a creative of your choice, which project of these would you want to take on as a 10-hour sprint passion project?

Carter 1:41:40

I really do. I think that the First Nations elements would be fascinating to work with. I

Carter 1:41:43

I think that he wants to lean right into it and wants to tell a story that is unique in Canadian politics today. And I think that that would be really fun to work on.

Zain 1:41:55

We did it, guys. A tight 35 minutes on the liberal brands. We are going to leave it there. That is a wrap on episode 1848E of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, half asleep, Corey Hogan. We shall see you next time.

Transcript