(Image: Mitchell Squire/Private Media)

On the unofficial campaign trail in Geelong last week, Scott Morrison began singing the praises of the ute. Specifically, a statue of a big ute on a stick.

“Well, I love utes,” the prime minister said. “How good are utes? And how good would a big ute be?”

This is key to the Morrison brand. Daggy dad, blokes, beer, baseball caps, eskies, footy…. utes. ScoMo again wants the electorate to forget he’s a career Liberal Party hack and fall for the blue-collar-bloke’s-bloke cosplay.

The problem is that voters are, maybe, starting to see through the schtick. A series of bad days in Parliament, bitter division, and that whole liar thing has stung Morrison. Labor Leader Anthony Albanese, meanwhile, has new glasses, and looks trim and match-fit, with an edge in the polls and a spring in his step.

But election season kicks off with neither side confident. Both men hold negative approval ratings. Neither seems to excite, or set the country on fire. For all Labor’s recent polling dominance, there’s a feeling voters don’t really know or care what it’s about.

As both leaders huff and puff around the country trying to convince people they’re the real deal, the million-dollar question remains: how do you sell a prime minister?

A scared market

When selling a product, it’s best to start by looking at the market. According to RMIT marketing professor Francis Farrelly, the market — in this case the electorate — is feeling uneasy after years of upheaval. It’s worried about the state of the economy, the ongoing health crisis, and the now less remote possibility of conflict in the region.

“The way I would see it … [the electorate is] going to be risk-averse,” he said. “They’ll be looking, more than anything, for people with a steady hand. Even if they don’t necessarily like the individual, that’s gonna be what they look for.”

For Toby Ralph, a marketer who’s worked on more than 50 elections around the world, next year’s contest will be a contest of acceptability versus risk with the economy as its theme.

“Labor have to convince them that Morrison and the LNP have stuffed up and ought be booted out, while the LNP must argue that Albanese and Labor are a risk and it is another round of better the devil you know,” he said.

All this should be troubling for Labor. Almost two years into the pandemic, Australians are well aware that COVID-19 means chaos lurks around every corner. Just as soon as the east coast began to ease into summer, along came a new variant, and a return of uncertainty and fear. In that context, stability might be the strongest asset Morrison has, even if his personal approval has declined. On top of that, there’s the pandemic halo effect. Around Australia, and the world, COVID has been great for incumbents, Donald Trump excepted.

How to cut through

How does Labor convince an uncertain electorate to take another risk? Jess Lilley, creative director and co-founder at The Open Arms, says although Albanese struggles to cut through, one approach could be to emphasise his likeability by targeting the kinds of people Morrison ignores.

“The biggest thing he could do is talk to women, or talk to not-white men,” she said. “I think that’s the demographic that Morrison has stitched up.”

As an antidote to Morrison’s performative blokiness, it might work. It could also reinforce the Morrison government’s very real problems with women, well-documented over the past 12 months. So far, a problem for Labor is it has run a relatively risk-averse line in opposition, burnt after the experience of 2019.

Where it has gone hard is over Morrison’s honesty, increasingly willing to accuse the prime minister of lying. Lilley reckons some of that “lying liar who lies” stuff is starting to stick. But for how long?

“They just need to plant that seed enough that it talks to swing voters around election time,” she said. “But they’ve gotta keep it alive. The news cycle is so quick that people forget.”

But Farrelly is sceptical about how fruitful those personality-based attacks can be for Labor. He says while people see Albanese as a “decent bloke” he needs to provide a substantive reason why an uncertain, disengaged electorate should embrace the devil they don’t know.

“It’s not about how bad the other guy is. It’s about what can you point to that has substance in its own right given the risk-averse nature of people going to vote,” he said.

But there’s a bigger problem for both leaders, for their campaign staff, and for journalists trying to read the tea leaves. Unlike those in the game or watching it closely, the people deciding the next election are totally disengaged.

“Next May the result won’t be about the grand narratives accepted by the mass of engaged and committed voters,” Ralph said. “Rather it will be about local issues to the 20% of persuadable people in just eight key marginals.

“Many of these key players wouldn’t vote if they didn’t have to and have low regard for all politicians. They are far from stupid; they are simply disengaged and think pollies as a class are a bunch of incompetent arseholes getting too many perks.”

In 2019, Morrison won this demographic while the pundit class looked the other way. Next year another tight election will be won by whoever can animate the disengaged.

Labor hopes chipping away at the government’s credibility will be enough. The Coalition hopes fear of the other will lead voters’ to hold their noses. For either side, winning over people sick of politics will be a tough sell.

“The quiet Australia will be stronger than ever,” Farrelly says. “They’ve had a gutful.”