Has Clive Palmer’s resourceful use of radio during the election been effective? And why does his involvement with Jackie O’s hermit crab, Herpe, smell so fishy?

The AirCheck™ website’s ‘Did You Know?’ section contains three fascinating graphs on the frequency of paid political advertising in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney radio stations.

There are some surprises. Most importantly, the Palmer United Party has clearly spent the most on radio advertising. The reasons behind this are fairly obvious – Clive Palmer has the capacity to splash around money, and he needs to, given how ambitious his campaign is (he has fielded candidates in almost every seat).

Thanks to the Airplay figures the impact of Palmer’s radio advertising money in the election campaign is on display. 

The advertising’s impact is not particularly impressive, and seems to be yielding diminishing returns. Until about a week ago Palmer’s vote had flatlined despite continued massive advertising spending.

While PUP has achieved a relatively significant share of the intended vote, given this is their first election (approximately 4% nationally according to polls), their potential single Queensland senate seat victory is a mile from Palmer’s prediction that his party would form a majority in the House of Reps. If political advertising was everything, Palmer would be heading for the Lodge next week, but clearly the reverse is true.

It seems late in his campaign Palmer has been advised that radio advertising means very little unless it is backed up with relentless groundwork. He has responded to this with more than a touch of absurdity, clearly taking the view that ‘all publicity is good publicity’. He recently gave a twerking demonstration on 2Day FM, covered ABBA on 7HO and 7’s Sunrise, and blamed Rupert Murdoch’s divorce with ex-wife Wendy Deng on the assumption that (as he alleged) she was a Chinese spy.

Commercial radio stations, especially those with a young mainstream demographic, have lapped up this change of tactic. The shift from relatively respected businessman to comedy aspirant seems to be paying dividends. This is being reflected in polling which since last week has had PUP in with a serious chance of taking the final QLD senate seat.

We have seen other politicians resort to comic relief at the late stage of their campaign (although not as dramatically as Palmer), for instance, Rudd joined Hamish and Andy on the final day of campaigning and both the PM and Opposition leader played the ‘yes/no’ game on Kyle and Jackie O today (see our related stories).

Commercial radio’s new-found excitement for Palmer was reflected in Kyle and Jackie O’s political segment yesterday. Jackie O brought into the studio a hermit crab which would be placed on a wooden table with the faces of Abbott and Rudd stuck to it. The hermit crab was to be set down on the table, and whoever’s face it stopped on was its prediction of who would become the next Prime Minister.

In a strange, could we even say staged, twist of events, Clive Palmer phoned into the station and demanded that his face be placed on the table too, hoping that Herpe would settle on him instead. The duo seemed to be more than happy to appease Palmer, essentially acknowledging him to be third in line for the top job. Of course, this compliment could not be any further from the truth.

But it doesn’t end there. In this video it is plain to see that the table had Clive Palmer’s face on it all along. If you skip to 1.09 of the video, you can see the yellow of PUP reflected in the cup in the middle of the table – along with the red of Labor and the blue of Liberal. 

The hosts tell a different story though – “We have a last minute caller who has a little slight problem with what we’re doing – Clive Palmer”. Palmer responds that he was left out of the debates and can’t be left out of the hermit crab race too. In response the hosts pretend to decide that Palmer should be included in the game too. They supposedly changed the table to include a slice of Clive’s head. 

Turning to another part of the political spectrum the Liberal Party have spent a relatively low amount of money on radio advertising – far less than Labor. A point made on the Gruen Nation panel helps to elucidate this. As Abbott’s lead has opened rather than closed (as some expected) during the campaign, there is a chest of attack advertising that simply hasn’t been opened. It makes sense – after six years of being branded ‘Captain Negative’  – for Abbott’s advisers to want a continue the focus on Abbott the person, rather than Abbott the combatant. 

There are many other observations that can be made about which radio stations the various political parties have targeted their limited (or not-so-limited) advertising budget at. Consistent perhaps, with his pledge to govern for all Australians, Palmer seems to have turned a blind eye to the key demographics his party needs to win over, spending equal money on two polar opposite ends of the spectrum – talkback radio and mainstream youth stations (such as Nova and 2Day).

The other parties, including minors, have been far more shrewd. The Labor Party, which is behind and needs to continue strengthening its voting base to ensure no heartland seats are won by The Greens, has targeted its advertising at youth stations. That is consistent with Rudd’s push on legalising gay marriage, which he spruiked to the Big Brother house this week. Interestingly, The Greens, who have a self-imposed cap on political donations, are notably absent from the results.

Smoothfm seems to be seen as the go-to station for conservative listeners, with the Family First Party, Australian Christians, and Rise Up Australia all spending a significant amount of their radio advertising budget on this station. The investment the Sex Party has made in getting their adds on Smooth may muddy this theory slightly, but they have positioned themselves more as a libertarian party this election – and will be preferencing conservatives over radicals on Saturday.

The full advertising figures can be viewed here. AirCheck™ is a radioinfo advertiser.