Spending millions on ads and bombarding voters with unsolicited texts didn’t pay off for Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots because “everyone could see the buffoonery”.
The minor party failed to win a single seat in the 2025 federal election, despite spending a reported $60 million on advertising across newspapers, television screens, social media platforms and billboards.
Creative agencies told AdNews that while Palmer’s campaign got people talking, it went “seismically wrong” with his party receiving just 1.85% of the national vote.
James Cowie, head of copy and group creative partner at DDB Melbourne, said the campaign was a masterclass in what not to do.
“From the spray and pray approach of his non-existent ad-targeting, to his unsolicited mobile spamming, his mangled art direction and copy, the decision to use bad happy-snap selfies of him and Tucker Carlson in out-of-home,” he said.
“Did it help his campaign that Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs made MAGA Republicanism even more unpopular on these shores than ever before in the run up to the election? No.
“But there you have it, a political campaign without any redeeming features; a case study in what $60 million dollars of political advertising can’t buy you.”
Penny Buck, founder and executive creative director at Jane Doe Creation, said Palmer’s campaign ignored real-world perspectives.
“Palmer’s failure is a reminder that you can buy reach, but not relevance. And frankly, I’m glad the idea that ‘money can’t buy everything’ still holds true,” she told AdNews.
“Ideas have to be grounded in real-world understanding, not ego.
“If a campaign doesn’t connect, it doesn’t count. And if it doesn’t count with over half the electorate – who happen to be women – you simply won’t win.”
Adrian Elton, an independent creative, said US-style culture war tactics backfired, delivering zero return on investment.
“Clive clearly hadn’t factored in how uniformly on-the-nose his rotting cadaver grade headlines were to the majority of Australians,” he said.
“We’re talking the kind of discordant dog whistling that would have made even the mangiest mongrel convulse and cringe with embarrassment.
“It takes a special kind of arrogance to schlub your way from one election to the next, hoovering up squillions of dollars of media space, without spending a cent on developing a coherent campaign message or designing something that doesn’t look like the limp efforts of a work-experience kid.
“There was no seduction. There was no charm. Just venomous idiocy writ large against an acid lemon backdrop.”
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