Where is the Sinn Fein digital campaign?

With just over 2 weeks to go, we expect parties to be ramping up their ad spend. Fine Gael are, but Sinn Fein have yet to start a General Election digital campaign, at least on the paid side.

Before we get into it, I wanted to share two recent podcasts, in case of interest

Yesterday I sat down with Hugh Linehan for The Irish Times' Inside Politics podcast, where we talked digital campaigning, and Ireland in the context of the US, UK etc. elections
And last week I talked newsletters, electoral law and opportunities for media stories in SIPO data with the Freelance Forum podcast

Where is the Sinn Fein campaign?

With just over 2 weeks to go, we expect parties to be ramping up their ad spend. As I said last time, Fine Gael really are. But from what I can tell (and I have checked a few times and a few ways) Sinn Fein have yet to start a General Election digital campaign, at least on the paid side.

Regular readers will know that Sinn Fein consistently outspend other parties; they had outspent everyone else 5-fold in 2024 until the start of November.

Now it looks like they have stopped once the campaign has actually begun.

Here is what parties spent on Meta ads in the first 10 days on November, across all their accounts; I have included figures for the whole month of October in the table for reference.

The comparison across time gives a stark picture.

We have 10 days of data for November. When we compare this to the first 10 days of October, we would expect to see a significant jump in what parties are spending.

Fine Gael has ramped up the most. Their spending on Meta is up 1,796% (so they are spending 18 times more) compared to what they were spending for same period in October. Labour, Aontu and Fianna Fail are all around spending around 10 times as much.

But Sinn Fein are the only party who appear to be spending less than they were in October.

There is nothing happening with Sinn Fein on Google ads either. Here is their expenditure over the year; you can see the spike for the Local & European elections, and what appeared to be a ramping up in September - and the, nothing. (Source)

Sinn Fein expenditure on political ads on Google. Source, under "insights"

Are they holding back for a late surge? Reallocating budgets elsewhere? I have no idea. If anyone knows what is going on, do let me know (you can reply here - or I am now open to DMs on Bluesky).

The first viral moment of the campaign

I wrote something for The Irish Times this week on the Michael O'Leary video that went viral over the weekend. One reason I thought the video seemed to break through is that it was perfect “capital C” content.

The teacher comments are self-contained in a clip just 30 seconds long. The Fine Gael logo is visible in the shot, both on a screen beside O’Leary and on the official-looking party fleece of a person in the frame for much of the video. All of this makes it easy for the viewer to quickly grasp the context and to connect the comments not just to the airline, but to the party. No need to worry about Ronald Reagan’s adage, “if you’re explaining, you’re losing”.

I also noted that it had a viral ready aesthetic, with all the hallmarks of a clandestinely filmed moment; something that broke through what has otherwise felt like quite a choreographed campaign.

It is camera phone footage, taken with a shaky hand and the backs of heads visible in the shot – the kind of portrait-mode clip where broadcasters have to blur the edges of the TV screen. The Ógra Sinn Féin TikTok account leans into this, layering the video with the phrase “Leaked Video Exposes Fine Gael”. This all adds up to the highest prize in content creation – looking and feeling authentic.

And, are Ring Video Doorbells the new campaign aesthetic?

On Tuesday Fianna Fail launched its first Google ads. One of them is set up to look like it was taken by a series of video doorbell cameras. You can find it here. A break from the relentless canvassing / candidate introduction videos at least!