Did you catch the 2025 Federal Election results over the weekend? The 2025 Australian Federal Election delivered a historic landslide win for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party, stunning both national and international observers. It also triggered an electoral wipeout for several key Liberal figures, including Peter Dutton. While the result was political in nature, the 2025 Australian Federal Election marketing campaign strategies leading up to it offer a goldmine of insights for marketers like Ignite Search across every industry.
As a leading authority in digital marketing strategy, Ignite Search has analysed the election through a commercial lens, unpacking the campaign mechanics that shaped voter sentiment. What we discovered were sharp contrasts between modern, data-led marketing execution and more traditional, less agile approaches. These distinctions provide marketers with valuable lessons on how audience engagement, brand authenticity, and platform strategy can make or break even the most well-funded campaigns. Let’s break it down through the eyes of a marketer.
New Age Digital vs Old-School Print and Broadcast
Platform Choice & Reach
Labor leaned into modern platforms with confidence. They outspent the Liberals significantly on social media, particularly Meta (Facebook and Instagram), YouTube, and TikTok. Their use of pre-poll digital blitzes, programmatic ad placements, and platform-specific creatives gave them massive reach with key demographics. TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts featured tailored content designed to engage millennials and Gen Z voters with authenticity and relatability.
In contrast, the Liberals and Other parties invested heavily in radio, TV, and newspaper placements, platforms with declining influence among younger and mobile-first voters. These channels still hold sway with older demographics, but they lack the precision targeting, real-time engagement analytics, and conversion tracking that modern digital platforms provide.
The Greens, One Nation, and Trumpet of Patriots each took different approaches. The Greens continued their reliance on grassroots organising with moderate digital reinforcement, but their national branding was disjointed and lacked standout creative. One Nation pushed traditional outreach and mobile messaging via email/SMS. Trumpet of Patriots attempted to blanket mobile phones with SMS marketing yet again, but failed to generate authentic digital traction or community support.
Meanwhile, Independents embraced an increasingly savvy approach by utilising social media influencers, often local personalities and micro-influencers, to reinforce their message through trusted community voices. This community-minded strategy positioned them as the “in-between” option for voters disillusioned with both major parties.
Key Insight: Digital marketing’s agility and targeting capabilities dramatically outperformed traditional media buys. Reinforcing the believe that Marketers must align platform choice with consumer behaviour, which is increasingly digital-first and mobile-dominant.
To be fair, it is a challenge for political parties to appeal to every generation and every minority group in one election campaign. The core focus is always centred around those that fundamentaly agree with a parties core political issues and promises (true believers) and from there on, convert those on or off the fence to believe that your party is the right choice to vote for, come election day.
Messaging Strategy: Hit and Miss
Liberal: Inconsistent and Defensive
- Taglines such as “Stop the Waste” and “No to the Voice, Yes to Real Solutions” were used, but lacked cohesion or aspirational pull. Other phrases like “Labor can’t manage money” and “Keep the lights on” relied heavily on fear-based tactics.
- Messaging was reactionary and over-reliant on economic alarmism, with limited call-to-action alignment.
- One photo opportunity that drew mixed reviews involved Peter Dutton filling up a car at a petrol station, intended to highlight concerns about fuel prices. While designed to resonate with cost-of-living issues, the stunt was widely criticised on social media as out-of-touch and overly staged, failing to connect meaningfully with everyday Australians.
Labor: Positive Framing & Emotional Resonance
- Taglines like “Building Australia’s Future” and “Secure Jobs, Strong Economy” were consistently applied across all digital and print touchpoints.
- Messaging was values-based, future-focused, and inclusive. It leveraged emotional storytelling to establish trust.
- Organic social media content included candid moments, community engagement, and values alignment, deliberate tactics to humanise the candidate.
- One standout example was a viral TikTok clip showing Albanese sharing a quiet coffee with a voter while discussing the rising cost of living. The simplicity and relatability of the moment resonated strongly with younger audiences and was widely shared across Instagram Reels and Facebook Stories.
- Messaging was values-based, future-focused, and inclusive. It leveraged emotional storytelling to establish trust.
- Organic social media content included candid moments, community engagement, and values alignment, deliberate tactics to humanise the candidate.
Greens: Idealistic but Fragmented
- Taglines like “Fight for Our Future” and “Clean Energy for All” featured prominently in select electorates.
- Messaging focused on climate urgency, housing reform, and anti-corporate sentiment, but lacked a cohesive overarching slogan.
- Taglines and campaign visuals varied significantly between regions, diluting national identity and engagement.
One Nation: Confrontational and Repetitive
- Taglines included “Australia First” and “Secure Our Borders”, echoing long-standing themes without evolution.
- Messaging centred on immigration control and national security.
- Use of SMS campaigns as their primary push came off as outdated and aggressive, rather than persuasive.
Trumpet of Patriots: Unfocused and Fatiguing
- Taglines such as “Take Back Australia” and “Freedom for the People” were deployed repeatedly without refinement.
- Messaging was aggressively populist but lacked clarity. Recycled slogans from past campaigns failed to engage new voters.
- Overuse of spam-style communications damaged credibility and alienated potential supporters. Political analysts and media commentators noted widespread frustration among recipients, and social media users openly criticised the party’s tactics, labelling the campaign intrusive and outdated.
- Taglines such as “Take Back Australia” and “Freedom for the People” were deployed repeatedly without refinement.
- Messaging was aggressively populist but lacked clarity. Recycled slogans from past campaigns failed to engage new voters.
- Overuse of spam-style communications damaged credibility and alienated potential supporters.
The Nationals: Regional Voice, Limited Reach
- The Nationals largely echoed the Liberal Party’s messaging, focusing on taglines like “Protecting Regional Australia”, “Standing Up for the Bush”, “Think Local. Vote National.”, “Hands Off Small Business”, and “Australia Needs Nuclear”.
- While these themes resonated with loyal rural constituents, the messaging struggled to gain traction beyond their core base.
- A lack of distinct digital presence and heavy reliance on legacy media limited their ability to connect with broader, younger audiences.
Teal Independents: Community-Centric and Neutral
- Messaging emphasised community values, accountability, and practical governance.
- Often pitched as the “alternative to politics as usual,” independents used phrases like “Locals First” and “Voice for Your Community”.
- A notable example is Independent MP Allegra Spender, who partnered with influencers like Milly Rose Bannister to share community-focused content. Bannister’s April 2025 TikToks, marked as collaborations, used relatable “day in my life” formats to highlight Spender’s engagement with local issues and appeal to younger audiences.
- Taglines and posts were tailored to local issues and often delivered through relatable local influencers and advocates.
Key Insight: The most effective campaigns maintained a consistent, emotionally resonant message across all channels. Inconsistent or recycled messaging, especially when pushed without audience context, led to apathy or backlash.
Platform Reach and Effectiveness Snapshot
To further highlight the divergence in marketing success, below is an overview of approximate market reach and success rates across different social media platforms and media types observed during the 2025 election:
| Platform/Media Type | Estimated Reach | Frequency of Use | Engagement/Impact Level | Party Effective Use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Facebook/Instagram Ads | Very High | Daily | High | Labor |
| YouTube Ads | High | Daily | Moderate to High | Labor |
| TikTok Organic Posts | Moderate | Frequent | Very High (Gen Z) | Labor, Greens |
| Traditional TV | Moderate | Intermittent | Low to Moderate | Liberal, National, One Nation, Trumpet |
| Radio Advertising | Low | Frequent | Low | Liberal, One Nation, Trumpet, |
| Newspaper Ads | Low | Weekly | Very Low | Liberal, National |
| Google Search Ads | Moderate | Daily | High Intent Engagement | Labor |
| Influencer Partnerships | Moderate | Occasional | High (when authentic) | Labor, Greens, Independents |
| Email/SMS Marketing | Moderate | Limited Use | Mixed | One Nation, Trumpet of Patriots |
Key Insight: High spend does not equate to success, without a clear, consistent message and audience-driven delivery strategy, even the most aggressive campaigns can falter. It is also worth noting that the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation did not strategise effectively for continued coverage during the enforced campaign blackout period between May 1st and election day, stopping all TV and Radio coverage. This resulted in less coverage during a crucial campaign period where social media was an approved platform and TV and Radio was not allowed.
As behaviour based maket research in Australia proves, Gen Z and Millenials, unlike Gen X and Baby Boomers, prefer to source their information digitaly on social media and online forums, unlike Gen X and Baby Boomers who traditionally source their information via printed news publications and free to air platforms. Considering that early election data showed Australians aged under 44 made up more than a third of all eligible voters in some key seats, it was vital for parties to effectively capture the attention of the emerging majoritiy of voters via their preferred platforms.
The Final Word: The Proof is in The Results
The 2025 election didn’t just reflect a shift in political sentiment. The 2025 Australian Federal Election Marketing campaigns reinforced a critical marketing truth: brands (and politicians) that connect meaningfully with audiences across the right platforms win attention, loyalty, and conversions.
The Labor campaign showed that authenticity, data strategy, and creative excellence are the new gold standards for audience engagement. The Liberal’s struggle revealed the limitations of outdated media buys and one-directional messaging. Smaller parties such as the Greens, One Nation, and Trumpet of Patriots each revealed additional lessons in overspending, under-targeting, and a crucial mistep to modernise outreach. Meanwhile, the Independents highlighted the power of grassroots, hyper-local influencer engagement.
For businesses, marketers, and brands, these lessons are invaluable. As Ignite Search continues to lead in digital strategy, we encourage organisations to evaluate their own campaigns through the lens of what made Labor’s win so resounding: timely, targeted, and trust-building marketing execution.
If you’re looking to sharpen your marketing edge with an onpoint digital advertising strategy, contact Ignite Search today! Request a tailored strategy session or a full audit of your existing advertising campaigns. Let’s turn political insight into commercial impact.
