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Yahoo! Exclusive: Political strategist Marcel Wieder says Conservatives will find Justin Trudeau a tougher target

The Liberal Party of Canada is poised to elect a new party leader and most people expect that person to be Justin Trudeau, the 41-year-old representative of Quebec’s Papineau riding and the son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau.

Among those expecting Trudeau to earn the crown at an Ottawa convention on Sunday are the federal Conservatives, who have a round of attack ads holstered and are ready to draw the moment they see the whites of his eyes.

Marcel Wieder, the president of Aurora Strategy Group, a public affairs and political strategist firm, says the goal of those ads will be to craft the public’s opinion of Trudeau. But the Conservatives have a tough challenge ahead of them. In an interview with Yahoo! Canada News, Wieder says Trudeau is more savvy than the Conservatives might expect, and could prove harder to hit.

Y! Canada: What makes for a good political advertisement? In terms of negative ads, do insiders call them “attack ads,” or is that just what we say on the outside?

Marcel Wieder: I think it more a media term than what we tend to say. We just call them ads. Yes, they do have various functions. Whether you are promoting a candidate or an issue, they need to move the public to an action. In some cases, that action is to vote for the candidate, sometimes it is to persuade the voter not to vote for the other guy. I’m a former advertising guy. We say it is like selling soap. You have a product and you want people to buy that soap. Or you want people not to buy the competition’s soap.

I guess there is an art to political ads, isn’t there?

Wieder: What people often miss is who the ads are targeted towards. Say you are 25 to 35 and you see an ad that does nothing for you. But, it happens to speak to somebody who is 45 to 60, and it makes them do something. You have to look at where that ad is directed at. Not all ads have an impact on all audiences.

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So it is about finding the right target and moving them to vote.

Wieder: I have to grudgingly take my hat off to the Conservatives, who have been able to do that in the last two campaigns against (former Liberal leaders Stephane) Dion and (Michael) Ignatieff. They identified certain groups of voters and bought ads that speak to those voters.

‘When is the best time to run attack ads?’ Because we can all expect that if and when Justin Trudeau is named Liberal leader, the Conservatives will attack.

Wieder: Those ads, as they did against Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, are designed to brand them (the target) in the public’s mind. Not up to the job; just visiting. Those ads branded those leaders and cast an impression for a certain demographic of Canadians that the Liberal leader was not a viable choice for prime minister. That is what they will try to do with Trudeau. They are going to try to brand him. He’s too young, he’s too brash. Wherever they think they can find fault. They are going to start hitting him as much as possible, as soon as he is crowned leader.

Do you think their efforts to brand Trudeau will be as effective as it has been in the past?

Wieder: I think it is going to be more difficult than it was for Ignatieff or Dion because there has been so much earned media for Trudeau that it is going to be harder for the Conservatives to do that. The amount of media that has been cast on Trudeau has been disproportionate to any of his previous colleagues.

I guess whatever brand the Conservatives built for Ignatieff and Dion were the first many in the public will have seen, whereas Trudeau is already a known entity.

Wieder: Exactly. The Trudeau team has been very smart in terms of building up and inoculating themselves in terms of earned media. Even in the deepest, darkest area of Alberta has heard of Trudeau, either through his father or himself. Unlike Ignatieff, who many Canadians had never heard of until the Tory ads, Trudeau has been on TV, in the newspaper, on social media quite extensively for the past few months. The Tories need to take on that goodwill and knock it down as soon as possible. They are going to attempt to show that it is a façade.

If you were to craft the ads against Trudeau, where would you strike against him? His naiveté? His youth? Basically everywhere his Liberal leadership rivals have struck already?

Wieder: They will try to use quotes from any of the leadership candidates who were critical of Justin, they will use third-party quotes from the media. They will say he is light on policy, he doesn’t have a grasp on the issues. ‘These are serious times that require a serious person.’

There are some gains to be made on attacking his youth and inexperience.

Wieder: And his privileged upbringing. He grew up with a privileged background, he can’t connect with average Canadians. He was able to go to the finest schools, and contrast that to ordinary Canadians struggling to get by every day.

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What would Trudeau’s best course of action be? Should he strike back with ads of his own, or is he already getting enough media coverage?

Wieder: I would expect that Trudeau will want to control his own narrative and introduce himself to Canadians with his background, and talk about himself and his family, not just his father. But talk about how he and his wife are working hard to raise their kids. As much as the Tories are out there attacking him, I would be coming out and contrasting their negative with a positive to reinforce the earned media he has been receiving.

Would that campaign include negative ads against Harper and the Conservatives?

Wieder: No, this is not the time to strike out against Harper. If your campaign is about doing politics different – you know where I am going with this. You want to show people that you are positive, that you care about their and their issues and that you can relate to them. You want to be the person who they would invite for a barbecue. That is the ideal politician.

OK, I can see that.

Wieder: You don’t feel that way about Harper. No one is saying they want Stephen Harper over for beers.

But if that is the case, Harper has run three successful elections. How has he been successful without that image?

Wieder: He has been successful in the absence of anything else. He becomes the default. Now consider this. Jack Layton was able to capture that image and posed a serious challenge to Harper in the last couple weeks of the last election. People liked Jack, he was relaxed. He was someone people felt comfortable with. There was a real difference between Harper and Layton. If the election went a couple more weeks, who knows what the result would have been. The Harper majority could have been a Harper minority.

[ Last week's One-On-One: Martha Hall Findlay calls out Murray, Trudeau in final days of leadership campaign ]

Any final thoughts about the relationship that Trudeau as Liberal leader would have with the Conservatives?

Wieder: I think the Tories are really underestimating him. They think he is a lightweight. I think there is more substance to Trudeau than they suspect. I also think he will take a different approach. It is not going to be purely about him. It is going to be about his team and the people around him. He is going to try and create a big tent. That is what previous successful Liberal leaders have done. That is a different dynamic. He is very comfortable with social media… he is going to be communicating with Canadians differently. If the Conservatives don’t understand him... they are going to find themselves with a very different opponent than Ignatieff or Dion.

This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.

(Photos courtesy of Reuters and Aurora Strategy Group)