FOCUS magazine and election ads

FOCUS has been, to put it lightly, a stern critic of the current administration of the City of Victoria for some years now.  It has built itself a very clear niche audience interested in the narrative of how much Dean Fortin has screwed up with the bridge etc....  In the November issue there are eight pieces that relate to the current local elections which is a fair amount of their space.  This would be good place advertise for the local elections.

Based on the sort of businesses advertise in FOCUS, the sort of stories they run and who writes a regular column for them, I suspect that their readership is much more likely to vote.

With that in mind I thought it would be interesting to see who did advertise in the November issue.   In total it was only five candidates running for Victoria City Council.

Candidates with Ads in November

• Lisa Helps for mayor
• John Luton
• Steve Filipovic
• Geoff Young
• Justin Stephenson (twice)

Overall the ads are forgettable, nothing to make you think.   The only upside is that FOCUS is not too ad heavy and the readership could very well be looking for the ads

The Lisa Helps I know is not well represented in this ad - there is nothing innovative

I am really surprised that no one running for SD#61 Greater Victoria has an ad.   This strikes me as the perfect place to reach most of that electorate.

I am also surprised that no candidates in Saanich took out an ad.   I suspect many of the people not thrilled about the whole sewage thing read FOCUS.

Since he was the most consistent voice of skeptism on
the bridge project, it makes sense for him to have ad in FOCUS

I am not sure if this will work or not?  It looks more
like one of the articles so maybe more people will
read it>

Interesting he has these meeting dates, I am not sure what will happen at them

The slogan I Like Luton works for me - I still would not vote for him
Given his advocacy for the new bridge
I am really surprised he took an ad in FOCUS

.  
Of the ads, John Luton's, Steve Filipovic's and one of Justin Stephenson's do not have the "authorized by...." line on them.