Before advertising via a banner or billboard you need to know who your audience will be. This applies to lobbying as it does to product advertising. Which is why I believe that the pro-divorce campaigners got it all wrong. They've just revealed a series of billboard ads that include two which read, rather crudely, "Poġġuti bil-fors u wliedna bgħula. Hekk sew?" which roughly translates as "No choice but to co-habit and have bastard kids. Is that right?"
Clearly, the intention is to shock the conservative Maltese society with language that is simply not heard anywhere else in the media. But in seeking to shock at all costs, they have missed the whole point of target advertising. It is becoming increasingly clear that the pro-divorce message is least appreciated by those over 55 and under 30. Voters who are separated and who have established a new family, albeit out of wedlock, would be obvious YES voters and the "bastards" billboard is thus unnecessary.
Pro-divorce money would be better spent targeting other voter segments. The strongest anti-divorce argument is the religious one. God, apparently, does not want people to marry again after a failed marriage and the Virgin Mary is weeping at thought of divorce being made available to the Maltese, if one is to believe a senior government Minister. Pro-divorce billboard should counter this nonsense by seeking to reconcile being a catholic and a YES vote at the 28 May referendum. They should convey a message of compassion and charity which are values expressed by the traditional Maltese families not out of catholic dogma but out of an honest benign humanity.
