The National party has kicked off its election campaign advertising with the ceremonious unveiling of a forgettable billboard in Auckland’s ad hub of Parnell, despite the election date not having yet been set.

The billboard reads “Wave goodbye to higher taxes. Not your loved ones” (never mind the grammar!) and “Choose a brighter future/Party vote National” underneath.

“The billboard highlights Labour's failure to stem the tide of people voting with their feet and leaving New Zealand,” John Key said.

Hmmm. Focusing on what your opposition is doing (or failing to do) is so 2005.

National’s election advertising is being handled by list-only candidate Steven Joyce, who ran the party’s previous campaign. Media agency Rainmakers are assisting.

“This is effectively the start of the campaign season as we count down to the election,” Mr Key said yesterday as the billboard was launched. “This is the first of about half a dozen issues we want to campaign on.”

The same billboard will appear in Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton and Tauranga, with another lineup of creatives yet to come.

Mr Joyce was cagey about how long he had been working on the campaign.

“Obviously in election year you don’t know when the date is, but you know you have to get certain things done by a certain time,” he said. “So we’ve been working on this for a while, and the other ones in the series, and we decided that September 1 was an appropriate time.”

He was equally cagey about what else is in the works for the campaign, apart from claiming it was “reasonably solid”.

“The leader has a strategy and the job of the campaign team is really to support that strategy,” Mr Joyce said. “So this time we wanted a contemporary look to match the way John is, contemporary and modern looking, and it’s a different campaign to 2005. It’s there to support what John’s wanting to do, and just help underline those messages.”

Party muffins won’t be sitting around waiting to see what Labour’s election advertising (masterminded by Wellington ad man Fraser Carson) comes up with, however.

“We have our own plans,” Mr Joyce said. “That is that John wants to run a very positive campaign, which means making sure that we do our thing and do it well. The other folk will do what they do, but we don’t react too much to that. You never say never but that’s not the plan.”

Not very logical when we’re talking about a billboard that focuses on the opposition's failings.

The election must be held by November 15 at the latest, which gives us just over two months to watch the advertising mud being flung back and forth.

So will the ad campaign swing voters? Only time will tell. But for the time being, it’s not looking too promising for the boys in blue. While the billboard says what it needs to, the phrase doesn’t stick in the memory; it’s not bright or eye-catching; it’s lacking punch. It’s focusing on the negatives of the opposition, rather than on policy positives.

The adverlitical line-up:

National: In-house man Steven Joyce

Labour: Welly muffin Fraser Carson 

Greens: Kingsland indie agency Special 

ACT: Abandoned by ex-Nat ad guru John Ansell

Progressives: anonymous in-house muffins

NZ First: keeping mum