Topham Guerin

Topham Guerin is an advertising agency company founded in New Zealand in 2016 by Sean Topham and Ben Guerin.[1] The company is headquartered in Auckland and has offices in London and Sydney.[2] It has worked on several high-profile political communications campaigns, including the 2019 Conservative Party election campaign in the UK.

Topham Guerin
IndustryAdvertising
Digital Marketing
Marketing
Founded2016
Headquarters
Auckland
,
New Zealand
Key people
Sean Topham (founding partner),
Ben Guerin (founding partner)
Websitetophamguerin.com

History

Origins

Before the founding of their company, Sean Topham and Ben Guerin studied at universities in New Zealand.[3][4] Both were members of the Young Nationals, a youth group of the New Zealand National Party. Sean Topham was the group's president from 2012 to 2015.[3] The company was responsible for political communications for the British Conservative Party in the 2019 general election, and has worked for the Liberal Party of Australia.[5] In a 2020 interview with the New Zealand current affairs website The Spinoff, Topham said, "The agency is not political. We work for our clients and deliver the best possible work that we can. We've had particular clients in that [conservative] space, and that's par for the course. Some people will suggest there's some narrative there, but I don't think that's accurate."[3]

2019 Australian federal election

While working for the Liberal Party during the 2019 Australian federal election, Topham Guerin found success at engaging older people by creating purposefully low-quality memes that would generate a high organic reach. One anonymous individual who worked on this project dubbed the strategy 'boomer memes', according to The Sydney Morning Herald.[6]

Following the Australian Liberal Party's victory in the 2019 elections, Ben Guerin spoke at the right-wing Friedman Conference to discuss its PR strategy. "You've got to surprise people. You've got to shock people. Unlock and arouse emotion in people," Guerin said.[7] "The particular emotions we've got to unlock are arousal emotions. We're talking: anger, excitement, pride, fear. Your content should be relating to one of these emotions for anyone to give a damn about it".[8]

The Guardian called Topham Guerin's approach to campaigning "a 24-hour meme machine – a social media firehose of attention-grabbing, emotion-manipulating, behaviour-nudging messaging."[9]

2019 British general election

During the 2019 United Kingdom general election, Topham Guerin created an advert for the Conservative Party's 2019 election campaign, which featured Boris Johnson in a parody of a scene from the film Love Actually. The advert was "shot quickly on an iPhone to take up as little of the leader's time as possible and to get into the algorithmic churn almost immediately," Oliver Henry said in 2020[3]

In addition, Topham Guerin changed the name of the Conservative Party's Twitter account to "factcheckUK," using the report to attack the Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn.[3]

COVID-19 pandemic communications

The company has won several contracts for PR work for the UK government since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the government invoked emergency contracting regulations, at least one of these contracts was awarded directly to Topham Guerin without going to tender.[10]

Topham Guerin was reported to be responsible for a UK government COVID-19 advert encouraging people to stay at home, criticized for being sexist in depicting gender roles. The ad sparked complaints due to the depiction of domestic tasks being handled by women, while the only visible male figure on the image was relaxing on a sofa.[11]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand, Topham Guerin was briefly contracted by the New Zealand Government in April 2023 to produce COVID-19 social media memes encouraging people to stay at home and comply with Government lockdown restrictions. Police Commissioner Mike Bush played a key rile in securing the company's contract. While the contract was supposed to last for three months, Guerin's contract was canceled after three weeks. Though some of its output was well received, its memes were also criticised for their lack of consistency, confusing messaging, insufficient output, perceived ugliness. In response to criticism, Topham defended the effectiveness of "shitty memes." A meme describing the COVID-19 pandemic as a dragon also drew criticism from the New Zealand Police for its perceived insensitivity to Chinese New Zealanders.[12]

In November 2020, the London Review of Books reported that Guerin and Isaac Levido, another well known Conservative Party PR man, created the government's slogan, 'Stay alert, control the virus, and save lives.'[13]

In November 2020, the firm was working on a campaign for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry to promote the COVID-19 vaccine.[14]

2021 Canadian federal election

In 2021, they were engaged by the Conservative Party of Canada, along with UK-based Stack Data Strategy, to work on the party's national campaign for the 2021 Canadian federal election.[15]

Controversies

In 2019, The Guardian reported that Topham Guerin worked for Conservative Party strategist Sir Lynton Crosby's CTF Partners to create a "large-scale professional disinformation network on behalf of paying clients including major polluters, the Saudi Arabian government, anti-cycling groups and various foreign political campaigns" on Facebook.[16]

While working as subcontractors for Crosby's CTF Partners, "Topham gained a reputation for misogyny within the company" after celebrating women's departure from the company.[5]

Public engagement

On 8 May 2021, for World Ovarian Cancer Day, Topham Guerin participated in the Cure our Ovarian Cancer Foundation's international awareness campaign. Their spot "An ad you can't miss, for a cancer you do", which shows 30 women who had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, was screened at Piccadilly Circus, London and Time Square, New York City.[17][18] The spot was a pro bono production by Topham Guerin with Landsec and JCDecaux sponsoring the screening space.[19]

References
  1. "Topham Guerin | Team". www.tophamguerin.com. Retrieved 31 December 2021.
  2. "Topham Guerin | About". www.tophamguerin.com. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  3. Oliver, Henry (4 September 2020). "The memeing of life: An interview with digital campaign whizzes Sean Topham and Ben Guerin". thespinoff.co.nz.
  4. "VUWSA bios — Salient". Retrieved 18 January 2022.
  5. "Claims of misogynistic culture at offices of Lynton Crosby firm". the Guardian. 1 August 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  6. Bourke, Latika (25 May 2019). "How the Liberals beat Labor at its own game". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  7. "VIDEO: Ben Guerin explains how his team won the digital campaign for the Liberals". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 8 November 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  8. "Topham Guerin: The team that helped Scott Morrison win is now working for Boris Johnson and Brexit". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 8 November 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  9. Davies, Anne (5 January 2021). "The 24-hour meme machine: what the US election can teach Australia about digital campaigning". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  10. Conn, David; Geoghegan, Peter; Evans, Rob; Scott, Russell (3 August 2020). "Tory-linked PR firm granted £3m Covid-19 contract without tender". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  11. "'Sexist' Covid-19 ad linked to digital agency Topham Guerin". www.campaignlive.co.uk. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  12. Bradley, Anusha (17 May 2023). "The $500k contract for COVID-19 memes that was approved by then-Police Commissioner Mike Bush". Radio New Zealand. Archived from the original on 18 May 2023. Retrieved 21 May 2023.
  13. Geoghegan, Peter (5 November 2020). "Cronyism and Clientelism". London Review of Books. Vol. 42, no. 21. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  14. "POLITICO London Influence: Whitehall nerd-out — Vaccine and heard — Javid's latest job". POLITICO. 12 November 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  15. Fawcett, Max (17 August 2021). "Is there a method to Erin O'Toole's meme madness?". Canada's National Observer. Observer Media Group 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
  16. Waterson, Jim (23 October 2019). "Tories hire Facebook propaganda pair to run online election campaign". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
  17. ""An Ad You Can't Miss, For A Cancer You Do" —World Ovarian Cancer Day On Saturday, May 8". OOH Today. 7 May 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  18. "A Piccadilly Circus billboard is being taken over to raise awareness of ovarian cancer - this is why it matters". The Independent. 11 May 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  19. Ryan, Rebecca (10 May 2021). "Cancer message gets huge billing". Otago Daily Times. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
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