Media&Marketing: Who said politics wasn't all about personality? Anyone travelling by Dart or mainline train (if they were lucky enough this week) will have noticed huge imposing billboard advertisements featuring the face of Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and various accompanying slogans.

Most of the messages contained in the advertisements borrow heavily from Mr Kenny's recent leader's address to party delegates.

Being tough on crime is one of the clear messages the party wishes to communicate with its slogan, "I'll make the criminals pay for their crimes".

There are other slogans concerning health policy - "I'll end the scandal of patients on trolleys" - and a more general pitch about public money: "I'll sack the wasters of taxpayers' money".

The decision not to concentrate on just one message is an interesting one. It may suggest Fine Gael is not certain about which one of the three messages is the burning issue with voters. But equally the party was probably nervous about putting all its eggs in one electoral basket at this stage. For the moment it is sticking with the cult of personality approach and it may well prove effective.

The party last year ran a very aggressive campaign about prices and value for money for consumers, but this appears to be less to the forefront of the latest campaign.

The use of almost Orwellian pictures of party leaders is an age-old marketing technique of political parties.

Sometimes parties dispense altogether with the leader's image (like the famous Saatchi and Saatchi "Labour isn't working" campaign in the UK), but other times parties decide to go for an almost presidential-style campaign based on the idea that if people trust the leader, they tend to trust the party.

However, advertising agencies believe the reliance on the leader's image and credibility is probably not needed this far out from the campaign. Orlaith Blaney, managing director of McCann Erickson, one of Dublin's biggest agencies, says something fresher may be needed. "The current Fine Gael campaign is designed to look for weaknesses in the current Government's performance and these create obvious messages to put in front of consumers," she says.

"But the uses of quotes and headshots of leaders is a formula used time and time again. There has to be a more engaging way, creatively, to challenge people to think differently, if the opposition are serious about unseating the current Government."

Atomic, the agency behind the advertising campaign, said yesterday that Fine Gael's campaign had been well received.

Niall Dowling, account director from Atomic, said: "Atomic developed the concept of using soundbites lifted from public meetings or constituency clinics in order to convey the fears, frustrations and grievances that taxpayers feel. The imagery is of realistic, everyday people with whom the electorate can identify."

Commenting on Fine Gael's advertising campaign, Mr Dowling said the aim was to establish a real connection with Irish voters by giving voice to the hopes and fears "that are a real part of their lives".

Health pulls viewers

With an election probably less than a year away it is becoming increasingly clear that health issues are preoccupying the public and possibly voters too.

This assertion has been made repeatedly over the past few months by political observers and media commentators, but if TV viewing figures are anything to go by, the public are truly engaged by health issues and in particular the state of our hospitals.

The Prime Time Investigates special on Monday night decided to take a closer look at what is going on inside the State's hospitals. In many ways there was nothing dramatically new about the programme - the practice of leaving sick people on trolleys is almost a mundane occurrence at this stage. But the filming of such scenes by television cameras was always going to elevate the programme above the usual mundane accounts. Either way, viewers responded and the programme managed to reach a peak audience of 648,000 viewers.

The average audience throughout the programme was 580,000. This was an increase of 90,000 on the previous edition of the programme. The heightened interest in hospital conditions also gave a boost to Questions and Answers, which pulled in a peak audience of 527,000 viewers. To give some idea of the size of the audience for Prime Time, 580,000 almost beat the Late, Late Show, which was the most watched programme on RTÉ in the previous week.

JNLR figures today

Today sees the release of the latest radio listenership figures covering the period from April 2005 to March 2006. As is now traditional, media attention will focus on RTÉ's flagship shows and the performance of RTÉ Radio One.

The channel has suffered significant audience erosion over recent years, but remains easily in number one position. Today FM, as its major national competitor, has chalked up decent gains over recent years with popular shows presented by Ray D'Arcy and Ian Dempsey.

NewsTalk 106, which is hoping to soon get a quasi-national licence, will also be hoping for signs of growth.

Breast Check pitch

Another advertising account which is out to pitch is Breast Check, the national breast screening programme. The value of the contract was not disclosed, but its currently worth €800,000 and is likely to grow. There are plenty of advertising agencies with experience of health-education programmes, so there is likely to be a long list of applicants. A spokeswoman said yesterday that 13 agencies had already applied. The aim of the campaign will be to target women between 50 and 64, and the contract will run for at least two years, possibly longer.