With fixed election legislation stating a spring vote should be announced as early as this week, the Wildrose party attempted to make a splash Monday morning, showing off a full roster of candidates and a decked out campaign bus.
On Monday, party leader Danielle Smith appeared before a backdrop of the new Wildrose campaign bus and dozens of a full slate of party candidates to present their plan for an election.
"It will be an election about ideas, we intend to put ideas on the table, we intend to make sure that it is a postive campaign," Smith said. "We will put our ideas up against their ideas and we'll see what Albertans decide."
However, their press conference created buzz – but it might not have been the type Danielle Smith and the rest of the party had originally hoped for.
The placement of Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith's picture with the wheels on the coach bus overshadowed the party's message Monday morning, becoming one of the most trending topics in Canada.
Reactions on social media included statements such as ‘girls gone Wildrose' and ‘breast campaign ever', and pictures of the bus quickly spread across the country.
One marketing professor at Mount Royal University said the party could make gains because of the mistake, as long as they manage to get over a flawed first impression.
"The positive is it goes viral, and there are exponentially more people who know that the Wildrose launched their bus today, than normally would," Professor David Finch said. "The negative is first impression matters a lot."
Finch said he found it shocking the image made it this far without someone pointing out the faux pas.
The party said some staff had flagged the image before the bus was unveiled, but officials didn't think it would make such an impact.
One Wildrose MLA wasn't impressed the bus became the main point of their press conference, when the party is preparing for an election, and trying to get their message out.
"Seriously, there is a very important campaign coming on, there is some really important issues," MLA Paul Hinman said. "I am surprised that this has become the issue of a campaign, which it seemed to have caused in the Twitter world."
On the other hand, Danielle Smith seemed to take the misstep in stride, Tweeting: "Glad everyone is so interested in our bus", and "[I] guess we'll have to make a couple of changes, huh?"
Party officials told CTV News the image on the bus will be changed, and that if this issue is the worst thing that happens in the coming weeks, that's a good thing.
With files from CTV Calgary's Chris Epp
