t’s election season in the United States, which means the resurgence of political campaign ads. Politicians across the country, from local candidates to those running for president, are producing TV commercials and yard signs that capture the attention of voters.
Professor of Political Science Mike Welsh described the idea behind all of the advertisements, saying, “You want to break through what they sometimes call the clutter, the clutter of stuff that enters into a person’s consciousness and attention over the course of a day. You want to give them something that’s memorable enough so that when and if they decide to vote, they’ve got enough memory of that thing that they can maybe act on that and vote for you.”
Welsh continued by specifying the importance of yard signs, saying that “more is better.” The goal of the yard signs is to create the idea that a particular candidate is supported by the majority of residents in the area, according to Welsh. “One sign, two signs might break through clutter, a hundred signs might make you think ‘there’s something going on here.’”
The signs have changed visually over the past 40 years, according to Welsh. Whereas today’s signage usually prominently features the candidate’s last name, signs of the past were more focused on the political party that the candidate belonged to, Welsh said.
According to Welsh, this change can be attributed to the rise of independent voters who do not want to be alienated by party-specific advertisement, as well as a general lack of trust in parties from the public. “With time, people trust parties less and they like to use parties less as a shortcut to the judgment about who to vote for,” Welsh stated.
Randall Hoyt, professor of graphic design, said the design of political campaign ads all comes down to the intended audience and how to get their attention. “These campaigns are sophisticated marketing engines that try to target individual voters, and so they design whatever needs to be designed to find that person and change their mind,” Hoyt said.
Hoyt talked about the specific lack of campaign ads that are targeted toward young voters, stating that “young people don’t vote in the same proportion that 25 to 35-year-olds do, or 45 to 60-year-olds do. They spend their money where they know they’re going to get votes. If 100% of young people voted, you’d see a lot more political campaigns targeting young people.”
Additionally, Hoyt said an important element of campaign ad design is the color choice in the advertisement. “The colors always have to be red, white and blue. It’s just part of the system,” Hoyt said.
In terms of the simplicity of the designs of most campaign ads, Hoyt said, “you only have a fraction of a second to capture someone’s attention, and once you have it, you have slightly more time, a second or two, to get them to read it. Then they might actually focus more on something that’s a third layer … You’ve got to break through the filter that people have in their visual landscape to make them even notice what you’re doing, and you can’t necessarily do that effectively with complexity.”
Hoyt said that everyone should be looking at political campaign ads, as they are all statements of value.
“It has a value proposition. This is what you get if you vote for this person, or this is what will be taken away from you if you vote for the other person,” Hoyt said. “So they’re all a statement of values, and they’re a cultural study really.”
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