Campaign Season

Mark’s preoccupied running for Rocky View County Division 1 Councillor, so as his Creative Partner I’m taking over for this month’s column. It’s a great time to talk about campaign signage and advertising as we’ll be seeing it all month long. Number one question…do lawn signs even work?

The short answer is yes. Election lawn signs have been around for 197 years (since John Quincey Adams and Andrew Jackson were running for President of the United States in 1828). They’re a simple and relatively inexpensive way to let the public know who is in the running, a visual insight into what they stand for, and which neighbour endorses them.

Name recognition is the most important factor in elections. At the polls the only thing you see on your ballot is a name, and you don’t want that to be the first time you see a candidate. You’ll see the same names repeated over and over all month long to cement them into your mind as familiar and credible choices.

The next thing you’re going to start seeing are faces of these hopeful candidates and that’s on purpose. Faces are 11 times more likely to get attention, with humans programmed to recognize faces twice as fast as any other image (ever looked at a power outlet and thought it looked a little dismayed? That’s pareidolia or our hard- wired human instinct for shape and facial perception). The social cues and emotions we can convey using faces trumps any inspiring messaging – a picture is worth 1000 words and when whizzing by on your commute you only have time to read 3.

Colours and fonts are used to communicate the values of the candidate – either to connect to greater political party’s platform or in the case of municipal non-partisan elections to just show you what kind of personality you’re electing. Are they bright and energetic? Mellow and grounded? Do their signs look like they made them themselves rather than approaching their local design experts to help them? This all says something about the candidate and it’s up to you to decide if you are liking what they are saying.

Finally, seeing signs on your neighbours’ lawns gives personal endorsements for those candidates. If your neighbour’s values and yours align, then maybe you will think twice about voting the same way. Conversely, depending on your neighbours, this may also inspire you to immediately seek out the opposition and put up your own sign regardless of how passionate you feel about that candidate. There is also the social aspect of peer pressure, if you’re seeing a lot of people putting up signs for one particular candidate you might be more invested into figuring out why everyone thinks they are so great.

At the end of the day however a sign is just a sign – a device to get you curious to do more research and show up at the polls informed and ready to vote.

No matter who you vote for, or what kind of campaign signage they’re running, make sure you do your due diligence on the happenings in your area and make up your opinions on how you want to be heard and represented. The most important part is always showing up.

See you out there on October 20!

Kate