AUTUMN 2016_PROMOTING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PRINT MEDIA THROUGHOUT EUROPE
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The
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/ POLITICAL PRINT
Factor In every election in every country, print plays a large part in political campaigning. Whether it’s an incisive piece of direct mail, an iconic poster or a multi-million leaflet drop, it has the potential to sway voters and push a politician into power. Which way will you vote? — By Paul Simpson WOULD YOU BUY a used car from this man?”
That blunt question, accompanied by a photograph of Richard Nixon at his most reptilian, was one of the most devastating pieces of political print ever commissioned. Used by John F. Kennedy’s campaign in the 1960 US presidential election, it fi xed the ‘Tricky Dicky’ stereotype on Nixon, helping to condemn the pre-election favourite to defeat. Print in all its forms – posters, leaflets, direct mail, newspaper adverts – has swung other elections since. The Conservative triumph in 1979, Solidarity’s landslide in the 1989 Polish elections and the Christian Democrats’ victory in Germany in 1994 all owed something to pithy slogans and eye-catching posters, but the analysis of modern political campaigns suggests that print’s role has since been marginalised.
Yes we can! In the US, the narrative of Barack Obama’s 2012 victory has focused on big data, micromessaging and clever use of technology, such as the launch of the fi rst iPhone app for a presidential candidate. Yet political analyst Kerstin Plehwe, who has followed many US presidential elections, says this is only part of the story. “Digital is an important mobilising force in politics,” she says, “but we should resist the temptation to underestimate print’s importance. Whether in the form of newspapers, magazines or direct mail, print is still important.” Indeed, the stats show that between them, Obama and his 2012 Republican opponent Mitt Romney spent $170m on direct mail – twice as much as on online ads. Richard Beeson, Romney’s political director, said: “There are a number of ways www.printpower.eu | PRINT POWER _27
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to talk to voters and direct mail has proved a very effective one.” During the UK’s EU referendum campaign, the profusion of campaign leaflets sent to 45 million voters accounted for 2% of all Royal Mail’s letters sent in the second quarter of 2016. Most leaflets – especially at British general elections – follow a familiar formula, says Emily Randall of the Democracy Club, a non-profit organisation that runs electionleaflets.org. “Leaflets focus on local issues and take advantage of direct mail technology to highlight how ‘local’ the leaflet is,” she says. “The name of your local area or your name will be the centre of focus in a giant handwriting-style-font. There will be a beaming picture of the candidate near a local landmark, perhaps with a checklist of things they’re going to achieve. Many go for a newsletter or magazine style to create a sense of legitimacy or community.” Few leaflets are great works of political communication. Indeed, some achieve notoriety because of their errors. “Sometimes the template goes wrong
During the UK’s EU referendum campaign, the profusion of campaign leaflets sent to 45 million voters accounted for 2% of all letters sent through the Royal Mail in the second quarter of 2016
and you get an ‘Insert name here’” says Randall. As old fashioned as leaflets sound, she says they still work. “This is a guaranteed way to get in front of everyone in your local area. Digital marketing, though increasingly popular – as we saw in the Conservatives’ £100,000 spend on Facebook in the run up to 2015 – still won’t reach everyone a leaflet will. During an election, a party will get a free mailshot if they provide the leaflets. With less mail spam, leaflets can stand out today.” Mail manifesto An abrasive direct mail campaign paid dividends for Kentucky’s Republican Senator Mitch McConnell in 2014. To retain his seat, McConnell had to win the primary against local tycoon Matt Bevin, who was backed by the rightwing Tea Party. Aiming to reach a small target audience effectively and cheaply, McConnell’s consultants, The Lukens Company, focused on direct mail. One piece depicted Bevin as a snake oil
salesman, featuring a bottle with ‘halftruths’, ‘resume inflation’ and ‘delusions of grandeur’ as ingredients. McConnell won 60% of the vote – quite a margin given that Bevin then successfully ran for governor. Other campaigns have blended direct mail and digital advertising to target their pitch. Such tactics show that print still has its place. Plehwe says the challenge is to “reload print with creativity and become more based on data. That takes courage, knowledge and clients who are willing to stand out amid the masses.” Spain’s anti-austerity party Podemos certainly stood out. Aiming to publish the “most-read manifesto ever”, the party set out its political programme in the style of an IKEA catalogue. The policies were easier to follow than IKEA’s flat pack instructions but didn’t win votes – there was a 3.4% swing away from Podemos in the June election. Poster politics Standing out can mean many things. In 1972, West Germany’s Social Democrat Chancellor Willy Brandt won the election
“Newspapers are vastly underestimated as a political vehicle – studies show that virtually all newspaper readers are voters” Art Hackney, US political communications consultant
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/ POLITICAL PRINT with the aid of a succinct slogan “Willy Wählen” (‘Vote Willy”) on badges and “Ich bin für Willy” (“I am for Willy”) on posters, which broke new ground in German politics. The absence of his family name positioned him as a pal, not a politician. As Plehwe says, “There is a place for anything that is different and powerful. The slogan ‘Willy Wählen’ mobilised young and old, generating results that the parties today can only dream about. Like the anti-Nixon poster in 1960 – and Saatchi’s ‘Labour isn’t working’ in 1979 – Brandt’s success showed how quickly posters spread a powerful and succinct message. Savvy media agencies have learned that, as Steven Heller, the former art director of The New York Times, put it, “Posters provide the opportunity to see things more iconically. They can offer an immediate response to a particular event. They’re portable, displayable and show allegiance. They say ‘We support you’ to the candidate and ‘We support the candidate’ to the media. In an era where visibility and shareability are of utmost importance
to a candidate’s success, that cannot be undersold.” There isn’t as much research into the effectiveness of political print as there should be. Yet a survey during the 2001 UK general election found that posters influenced one in ten voters. A similar study in Japan found that 9% heeded posters, while another 9% were swayed by newspaper adverts. American political communications consultant Art Hackney says, “Newspapers are vastly underestimated as a political vehicle – studies show that virtually all newspaper readers are voters.” Even in the US, where social media and smartphones are ubiquitous, research shows that 55% of American households read all their direct mail, while 90% of technophile Millennials trust direct mail. The most visible, shareable poster of the 21st century has to be Shepard Fairey’s Hope, for Obama. Fairey estimates that he printed 300,000 during the 2008 campaign and thousands more were printed from a fi le on his website. Fairey’s creation
became a cultural phenomenon and, like all the great political posters, created a powerful fi rst impression that defi ned the narrative of the campaign. Great isn’t necessarily about sophistication – in the EU referendum, the fi nest minds at M&C Saatchi didn’t produce anything for Stronger In that resonated as much as UKIP’s controversial poster showing a horde of refugees with the words ‘Breaking point: The EU has failed us all’. The ayes have it During a political campaign, when voters are bombarded with even more messages than usual – and fi nd it harder to pay attention – print, in all its forms, has an enviable ability to cut through the clutter. And it’s less wasteful than social media and online as you’re more likely to be communicating with actual voters. All we need, as Plehwe suggests, is more clients with the courage and knowledge to break the mould. Perhaps Hillary Clinton should take a leaf from JFK’s playbook – would anyone buy a used car from Donald Trump?
PRINT AND POWER FIVE CAMPAIGNS THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF POLITICAL HISTORY Labour Isn’t Working Poster The Conservative Party, UK, 1979 The most devastating poster in British political history only appeared on a few billboard sites but proved a game changer in the 1979 general election. The image of a snaking queue of unemployed – actually 20 Young Conservatives photographed over and over again – hit Labour where it hurt. Denis Healey accused Saatchi & Saatchi of “selling politics like soap powder”, thereby guaranteeing the poster front-page coverage. Lord Thorneycroft, Tory party treasurer, said the poster “won the election for the Conservatives”. Ironically, the ad almost never made it. Its creator, Martin Walsh, said Charles Saatchi was sceptical and many Tory leaders felt that a similar poster about NHS queues was stronger.
High Noon Poster Solidarity, Poland, 1989 The face of Poland’s first relatively free election since World War II was not that of Lech Walesa, who led Solidarity to a crushing victory, but Gary Cooper, strolling towards a showdown in the Western movie High Noon. Polish graphic artist Tomas Sarnecki recreated the classic movie poster, giving Coop a ballot paper instead of a gun, a Solidarity logo above his badge and changing the slogan to ‘High Noon: 4 June 1989’ – the election date. Walesa recalled: “The Communists tried to ridicule the freedom movement as an invention of the Wild West, but the poster had the opposite impact, as cowboys in Western clothes had become a powerful symbol for freedom in Poland.”
Not In Red Socks Poster Christian Democrats, Germany, 1994 After the Berlin Wall fell, East Germany’s Communist party morphed into the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). Ahead of the 1994 election, Helmut Kohl’s ruling Christian Democrats claimed the Social Democrats wanted to govern with the PDS. To dramatise their red scare, Kohl’s party created a poster with the slogan “Forward into the future… but not with red socks.” In Germany, a ‘red sock’ is a derogatory term for someone with leftistleanings. When the CDU were re-elected, their general secretary Peter Hintze credited the victory to the poster.
Rock The Vote Direct mail USA, 2008 Determined to boost voter registration and turnout among 18-29-year-olds for the 2008 presidential election, Rock The Vote blitzed their target audience with direct mail, urging them to sign up for text messages to remind them about registration deadlines and Election Day voting. The strategy worked: 200,000 young people opted for text message reminders and turnout among 18-29 year olds rose 4% – 22m young voters split 67/33 for Obama against his Republican opponent John McCain.
Nancy Boyda Newspaper inserts USA, 2006 Nobody gave Democratic candidate Boyda a chance of beating Republican Jim Ryan, a former Olympic track star, in this Kansas Congressional race. Yet she defeated Ryan easily after characterising him as having ‘gone Washington’ and using homespun print to emphasise her ‘woman of the people’ image. Starting with thousands of signs, Boyda focused her pitch on three 12-16 page newspaper inserts, which she designed and wrote at home with her husband Steve. Each one reached 200,000 households at a cost of $25,000 and generated more value in kind as other papers reported on her unusual tactics.
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