In politics, you’re either on message or you’re losing. Let’s get to it.
Welcome to On Message, a weekly look at where the battle lines are drawn and who is winning the war of words.
This week… Signs of the Times.
With the state convention behind us and primary season officially in full swing, you’re going to see more than flowers blooming in yards across your community. Political yard signs are popping up like weeds encouraging you to support some people you’ve heard of and many more you likely haven’t for every office from Congress to City Council. But what is the value of a yard sign in the digital age and do they make any difference at all? Campaigns certainly spend plenty of resources on them – and not necessarily just the cost of printing the actual sign. The metal spikes used to make them stand up so people can see them cost as much and sometimes even more than the signs, depending on how many you print. A lot of time and strategy goes up into yard sign distribution. Bigger campaigns have entire teams including a legion of volunteers who run a fully-fledged warehouse delivery operation. They all start with plans to be as efficient as Amazon an almost always fall short. Signs aren’t limited to front lawns, of course. Most campaigns will pay a team of people to scout out and secure the best locations for larger signs. You’ve seen these on fences near intersections or on the corner near busy commercial areas.
But what is the benefit of a yard sign or a sign that you see on a street corner somewhere in your city?
Well, let’s start with the yard signs. While these get relatively little traffic, meaning few people see them, they do serve any important purpose. A sign in your neighbors’ yard serves as an endorsement for that candidate. It’s an efficient way have an entire neighborhood take notice of your candidacy. And, in most neighborhoods, adding anything new to your yard gets you neighbors’ attention.
If you put a sign up in a well-publicized race, it tells people who you support. If you do it in a city council race, the impact can be much larger because it may be all the research voters on your street do for that particular race. (”If he’s okay with John, he’s probably ok with me.”) The real value comes with those larger signs you see all around town. These are essentially low-cost but high-value advertisements – mini billboards where you only pay for printing.
Of course, the message can get lost when a corner has a dozen different streets all encouraging you to vote for a different candidate… but if they’re in a high-traffic area people will drive by them and at least initially see them. As the general rule says, you have to see a message seven times before he really even notice it so seeing somebody’s name on the sign can make a difference for voters seeing it over and over again. Pro tip: a lot of candidates forget is that a sign is only going to capture attention for a fraction of second. It’s important to communicate the most brief and important message. Keep it simple and focus on what matters: your name and the office you’re running for. You headshot isn’t on the ballot so it doesn’t need to be on the sign.
Lee Senate. Ally Senate. Becky Senate. And if you use your first name on a sign, that’s how it should be on the ballot. Don’t spend weeks saying vote for Marty, only to have the ballot say Martin.
For many people, the political sign is nothing more than temporarily-approved graffiti. And there’s a real argument to be made that putting the same money into buying more targeted digital ads would have a higher return on investment. But candidates love to see their name on signs because it is a traditional part of a campaign. Most get a little overly-obsessed with winning the sign war when in truth there are far more important things for campaigns to focus on.
That said, despite so much of campaigns going digital, yard signs have found a way to remain a key part of a campaign strategy.
That’s it for this week.
More On Message in the next issue of the Utah Political Underground.
Make sure you visit the site and sign up for our weekly email update. You can find more On Message videos, in-depth Utah political stories and analysis, plus podcasts and more at utahpoliticalundergound.com.
