Electoral Branding 2011 - the end is nigh!

At the start of the campaign, we had grand ambitions of posting a detailed blog entry on the branding for each party - but this plan was crushed by the mediocrity of what was on offer. Irish politicians love of visual noise, and the acceptance of it by the public, seems to rule out a comprehensive brand-led approach for our political communications.

For all our critique of Fine Gael’s online efforts, they came the closest: They appeared to focus on getting across a few simple messages in a consistent way across all media - although if we hear “five point plan” one more time, we may explode.

Labour seemed to be working harder than most at maintaining visual brand consistency - with thanks to the steadying hand of our comrades at Red Dog. Labour certainly scored the highest with images on social media: The “wrong way turn back” shot and this altercation with a clamper were two of the most retweeted images of the entire campaign.

The Fianna Fáil challenge was how to campaign with a toxic brand. Changing the leader created a dead-cat bounce of support - but the fear of public reaction led to their brand shrinking to near invisible proportions on posters and literature.

And as always, the activities on the fringe were the most interesting: The UpStart artists collective used the electoral loophole to display their own set of posters - some campaigning, some purely aesthetic.

While the amateur highlight of this campaign is this leaflet from John Keigher, an independent running in Dublin.

Update - thanks to Aiden Kenny for letting me know that this candidate secured an impressive 27 first preference votes. If ever there was an extreme case to prove that poor design can hamper your credibility, here it is…

Will any of these brand communications influence your vote?

Thanks to The Journal.ie for great visual coverage of this year’s campaign, to the Irish Election Literature Blog for curating electoral communications, and to @timredfern for the shot of the minimally branded Fianna Fáil poster.