While working their way up the ladder, nearly every consultant has served lawn sign duty. It usually consists of ordering, constructing and managing the distribution of a campaign’s yard signs.
But it can also include fielding angry calls from supporters who want more signs, driving across the district to plant a single sign on a supporter’s front lawn and organizing the take down of signs after a win (or loss). It can be hell.
The eternal question: are lawn signs an effective and efficient use of campaign resources?
A recent study suggested that lawn signs can influence an election. These results, which showed signs swing 1.7 percent of the vote on average, surprised even the study’s authors. “They're supposed to be a waste of money and time,” Alex Coppock, a co-author of the study, told Politico. “Many campaign consultants think that signs 'preach to the choir' and not much else.”
In fact, it’s hard to tell if yard signs are even reaching the choir, which has led to many campaigns at the federal level to scale back their use. In many cases, they’re now considered limited-edition campaign swag which supporters must pay for. Data-driven campaigns simply don’t have the evidence to support the printing expense.
With other voter-contact mediums, we can measure their effectiveness and who we’re targeting. On TV, we have sophisticated set-top box data to target households by age, income, party affiliation and likelihood of voting. With direct mail, we have pinpoint accuracy. Online ads, meanwhile, offer geo-targeting and measure click-through rates — all for pennies per impression. Yard signs are far more costly.
Each sign will cost between $2-$5, which raises a host of questions. How many can you afford to purchase? Can you hit key saturation levels? If you’re running for a county wide, statewide or federal office, it can be prohibitively expensive to saturate the entire district with signs. And it can be time consuming, too. Win or lose, you’re responsible for the lawn signs. Does your candidate want to travel around the district taking down post-campaign yard signs?
That’s something to consider before you launch your program. Once the logistics are in place, make sure you’re following local rules concerning signs’ size and placement. Some areas are limited to a small sign while others allow huge signs to be placed on lawns.
Still, there are some benefits to the traditional sign. They reassure existing donors and supporters that your campaign is robust and strong. The trouble with other forms of campaign communication is that they often go unseen. A TV ad lasts 30 seconds and disappears. Direct mail, nicknamed “the silent killer” because it flies under the radar, isn’t usually sent to staunch supporters. Signs offer tangible evidence the campaign is gaining ground.
They can also psych out your opponents. Having a robust sign program has the potential to drive your opponents insane because not only will they see the signs and likely overestimate your support, but the rival campaigns will receive calls from their supporters claiming your side is “everywhere.”
Signs are also an opportunity to create a gotcha moment when your opponent or her supporters steal your signs. Countless candidates simply cannot resist the urge to tear down, kick over, steal or otherwise destroy your yard signs.
As much as they inflict grief on the other side, they can also increase your own candidate’s self-esteem. As your candidate travels through the district, it will make him or her feel good to see their signs as an anecdotal signal of broad-based support.
Every cycle consultants engage in arguments with candidates and their supporters about how the campaign doesn’t have enough yard signs and is doomed to fail because of that. Our firm often regales our clients with the anecdote to look no further than to some of the nation’s best-known brands like Wendy’s, GM, Ford, Coke and Pepsi.
They have seemingly unlimited advertising budgets. Yet we cannot seem to remember a time when Wendy’s announced its new Baconator or Ford its latest F-150 via lawn signs. These brands would invest in lawn signs if they were effective and persuasive.
The simple truth is lawn signs are only effective at two things: driving consultants mad and making candidates and supporters feel good. They don’t win elections.
John Thomas is the founder and President of Thomas Partners Strategies a Republican advertising and strategy firm.