The First Casualty: A Political Campaign Lexicon

Political Marketing: Campaign Icons & Logos

Bringing Branding to Politics

Marketing is the combination of the art of psychology applied to the economics of buying and selling.  Students are taught that marketing involves deliberate decisions about product, placement, price, packaging, promotion, and people.  Political campaigns have always brought along songs, catch phrases, and themes.  "I like Ike" is perhaps the most memorable catch phrase.  

The gold standard of political icons is the Obama icon.  It conveys so many messages of Obama, the Sun, heartland, patriotism, and a new day of hope.  It is perfect and perhaps that explains why he uses it often and everywhere.  It is the first "non-name" logo for a Presidential Candidate that I can recall.  (If I am wrong please let me know in the comments.)

Campaign logos, or icons, have recently transformed from simple exercises in typesetting and graphic arts into a critical element of the campaign that conveys not just the identity, but the message of the candidate.  Bill Whittle has an excellent YouTube commentary on icons and their power in politics.

Mitt Romney has started to incorporate a message with his logo.  If you have to add a message to your logo, it may be a tacit admission that your logo doesn't convey the theme.  

It used to be so simple. The button and sign had to convey the candidate's name and that was it.

As we move forward in time, the campaign logo had a few basic rules:  (1) Prominently display the candidate's name; (2) Use Red, White and Blue - or some combination; and (3) Use images of stars, stripe or eagles or other such USA visuals.

Bill Clinton incorporated all of these elements in his campaigns for president.  His campaign logo is patriotic and incorporates a star in his name.  Note the use of angles, a road up so-to-speak - giving a dynamic "moving" quality to the logo.

In the 2000 election the Gore campaign is still in typesetting mode having a shooting star.  Further complicating the logo is that Vice-Presidential Candidate Joe Lieberman's name is so much longer leading to speculation that perhaps you should choose a running mate with a name not twice the size of your own.

During the 2004 campaign George W. Bush used the American Flag (no subtlety here) next to either his name or "W."  Again, just incorporating a little graphic arts to spruce things up.

Hillary Clinton continued the trend in her failed campaign for the nomination for the 2008 Democratic nomination.  Reminiscent of the Eisenhower campaign, she adopted the first-name basis, perhaps to distinguish her from prior Bill "Clinton" campaign messages.

Campaign and candidate icons and branding are here to stay and how well a campaign creates a logo indicates the sophistication and integration about its attention to detail with the campaign message.