Do political poster campaigns work?

Following a recent advertising blitz by the Conservative Party, Charles Lewington, Managing Director of hanover and former Director of Communications for John Major, discussed the effectiveness of political poster campaigns with Barry Delaney, a former advertising consultant to the Labour Party.

Appearing on Radio 4’s Week in Westminster on Saturday 9 January, Lewington recognised the strategic thinking behind the posters and suggested that David Cameron was the Conservative Party’s trump card. In a wide ranging discussion, Lewington acknowledged the success of previous campaigns such as the “tax bombshell” campaign in 1992, but accepted that such poster campaigns have had a chequered history.

Both agreed that poster campaigns are highly unpredictable with Lewington foreseeing a rise in guerrilla style campaigns, as evidenced on Tottenham Court Road shortly after the unsuccessful putsch by Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt.