Election 2020: Samantha Motion - Why we should ditch the boring hoardings

Wind-flattened billboards on Tara Rd this week. Photo / Samantha Motion

COMMENT:

The worst thing about the election being pushed out is that we're stuck looking at political billboards for another month.

And in spite of the exciting run-up to the election, now that we're deep in the campaign zone we've still ended up with a bunch of boring billboards cluttering up our roadsides.

Whether they're big ones blocking roadside vistas or ones so small they seem embarrassed to exist at all, they're all just visual pollution to me.

Predictably, they're routinely being blown over or deliberately damaged. Though at least politicians get to boldly speak out on the polarising subject of how vandalism is bad, while also honing their DIY repair skills.

Vague and confusing slogans are a mainstay of party hoardings but they really are next-level meaningless nonsense this year.

Vandals often seek to be offensive. Photo / File

Let's keep moving. Back your future. Protect your future. Change your future. Reclaim your future.

One of those is made up and if you can spot it, that's probably because you've been looking at the rest of them for more than a month already.

National is more specific with its strong team/more jobs/better economy pitch, boldly breaking out of the three-word mould, but leading with "strong team" seems more aspirational than reassuring given recent events.

The logo, name, face and tick (optional) formula remains firmly in style for candidate hoardings.

The ones where the editing makes it look like the local wannabe MP was photographed standing next to a cardboard cutout of the more famous party leader are a personal favourite.

Look, it's easy to poke fun at cringey political billboards.

With a pandemic and now a confirmed recession as the backdrop to this election, it's been a pretty fun-free contest to date, so let's allow a little levity.

We all know that simplicity is a necessity of the medium. There is only so much you can impart in a message most people will merely glimpse as they drive by, day after day.

And these outdoor ads are just one aspect of wider campaigns that will use a wide selection of other, more targeted media.

In the end, if all a hoarding achieves is a vaguely positive impression and a bit of name recognition, then that's job done from a marketing perspective. No need to provoke.

Politicians use them because they work for them. But do they work for us?

The full spectrum of local body election signs on Devonport Road in 2019. Photo / File

There's a social benefit argument that peppering every arterial route from Kaitaia to Bluff with hoardings reminds the less politically engaged among us that there is an election on and helps increase turnout at the ballot box.

In the run-up to the 2017 general election, Tauranga City Council restricted the locations candidates could put hoardings - in part to try and stop them from creating safety hazards for drivers.

Did voters forget there was an election on? No, voter turnout rose, ever so slightly - from 80 per cent in 2014 to 82 per cent in 2017.

The 2019 local body election in the city had the highest turnout since 2010.

More personal and direct forms of engagement have been shown to be more effective at getting out the vote.

Let's not forget that we make special allowances in the rules for these temporary advertisements in our roading corridors, in the name of democracy and free speech.

Signs removed from their frames in Taupō. Photo / File

Given that, it bugs me that parties supposedly vying for our attention - and more importantly, our votes - barely seem to be trying to be engaging.

The lack of creativity on display this year smacks to me of just chucking up a few hundred billboards because it's traditional and everyone else will do it.

Tediously reminding us they exist in the most impersonal, low-effort method available.

For me, driving past all these feeble political pitches each day has added to the general sense of torpor clouding this election.

Covid-19 alert restrictions have put more personal means of campaigning, such as door-knocking and public meetings, on ice.

Putting aside the visual pollution, hoardings also raise serious sustainability concerns.

They tend to be made of corflute, a cheap, durable grade 5 recyclable plastic that can't be processed in New Zealand and for which there is no overseas market, so it ends up in landfills.

I don't know where the billboards featuring short-lived National leadership duo Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye ended up after Collins took the reins, but I can hazard a guess.

This iteration of National's hoardings didn't last long. Photo / File

In summary, hoardings are bad for the environment, of dubious democratic value and, these days, don't even have the decency to be interesting or thought-provoking.

So here's my idea: Let's skip the hoardings next general election.

Ban them from the streets for an election cycle.

If you must pin your political colours to your front fence, fine, have a hoarding - but let's not give over our ad-free public spaces any more.

See what happens to turnout.

How will parties compensate with other forms of advertising and voter engagement? We'll find out.

Let's see what they do with the time and money that no longer needs to be spent erecting and re-erecting shedloads of signs.

Heck, we still have a month to go in this election campaign: Let's back, change and reclaim our future and ditch them now.