Lawn signs and door-to-door campaigning: despite advanced media, tried-and-true methods remain integral to elections

By Cecelia Heckman
May 4, 2016

It’s become normal to drive down a road and see the colorful names of political candidates on promotional lawn signs; but do these signs have any influence on people walking or driving by?

Through four different field experiments, ScienceDirect found that only about 1.7 percent of voters were affected by lawn signs. Yet, since 1984 the use of lawn signs has more than doubled according to a study published in Political Behavior.

There’s a case to be made for the signs in that they can increase perception of the candidates and awareness and recognition of their names,” advertising professor Virginia Gatta said. “There’s also the possibility that it could just create some general awareness to remind people that they need to get out and vote.”

 

Photo Credit: Cecelia Heckman
Photo by Cecelia Heckman

 

 

“I think it’s an inexpensive way to advertise a candidate’s name but I actually think it really only has an effect on ill-informed voters who may see that their neighbor is voting for someone and decide to vote for that person as well,” John Solewin, assistant director of admissions at Cabrini College, said.

Lawn signs are not the only old-form campaigning technique that is still used throughout current elections. Many volunteers for different candidates keep campaigning costs down for these forms of advertising that continue.

“What happens is campaign volunteers will get lists, either to call or to go door-to-door, and they’ll talk to the person who answers the door and they’ll find out if they’re willing to support the candidate, if they would like to volunteer and then they will typically ask them ‘would you be willing to put a sign on your lawn,’” Gatta said.

Cameron Allen, a sophomore at Arcadia University, has been a volunteer for multiple Democratic campaigns in his area, which got him canvassing throughout multiple neighborhoods. He has been involved with the Mark Painter campaign, Charles Nippert campaign and Shapiro and Arkoosh campaign.

“I would mostly do phone calls and door-to-door campaigning,” Allen said. “ I would also attend area meetings that would be open to the Democratic party members to meet the candidates and distribute literature to the district leaders.”

Allen said that of all of the canvassing methods, he felt he was able to make the most connections and positive influences through the door-to-door campaigning.

lawn signs
Photo by Creative Commons

“With the door-to-door campaigning, if the person answers the door people are more willing to talk,” he said. “Phone calls were often to voicemail and if they did answer the most you could say was about the date of the election.”

Canvassing provides a more inexpensive way to bring awareness for candidates. However, it often does not bring much in terms of results. Even so, campaigns continue to spend the time working on getting their name on every street corner for some of the other benefits besides promotion.

“I think can be helpful in that you can update lists and get information so that when they take that back to the campaign office and they update the database they can figure out who are good prospects to contact in the future,” Gatta said. “So, if the person isn’t affiliated with that party or doesn’t want to receive information, they can take them off the list.”

“I think if you see them in a certain area you can understand the demographics of that area a little more and if you know someone with a lawn sign you can see who they are supporting without actually talking about politics,” sophomore psychology major Francesca DiGregorio said.

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Cecelia Heckman

Junior Editor-in-Chief/ Executive Content Manager of Loquitur. Digital Communications and Social Media major with a Business Administration minor. Student ambassador, Assistant Operations Manager of WYBF and show co-host, President of Alpha Lambda Delta, member of the Society for Collegiate Journalists and member of the Cabrini Honor's Program.

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