How to talk and act about what matters
by Gabi Juns and Dardo Ceballos
The campaign narrative is the story that will allow people to form an idea about the candidate, about how they will perceive her: how she looks, how she communicates, her sense of humor, and her authenticity. And most importantly: it must reflect how innovative the candidate is in politics.
Here are some points to help you win hearts and minds.
Creativity like the people: being authentic and showing that authenticity on social media. Always do the exercise of seeing how similar your timeline is to your followers’ timelines. The original content of your campaign… it’s not good for it to be too far from ordinary people.
A pinch of design: having some design, but without exaggerating or making campaign materials too artificial.
Mememism: bringing humor and lightness while at the same time connecting with people’s everyday lives, pop culture, and what is talked about day to day.
Low Fi: Dare to create good content using a cellphone. Be transparent, don’t be afraid of lower quality if the content is urgent.
Make your proposals go viral: present them in an interesting, innovative way, avoiding boring content that no one wants to share.
Let’s look at some practical examples:
Erika Hilton , 27 years old, is the first trans woman to occupy a seat in the São Paulo City Council. She was elected with more than 50 thousand votes and was the most-voted woman and sixth overall. This Instagram post of hers is a clear example of “creativity like the people” combined with “Low Fi.” Erika is just one more person on her street campaign team… and a cellphone is enough to record it and share it.
Claudia López, Mayor of Bogotá, was responsible for managing one of the most important capitals in Latin America in the midst of the Global Pandemic. She always shows herself to be very active and transparent on social media, but still doesn’t miss the opportunity to celebrate her love anniversary with her partner, just like any social media user would. This is what we mean by “creativity like the people.”
A pinch of design: When we move away from the “creativity like the people” paradigm is when we add a pinch of design. Just like when we season our food, there are different measures for different tastes, but it’s never good to overdo it… so that the campaign doesn’t feel too artificial. This post by Bella Goncalvez, a city councilor re-elected in Belo Horizonte, has just the right balance of both.
Presenting a positioning document or letter on social media in a way that is visual and eye-catching is always a big challenge. This post by Estamos Listas solves it with a photo full of collective epicness and a pinch of design.
Making our proposals go viral by betting on mememism is always a great initiative for us and often brings good results. Like this proposal by the candidate for mayor of São Paulo, Marina Helou, presented using the famous meme: “My face when they say that…”.
