The policy wonks of New Zealand politics - the Greens - are going for a simple message at this year's election campaign.
Green Party co-leaders Jeanette Fitzsimons and Russel Norman yesterday unveiled a very different advertising campaign at a stark white studio in Auckland.
Gone were the wordy
messages of yesteryear. In their place are images of the planet and children in the natural environment with a direct message "Vote for me" or "Vote for us".
Ms Fitzsimons said there was no point in putting policy on billboards when people drove past them at 100km/h.
"You want an emotional message that will grasp people and an image that sums up what you are about, and I think these images sum up perfectly what the Greens are about. The future, the children, the planet."
Dr Norman said the aim was to make a heartfelt connection with voters to appeal to them to think about the bigger picture and the solutions put forward by the Greens.
Rob Jack, of the advertising and design company Special, said the billboards were designed to be simple and stand out against the clutter. The first ones go up in Auckland and Wellington next week.
Jane Berney, an Auckland University of Technology lecturer in advertising creativity, said the Earth and child billboards were clean and simple, which was reflective of the party that generated them.
"My question to the "vote for me" approach would be - why?
"The Green billboards are engaging the heart of the viewer by using emotive images of children, but showing me the planet, sorry, they'll have to dig a little deeper. If you replaced the Green Party logo with a National or Labour Party logo, would it make any difference?" On a scale of one to 10, Ms Berney gave the Greens a score of five.
She gave National a six when it unveiled its billboards on Tuesday.
