We analyzed the messaging of Senator Clinton's "Sopranos Spoof" home page in a three part arc and this entry concludes a similar study of Governor Romney's 23 June 07 campaign site.Next up will be a meta-analysis of all the sites. I chose the Senator Clinton and Governor Romney websites simply because that's where the dart landed when I threw it over my shoulder.
NextStage Evolution does not endorse any campaign or candidate. Our interest is purely in how campaigns and candidates communicate to different populations.
First, we're not considering the obvious changes to any site. Political sites change every day as things happen in the world. We're not really interested in the candidates' responses to other candidates, political situations or world events. What this and other columns in this series will focus on is how the designs of these websites influence how visitors to the websites think. In other words, how the politicians want you to think when you're thinking about them.
Another thing the 23 June 07 images convey, along with the three column layout of the page as a whole, is that Governor Romney wants you to recognize him as highly goal and process oriented. The message communicated is "this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it." This is another "too much of a good thing" case again. The message, due to the timing of the cycled images and Romney's positioning and visual prominence in each image, becomes "We are goal and process oriented and will ignore any input or information about how things went wrong." This reinforces the previous message of only accepting positive or upbeat information.What has changed since Feb '07? Back then, Governor Romney's site appealed strongly to what NextStage calls a V7 personality, 23 June 07 it appeals most strongly to a V10. The differences are subtle and significant. The one major difference is telling, I think. Now Governor Romney wants you to know he's interested in consensus, back then his website wanted you to see him as a knowledgeable person, someone to talk things over with. He was going to explain how your decisions were in error and give you the information you needed to make better decisions. Interesting that that message should be embedded in the campaign site of a candidate struggling to explain the error of his ways (at the time), don't you think?
Where Governor Romney's site shines is in it's ability to consistently appeal to both genders, almost a perfect 50/50 split in Feb '07 and 23 June 07. This is excellent constituency building.
Next time: Who's best at communicating to the Nation as a whole?
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Links for this post:
- How Politicians Want You to Think - Senator Clinton arc
- How Politicians Want You to Think - Governor Romney arc
- XChange on 20-21 Sept 07
- Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.
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