According to a new study by Vanderbilt University, name recognition is king in politics.
Why tech-savvy political candidates still need old-fashioned yard signs – Research News @ Vanderbilt
The study is titled – “Name Recognition and Candidate Support” and it involved three laboratory experiments and a small-scale field experiment in Nashville, TN.
Here is a summary of the results…
[The study] found that individuals not only favor candidates with more familiar names, but also perceive candidates with more familiar names to be more viable. Name recognition matters in low-information races because people want to support likely winners.
The following paragraph was also included in the story…
With limited resources, campaigns must decide how much to spend on yard signs, buttons, bumper stickers and other strategies that serve to increase the public’s familiarity with the candidate’s name. Our study suggests that such efforts can pay off.
Although campaigns are getting more and more high tech, conventional campaign methods still work (and work well). Buttons are about as conventional and old school as it gets. Due to costs, many campaigns have turned to stickers in the past few years instead of buttons. If name recognition is important, a voter needs to see a politicians name more than once for it to really sink in. The problem with stickers is people throw them away, but people save buttons. Buttons are a great tool for repeated name recognition.
If you’re a campaign, buy a button maker and make your own buttons for as little as 15 cents.