WHETHER THEY are professional graphic designers or enthusiastic amateurs, what the creative types behind every Lisbon Treaty poster are praying for is the Holy Grail of any political campaign: "talkability", writes
MARY MINIHAN
Happily for No campaigners Cóir, their posters have achieved what designers call "cut-through" in an increasingly-crowded platform, not only with its posters' contentious messages - "€1.84 minimum wage after Lisbon?" - but also with the unconventional appearance of its playful-looking pink heart-shaped cut-outs.
The group's third and final tranche of posters is expected to focus on the "right to life" issue in the context of the guarantees secured by the Government from its European Union partners. A Cóir spokesman said it had spent about €51,000 on posters so far.
Chris Cawley, co-founder of advertising agency Cawley Nea, who says he will be voting Yes, says the Yes side's posters have been "terribly disappointing" while Cóir is leading the No pack.
"Most eyecatching, yes. First in, yes. But much more significantly, the content of what's in the posters is focused. There's passion, there's intent and tragically, there's intelligence behind it," he said.
Timing is everything, he says.
"My 19-year-old daughter came back home a couple of Sundays ago saying 'did you know Dad the minimum wage is going to be €1.84?' I just thought how in the name of God did the Yes side let the No guys get out first?"
This is how Cóir insiders claim it's done: A team of volunteers aged 19 to 40 get together to whittle down a huge number of ideas they have been e-mailing to each other. The genius of the group, they say, is a young female graphic designer who is currently volunteering from her home in Dublin. One night last year, after she had put her children to bed, she made herself a cup of coffee and the idea for the "three monkeys" poster popped into her head.
She appears to be on a roll again this year, having placed a photograph of an indignant giraffe with the slogan "Vote again? They've got some neck" on a long, slim poster.
Before the final designs are selected, Cóir volunteers take to the streets of Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick armed with clipboards and A4-sized poster samples to ask passersby which poster "speaks best to you".
If that all sounds homespun, it is certainly the case that the increasing accessibility of high-end technology has meant DIY poster designers have as much chance of making an impact as slick advertising executives. The days when homemade meant hokey are over.
Paul Moran of advertising agency Owens DDB says while the Yes side's public relations campaign is stronger, in terms of solid media performances by key players, the poster war is being won by the No side.
However, he concedes that while it might be easy to suggest where the Yes side have gone wrong with their posters, it is not quite so easy to say what approach should have been adopted.
"Outdoor advertising in general is a three-to-four second medium. People are passing by, so it has to be a straightforward visual. It's very hard to communicate anything complex," he says.
"It's a complex treaty. It's not an easy one to communicate in a simple soundbite."
Prof Michael Marsh of Trinity College Dublin contrasts the "more apocalyptic" No posters with the Yes side's "relatively soft, non-threatening" images of "nice young middle-class people with happy smiling faces".
Prof Marsh is presumably referring to the 20- and 30-somethings featured in the Ireland for Europe and We Belong campaigns.
Olivia Buckley, director of We Belong, says the group has received many e-mail queries from the public inquiring about the identity of the people featured on its posters. They are "real" Dubliners Jonathan Foley, a 38-year-old father-of-three from Swords who runs a small company with his wife Leah, and Bernie Price (34), a job hunter who has applied for over 30 positions in the last 12 months.
Buckley says the slogan "Lisbon. We Belong. You Decide" was selected because people in the younger demographic made it clear that they did not want to be told which way to vote. A second phase of We Belong posters will be erected soon and will "encourage" people to vote Yes.
Buckley says of the Cóir posters that "it's very easy to have an impact when you're telling lies".
It is understood We Belong is spending close to €20,000 on posters, while a spokeswoman for Ireland for Europe said it had spent €100,000 on 8,000 posters.
Both Fine Gael and Labour are using the party leader's image on some of their posters, which is dismissed as "reductive party political stuff" by Cawley. He says the impact of the posters is diminished by the failure to incorporate slogans that engage with the content of the treaty.
"Ironically, the Fianna Fáil stuff, although not focused on the content of the actual treaty, which I think is a huge missed opportunity, at least it is getting closer to what I would consider more effective communication: the importance of Europe for Ireland at a strategic level." There are no plans for Fianna Fáil to produce a nationwide poster with an image of the Taoiseach. Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern features on posters in his Dublin Central constituency.
A Fianna Fáil spokesman said it had not used a photograph of its leader on a national poster for a European referendum in 30 years.
"The campaign is not about personalities, it's about the future of the country and that's what we're campaigning on," he said.
He could not say how much of the party's campaign budget would be spent on 22,000 posters and a Fine Gael spokesman could not give a breakdown of how much would be spent on its 20,000 posters.
A Labour spokesman said about €40,000 would be spent on posters, but that figure may change.