VideoThe municipal elections have started and that means campaign time. On a swing or a bicycle, with a cake or a song, almost all parties make it: the election video. But how well does that actually work?
Anouk van Veldhuizen
15 Mar. 2022
Judith Möller, associate professor of political communication at the University of Amsterdam, calls the massive choice for a campaign video striking. “A political ad video is rarely suitable for attracting new voters,” she says.
This has to do with the way in which our brains process images and sound. “What we see and hear in campaign films, we record without too much attention and we don’t think deeply about it,” says Möller. “We don’t process the message and form a quick judgment based on limited information. As a result, the effect of such videos is not long-lasting.”
Four phenomena under the microscope
In the run-up to the municipal elections, looked at and analysed the Stentor more than a hundred different election videos of about two hundred parties competing for a seat in the east of the Netherlands. Political groups like and often revert to two campaign strategies: humor and self-made songs. The big difference in the professionalism of the videos was also noticeable, as was the urge to attract young people to the polling station. We presented these four election phenomena to experts with the question: does this work?
1. Humor
An adult woman on a children’s swing or a rehearsed collision at a dangerous intersection: parties do their very best to convey serious points of view in a light-hearted manner. “Humor mainly works to attract attention,” says Möller. “It often doesn’t help to get a political message across. Think back to a funny local campaign video you saw. Do you remember which party it was from?”
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