Britain’s youth are being targeted by a new ad campaign which aims to make politics more enticing by using inuendo-fuelled headlines – including “Voting is Hot AF” (as f**k), “Get Polled”, and “Talk turnout to me” – to drive to them to the polls on July 4.
The campaign is the brainchild of Just Vote, an organisation which aims to encourage more people – especially the young – to engage with politics.
Devised by agency Saatchi & Saatchi, the work leans more into the recent surge of sex-heavy TV shows like Naked Attraction and Love Island than the agency’s Labour Isn’t Working poster for the 1979 Conservative Party election campaign, and propels the notion that voting makes you more attractive.
The strategy is based on a Just Vote survey that found 40% of 18- to 24-year-olds find regular voters alluring – quite what the other 60% thought is not known – and the playful out of home activity taps into the idea of ‘X’ as a visual shorthand to symbolise attraction and the X-rated notion of sex appeal.
With youth turnout at a historic low, the Just Vote campaign aims to encourage young people aged 18 to 24 to register, remember their ID and turn out on the day.
Just Vote is led by Ecotricity founder and green entrepreneur Dale Vince and taps into a range of key voter insights from PR and communications agency Borkowski.
Borkowski said: “Just Vote unites the passion and innovation of long time friend and partner Dale Vince, with the creative genius of Saatchi & Saatchi, who are always leading the zeitgeist of behavioural change.
“To generate cut through among the noise of all that is vying for the hearts, minds and eyeballs of our young people, is not an easy task, but one that it has never been more important to pursue.”
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