Elections in Romania

Romania is having its first ever uninominal elections this year - which largely means that you elect people and not parties. As such you'd think it would make the advertising agencies' job easier, because surely it must be easier to promote a person, with ideas, a face and ability to speak than a whole party, with a bunch of nutters who all disagree and which has no ideology whatsoever. Also, it stands to reason that because you have certain candidates in certain areas and not in all, you'd use more direct forms of campaigning and communication.

But , noooo. The ad world in Romania - or whoever does the campaigning these days - thought it would be a brilliant idea to use OOH as main communicator. The first 3-5 problems I see with this
1) I don't know when my area ends and another begins so practically I have no clue who runs where
2) Names are small and faces are big and there are no faces on the ballot sheets.
3) OOH are in color and ballot sheets are black and white
4) OOH have slogans and ballot sheets have names (again)
5) I have never heard of these guys so how am I supposed to vote for them when all they're giving me is big pictures of themselves with slogans.

The concept of canvassing is probably best known by Americans but it should have been a key component of the current campaign. You take one candidate in his specific constituency and make flyers which you then send to the people in THAT constituency. Like that you make sure your message is more specific - because you can address problems in their area as opposed to generic "we'll sort things out" type of stuff. Also, you make sure the person knows for a fact that the candidate is an option in that constituency as opposed to someone you may have accidentally seen on a poster. Plus, in the end a flyer lets you say more and potentially win over silly sods like myself who expect to vote fro someone with an agenda, and not a slogan. Finally, you visit the damned constituency and knock on people's doors and repeat what you put on the flyer....

Poorly done first uninominal....