The Pope-Grassi campaign is using a Wordpress-based blog with a theme from CyberChimps to construct its website. The website is viewable as its desktop site on an iPad and as a modified mobile site on my Android phone.
The color scheme they are using for their media is a muted purple and gold theme, with a background texture that is reminiscent of a burlap sack. These colors and textures are consistent across all of their media (website, social media, posters, etc.). A deep purple isn't the prominent color for the website or campaign as a while, which will help separate their campaign from the others. David and Katie claim they are different, and by having graphic design that is different than other campaigns of the past and present, this team is well on its way to differentiating itself.
What They Are Doing Uniquely
- Pledge to Vote - Pope-Grassi took a page directly from the Barack Obama election handbook that will help them leverage their support base. If they can actually drive people to fill out this quick and easy form, the Pledge to Vote page will allow them to gather direct contact information for supporters who want to be in touch with the campaign. If the Pope-Grassi team has a creative way to gather email addresses and to follow up with these supporters, this could be a great campaign tool. However, unless they actually collect email addresses and have a way to get these individuals connected to and involved with the campaign, the Pledge to Vote page will become a lost opportunity.
- Blogging - While the posts haven't been incredibly frequent or long, the Pope-Grassi team is taking advantage of the fact that the website was built using a blogging platform. I hope they continue to use their homepage as a place to post campaign updates over the course of the next week. Updates on social media such as Facebook are definitely important, but traffic needs to be sent to the campaign websites anyhow in order for people to view information such as the platform. Because of this, blog posts give voters a reason to keep going back to the website after the first viewing. Currently neither of the other two websites are posting blogs.
- Meet Us - Since the campaign period was recently amended to be two weeks long, it is important for campaigns to get in front of as many students as they can. Visiting student organizations is an easy and effective way to reach a large number of students at once. While I can only assume that the Pope-Grassi campaign is reaching out to student organizations to meet with them, I think it is an strange approach to have a specific page on their website to contact the team and request their appearance at a meeting. Personally, I feel like student groups shouldn't have to reach out to a campaign; the team should be showing initiative by contacting the student groups themselves. While this isn't a conventional campaigning approach, this page could become a great place to list all of the times and places the team will be meeting with groups over the campaign period. Having dates and times of public appearances available to students (particularly the debate and tabling times) is a great way to notify students about when the candidates will be on campus sharing their message. This page would also be a great place to list contact information for the campaign team, and not just Pope's email address.
- Social Media Links - While the Join the Movement page provides images for people to use on their Facebook profiles, I couldn't find a place on the Pope-Grassi website that links to their Facebook fan page or their collective Twitter. They are currently leading with the largest number of Facebook likes on their page, but having links to their Facebook page on their website could help boost their numbers even more.
- Platform - I am really torn about the fact that the Pope-Grassi website has all of its platform planks under the Passions tab. On one hand, I like how the title explicitly states that the issues listed on that page are something they are passionate about. However, it may be difficult for someone to locate the platform on their website if they are looking specifically for the word "platform". I also wish they had their platform as a PDF to download. A PDF allows for easy printing, as well as offline reading.
- Our Stories - This is another area of their website that really divides my feelings. While I enjoy the fact that they give such an elaborate insight into the lives of each of the candidates, it is almost information overload. If I were a student looking for the SparkNotes editions of candidate biographies, the Pope-Grassi website would lose my attention because there is far too much to read. I see no reason to shorten what is currently on the site for those who are interested in reading the candidates' stories, but a quick and easy amendment would be to add bulletpoints with a list of facts like hometown, email address, and current leadership positions at the top of the biography pages.
All of the media for the Pope-Grassi campaign is consistently and uniquely branded, which is great for campaign recognition and differentiation. A few small edits to their website (such as the addition of social media links and a PDF of their platform) could make it an even stronger resource for student voters.
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