The Independent on Sunday had a piece on political advertising, and asked advertising agencies to develop posters that could be used by the main parties in an election.

The Conservatives got by far the best posters, with both of the ones developed for Labour being really rather weak. One depicted Cameron as Margaret Thatcher, which I can’t see really working – anyone who can be easily influenced by the Thatcher image would already be a staunch Labour or Tory voter, and the other “X-factor” poster just doesn’t really work. It is definitely far easier for the Conservatives to market themselves at the moment than for Labour, since they’ve caused the problems we face and suffer from. [And the posters developed for the use of the Lib Dems could far more easily used as Conservative posters.]

The best poster of the lot is definitely the one below:

This ties in well with the Conservative’s “tax bombshell” campaign, and is a simple but striking design. Though I wouldn’t have the white box at the bottom, which kinda distracts from the message.

Labour are going to struggle to develop any kind of simple-but-effective campaign that will actually sway people when it comes to the next election. The Consevatives have almost the opposite problem – how to keep any advertising campaign focused enough. And as for the Lib Dems, they’ll need to find some way to attack Labour that doesn’t send votes to the Conservatives. And that will be hard.