Yesterday the Greens released their ECE policy. The main element of this policy is the extension of 20 hours of early childhood care to children between the age of 2 and 3. It is currently only available to children between 3 and 5.
As is to be expected, the greens had graphics ready to hit social media as the policy was being announced.
The Greens have stuck with a simple graphic, with nothing that really takes your attention away from the message, particularly the fact that there is no kids eyes visible, as people’s eyes find other eyes attention grabbing. . Having said that, some elements of the text does blend into the background a bit, particularly the greyed area depicting school age. The use of Green to highlight the policy change is effective.
As is becoming more common, the Greens had a second graphic to promote the same policy.
I suspect the tag line, “We’ll help kids thrive” will be used again in the future, as part of other policy announcements to do with children. Linking multiple policy areas together helps to build the image of a party with a coherent, interlinked policy platform. Which is what any party wants to achieve. However, I have an issue with the image picked. The kid looks slightly upset, like it is about to burst into tears. Now I have limited experience when it comes to photographing kids, and even I know it is not that easy to get a good photo of a young baby. But if you were going to use it for political campaign, wouldn’t you go for something that feels a bit more positive? So much of messaging comes from the subtle elements, as opposed from the overt elements. A happy image is more likely to leave people feeling positive about the policy that is being talked about. This is contrasted with the presence of another subtle element that is present in both of these images. Even though the polices aren’t about the environment, there is still the subtle green element to them to reinforce the Green brand.
Overall the images and graphics are strong. There are a couple of things that let them down. But it is graphics like this, and the fact that #thrivingkids started trending rather quickly, that reinforce the fact that the Greens are really on top of the social media game.
