There’s never been a political ad bigger than this
There’s never been a political ad bigger than this
Plus: Why Dominion Voting Systems is fact checking fake logos
Hello, in this issue we’ll look at… the Harris campaign’s ad on Las Vegas’ Sphere, and why one voting machine company has listed a faked logo on its site ahead of the election.
Scroll to the end to see: why an Oregon school district has a problem with Ted Cruz’ ad 📺
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There’s never been a political ad bigger than this
The single biggest ad of the election—ever, for that matter—is running in Las Vegas.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is running the first-ever political ad on the Sphere, the gargantuan new music arena east of the Strip. The 90-second animation, which the Harris campaign tells me will run through Election Day, includes the campaign’s Harris-Walz logo, a portrait of Harris, visual elements like stars, stripes, and “Vote” stickers, and core campaign messaging like “Vote for Freedom,” “Vote for a New Way Forward,” and “When We Fight We Win.” The Sphere, which opened in September 2023, also happens to be the largest screen in the world—making this the biggest political ad ever.
If a presidential campaign is a fireworks show, the final week before Election Day is the grand finale. Ads run in saturation mode up until their expiration date, and this ad’s a doozy. With a total 580,000-square-foot surface, the Sphere dwarfs any other single ad the campaign has designed, and it provides a canvas like no other for showing off the campaign’s visual identity. As a point of comparison, the largest standard-size billboard is 672 square feet, according to Lamar Advertising.
The Harris campaign brand started off as a temporary logo that drew from President Joe Biden’s campaign identity after Biden had dropped out of the race. A new, simple Harris-Walz wordmark was introduced after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz joined the ticket. What initially launched as a simple text-only logo has grown into a more dynamic brand with stacked, repeating text, creative merch, a campaign font book of various typefaces for different occasions, and patriotic motifs including supersize stars and red-and-white stripes. It’s all on display on the Sphere, with a flashing reminder to vote by Nov. 5.
Scott Starrett, design director of Tandem and an advisor to Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) who didn’t work on the Harris Sphere ad, calls it “really impressive.” He tells me he assumes it’s “the most extensive use of motion graphics by a candidate in the history of the modern campaign,” adding, “It’s always encouraging to see campaigns make a deeper commitment to communication design, visual or otherwise.”
“If we’re in a ‘vibes-based’ election, as so many have suggested this cycle, perhaps an elaborate effort on this scale could inspire some voters seeking more entertainment in their politics,” he says. “On one side of this race, you have extremely online low-fi ‘edge lord’ comedy and MS Paint meme culture; and perhaps on the other side, the Harris campaign is making a point about the value of investing time and consideration into their expression on the big stage. Either way, for the sake of our country, I would hope the time and attention the Harris-Walz team puts into communicating thoughtfully is received better than isolating a group of Americans and calling them garbage… but you never know.”
The unprecedented ad is also an outsize strategy to reach potential voters in Nevada, a swing state that is currently a toss-up. “In the campaign’s final days, this Sphere activation will help the Harris campaign turn out critical Nevadans and help deliver the state for Vice President Harris on Nov. 5,” the campaign said in an announcement. The ad began its run in advance of a Las Vegas rally set for Thursday, which will feature appearances by Jennifer Lopez and Maná.
The Harris campaign is flush with cash having crossed the $1 billion threshold earlier this month, and though the campaign didn’t respond to a question about how much the ad costs, a week-long campaign on Sphere costs around $650,000.
Earlier this month, the yellow animated Sphere smiley face showed off an “I Voted” sticker as a nonpartisan message to mark the first day of in-person early voting in one of the battleground states that could help determine the outcome of the election.
Democrats have tried other creative advertising in the city too, with the Democratic National Committee skywriting “Vote Kamala” over the Raiders-Steelers game. In a place with as many lights and distractions as Las Vegas, going bigger and bolder is a key way to get voters’ attention. When it comes to advertising tactics, the Harris campaign Sphere ad is precedent-setting—even for Vegas.
Why Dominion Voting Systems is fact checking fake logos
Dominion Voting Systems, a voting software and hardware company that found itself bombarded by conspiracy theories following the 2020 election, has a fact check page already built to handle new false claims this year. It was recently updated with a new fact check: a fake company logo that claimed to show a red ballot turning blue isn’t the company’s actual logo.
Dominion’s real logo is all red and shows a minimalist ballot being dropped into a ballot box depicted with a shape that resembles a check mark. The debunked logo, which first appeared on social media during the 2020 election campaign, has reappeared, and it shows a blue ballot coming out of the other side of the box, alongside a fake slogan, “Changing The Way People Vote.”
The fake logo seems cartoonishly fake on its face—like an evil villain putting an “evil villain’s secret lair” on a sign outside his secret lair. Why would the company do that? (It wouldn’t).
Courts and local, independent, and state officials found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and yet 67% of Republicans say they trust Trump and his campaign to “provide accurate information about the presidential election outcome.” That’s more than local news or government certifications, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released last month found.
Fraudulent visual trickery like the faked logo is “a last-gasp resort for extremists who clearly feel there is no other path to victory,” Design Matters host Debbie Millman tells me. She says people are susceptible to it for several reasons.
“Often false information is presented with deep, gospel-like conviction, and people tend to believe messages that trigger feelings of fear,” Millman says. “Humans are hard-wired for survival, so we become more vulnerable when we perceive we are in threatening situations. The MAGA Republicans are tapping into this instinct with abandon and have become propaganda machines spewing lies and deceit.”
Trump has continued to make false claims about widespread voter fraud and has simultaneously admitted there is no evidence of it, while Dominion reached a $787 million settlement with Fox News last year as part of a defamation lawsuit about false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Its fact check and legal updates pages are designed to deter bad actors this time around.
The company says it’s “fully prepared to defend our company and our customers against lies and to seek accountability from those who spread them,” and it lists both facts and debunked fictions, as well as lawsuits its filed against Fox News, Newsmax, One America News, My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani, and others. Ahead of Election Day, Dominion is preparing to defend itself against the possibility of more conspiracy theories, faked logo and all.
Have you seen this?
“Like, seriously, go vote”: Influencers are getting paid to court your vote. Unlike political ads that run on TV or the nonpolitical #sponcon that makes up much of influencers’ feeds, content creators are not legally required to disclose if they’ve been paid to endorse a candidate on their page, the Federal Election Commission determined earlier this year. [Fast Company]
Harris starts swing state tour with outreach to persuadable Republicans. Harris kicked off a three-stop tour through the battleground states on Wednesday with a rally in Raleigh, N.C., where her campaign continued its explicit outreach to disaffected Republicans. [Politico]
Sen. Cruz attack ad uses photo of students without permission, school district says. Oregon school officials said the Ted Cruz campaign ad implies that a student is transgender, which is not the case. [Dallas Morning News]
Political ads boost local TV. Local TV stations are experiencing an advertising windfall this election cycle, thanks to a record amount of U.S. political ad spend. [Axios]
History of political design
Ford-Dole neighborhood headquarters signs (1976). Local presidential campaign headquarters went all but extinct in the Bicentennial campaign of 1976 because of post-Watergate reforms that limited how much campaigns could spend. The Ford and Carter campaigns instead had to ask for congressional and local campaigns to lend them space for their headquarters.
Portions of this newsletter were first published in Fast Company.
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Beautifully designed sphere ad to be sure but biggest - NOT! A female pilot over Oklahoma flew over 300 miles to make a Flightaware flight track spelling 'TRUMP' that is 16 Miles tall and 68 miles wide! Not counting the taller 'T' this banner represents about 700 square miles. Now that's-a BIG meatball!