Campaign Gear Is One Method To Bring Awareness to Issues

Campaign gear can be clothing, stickers, flags, or other decorative pieces of clothing or ideological and/or political paraphernalia that are used to convey an association with some cause or campaign. This can be rooted in politics, health, or other social issues. Clothing with slogans, phrases, or logos that pertain to political, social, or other causes can be an immensely effective signaling tool. You don't have to necessarily agree with him, but one look at Trump's "Red Hats'' is a perfect example. The campaign took an essentially innocuous object and turned it into a mascot for their cause; they effectively, at first glance anyway, turned every red hat into an advertisement for their cause.

Another perfect example is Barack Obama's Hope slogan. Though the image was somewhat minimalistic in nature, the color scheme of that advertisement or piece of campaign gear has become iconic as well as inseparable from the Obama campaign, despite the fact that he has already served as president for two terms.

Why Is Campaign So Successful? 

What campaign gear does that general conversations have a hard time with is delivering a large amount of general information literally at a glance. To use one of the previous examples, when you see a red hat with white lettering you might automatically think of Trump and his campaign. Whether or not you agree or supported him is irrelevant at that point; as long as the message is being considered, then it is possible for the receiver of that message to potentially be converted to the cause. This kind of passive, visual signaling is an extremely effective tool in that it forces awareness onto anyone within eyesight.

Campaign gear is particularly effective if you're working towards a specific cause or issue. Having a slogan or mascot that communicates to viewers that you support a cause may entice them enough to listen to a pitch to sign a petition, donate, or various other grass roots based direct actions. It is the ideological foot in the door, and since it is passive in nature it is applied to all who receive it. Imagine being able to walk around with a message supporting causes near your heart constantly emanating from you; that's what campaign gear does. It consistently and effectively signals to everyone around you what or who you support, how to get involved with the cause, and if you're really lucky, gets the person viewing the content to think about it on their own.

Forms of Campaign Gear

Campaign gear can also be produced and sold in a grass roots, user generated manner to support causes without necessarily needing to be imbedded in the organization itself. You can sell art and donate the money to a specific charity; you can create music to draw attention to specific issues, injustices, or inequalities. All of these things contribute to the effort of getting the message out to the masses, in effect advertising your cause. At its core, that's what campaign gear is: ideological advertisement. So, just to recap before moving on, campaign gear can be:

• Clothing
• Music
• Stickers
• Poetry
• Essays

Basically, campaign gear can be made from any medium that you feel inspired enough to use to support a cause. It doesn't have to necessarily be positive in nature however. You could have clothing that serves a similar function to political attack ads for instance. While not inherently positive, it would still be a form of campaign gear.

Conclusion

The uses of campaign gear are virtually endless. The only limitations to it are the limitations of the imagination itself. Letting other people know what is important to us is crucial to gaining support for any movement or cause, and communicating our ideologies coherently, effectively, and efficiently also hints at the competence of said cause. The more organized and presentable the message looks, the more organized and sensible the organization looks; the more chaotic and unpleasant, the less appealing. In an era in which we are pulled in so many directions ideologically, campaign gear provides an efficient method by which we can quickly signal our values, beliefs, and even how we would want them to be implemented.