During the administrative elections of Fasano (in province of Bari), concluded with the victory of the candidate Francesco Zaccaria as mayor, we had the opportunity to measure ourselves in a relatively small context compared to the national and regional campaigns we worked on previously, in which it was possible to experiment with unpublished processes. The municipality of Fasano is a territorial reality characterized by the presence of several, very populous, hamlets.
The "key-frame" of the campaign is "let's cut the past" in association with the onomatopoeia "ZAC!" (which is also the diminutive with which many turn to Francesco Zaccaria). Another central element is the use of "Z" as a symbol (meme) of the candidate and a sign of discontinuity with respect to the previous thirteen years of government. Finally, the last distinctive element of the campaign is the yellow color, usually far from the iconography of the Democratic Party.
The competition involved five candidates: the outgoing mayor, a candidate from the civic pole, a candidate near the ex UDC area, a candidate at altitude from the 5-star Movement, and finally Francesco Zaccaria, expression of the center-left coalition, chosen as candidate through the primary process.
According to the initial measurements, the outgoing mayor was given in decline, the candidate of the civic pole was given in favor (having started the election campaign in advance and having caused the fall of the former city council), the candidate of the 5-star Movement was given rapidly growing, in line with the national trend. In essence, the campaign started in trouble and with a lot of ground to recover.
During the campaign we dealt with the design of communication artifacts but also, more generally, with strategy, ghost writing (interviews), facilitation of participation processes (for the creation of Zaccaria's political program) and media planning of communication outputs.
In particular, we designed and oversaw the co-planning process of the candidate's political program, mixing digital tools, such as collaborative writing forms and platforms and traditional methodologies, such as meetings and debates.
The result was a clear and concise booklet, as a result of the thought of hundreds of people and tens of hours of team work. The booklet was distributed as an attachment to the city's main information newspaper. The dossier designing involved Marco Goran Romano for the creation of an illustration – used both for the brochure and as a poster – accompanied by the claim "Fasano 2016, a whole program!".
To support the campaign, a series of gadgets were also designed: pins, stickers, balloons, which reproduced the "Z", the onomatopoeia "ZAC!" and the scissors symbol, elements also replicated within the electoral committee.
We also followed and facilitated a team of volunteers in the creation of a video message of the appeal to vote, coordinating its planning.
