Bobby Jindal’s campaign website: a review
Bobby Jindal is watching. (Photo: Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty).
Another sweltering summer day, another presidential bid for the Republican nomination. Leading up to a late-afternoon speech outside New Orleans on Wednesday, Bobby Jindal announced his intentions to run today in the most bizarre way we’ve seen yet: via hidden GoPro camera footage.
The camera in question appears to have been harnessed to a tree in the governor’s backyard, capturing a conversation between Jindal, his wife, Supriya, and his three young kids. Jindal tells them he’s running for president, to which they respond with thumbs up and silence.
Nothing like a creepy hidden camera to show that you understand technology, but not the Internet!
Clearly, Jindal is looking for ways to set himself apart from the large herd of other Republican contenders, even if it means installing secret cameras to keep track of his family. So, let’s investigate just how legit his online campaign hub is in our latest installment of RevURL.
Look and feel
A relatively young candidate at age 44, Jindal has opted for a much more modern website design than many of his older rivals. There’s enough white space for your cursor to get lost in. He’s also kept graphics and images to an understated minimum. The homepage’s introductory photo, for instance, is framed by the top of the website, which displays his name and logo (more on that later). Rather than splash giant text on the image of Jindal, his designers placed a small, sans-serif aside at the bottom of the page that says “Stand With Bobby.” It’s a relief to see a campaign that’s not visually yelling to get its point across.
Beneath that, you can find a section titled “Today’s Updates,” which allows you to “Meet Bobby” or look up volunteer opportunities. And the rest of the site is basically blog posts with clickable titles like “Seven Things You Didn’t Know About Bobby.” (somebody’s been reading BuzzFeed). The bottom of the page is finished off with a very neatly organized feed of his Instagram.
Overall, I’d say the whole shebang is very professional and welcoming, without being overwhelming. And Jindal even passed the 404-page test. Dude knows his way around a hashtag, apparently.
Logo
I’m not mad at Jindal’s logo, but it does seem a little bold. Let me explain: I don’t unilaterally hate the single-letter strategy. For candidates like Hillary Clinton — who enjoys wide name recognition — a single-letter logo is a power move that comes with a bonus of modernity. But someone like Jindal isn’t well-known enough to just put a patriotic J into the ether and expect everyone to know what it stands for. And just as an aside, I’m cool with the hint of red, white and blue stripes at the curve of the J, but I don’t understand the symbolic meaning of the three stars on the letter’s stem. They sort of remind me of shirt buttons, but mostly make me think that graphic designers threw this thing together haphazardly.
Content
Let’s see … it’s hard not to judge this category based solely on the creepshots Jindal took of his kids so that they might unwittingly star in his first campaign ad. But I digress!
Jindal joins many other politicians in offering no written record of his views on his website, and instead just asking for your support and money. However, we know from one of his blog posts, titled “Bobby’s Top Eight Op-Eds on Repealing Obamacare,” that Jindal is not a fan of President Obama’s health care law.
Social media
Via Instagram.
As a younger candidate, it seems social media comes pretty naturally to Jindal. Though he could stand to post a bit more on the day of his announcement, it’s clear he has a handle on what to say. After all, he’s tech-savvy enough to set up a secret camera in his backyard, so how hard can posting on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram be?
And speaking of his Instagram, it seems its entire purpose is to prove that Jindal and his family are utterly Southern. It features numerous photos of Jindal and his kids with hunting rifles, as well as birds they shot and fish they caught. And if that wasn’t rustic enough for you, there are also a handful of photos of Jindal with one of the bearded men from “Duck Dynasty.” Oh, and his family did the Ice Bucket Challenge.
Rating:
Three animal carcasses out of five. The Internet never forgets an unauthorized creep shot.
See the whole RevURL series here.
Follow Alyssa Bereznak on Twitter or send her an email here.
