Yahoo Politics

The Marco Rubio campaign website: A review

Alyssa Bereznak

·National Correspondent, Technology

Updated April 14, 2015 at 3:24 PM

Marco Rubio announces his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in April 2015 in Miami. (Photo: John Parra/WireImage/Getty)

On Monday, Marco Rubio announced that he too wants to be president. The Florida Republican senator let the much anticipated news slip during a private donor meeting early in the morning. By the time he stepped up to the podium at Miami’s Freedom Tower for his official public announcement, journalists everywhere had written their first drafts of history and were just waiting for his quotes.

At the launch, Rubio gave a likable performance that demonstrated what a viable candidate he may yet be, despite current low poll numbers compared with the rest of the GOP field. The premiere of his website — now live and kicking after a few brief hiccups — confirms the picture of a younger candidate, working to reach out to a new generation of voters. Namely, his very smart strategy to BuzzFeed-ify the contents of his digital campaign hub. Below, we cast our critical eye on Rubio’s online headquarters in the latest edition of RevURL.

Look and feel

On a first visit this Monday, it seemed that Rubio’s homepage existed solely for the purpose of selling campaign swag. After visiting marcorubio.com, visitors were redirected to a landing page with a special “day one” skin for his actual site, featuring pricey impulse buys: a decal, a shirt, a poster, or a $250 autographed photo of Rubio himself. Above, a ticker displayed the time left to become a “Day One Supporter,” fabricating a pressure to join his camp as soon as humanly possible.

But once readers clicked a button at the bottom of the page to enter the site, the environment normalized and they were back to a picture of the candidate — just like the top half of every other candidate’s website. Rubio’s smiling cheeks there are framed by the typical volunteer sign-up form and a bright green donation button.

As soon as you scroll down, the page becomes familiar in a very different way. Every box, every module, every column, is presented like a story on BuzzFeed: decorated with loud, grabby headlines; blocky all-caps lettering; and colorful graphics. Sometimes the text looks so hastily slapped onto images and splashed with primary colors that it’s hard to read (as in the screen shot below). In other cases, however, it’s an effective strategy to draw attention.

Take, for instance, a headline toward the bottom of the page that reads “Iran Must Not Have Nuclear Weapons.” The site’s designers packaged this module with a deliberate aesthetic that’s separate from the rest of the site. The headline, in a font that looks like it was pulled from a serial killer’s note, is overlaid on a photo of Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran. Without the visitor needing to read the headline, Rubio conveys a sense of danger about Khamenei and the country he represents.

If you do choose to click that headline, you’re taken to an article that clarifies exactly what Rubio’s stance on the issue is (spoiler: He doesn’t trust Iran). Beneath that same photo is a row of colorful social share buttons, waiting for you to make this content go viral. And if that’s not enough participation, you can always sign a petition at the bottom of the page.

By separating each stance or personal anecdote into its own easily digestible story, Rubio is aiming to reach people on the Internet beyond the confines of his website. And maybe even entertain them.

Logo

Let’s all take a moment to contemplate the ridiculousness of Rubio’s logo. The lowercase lettering of his name literally has a hat in the shape of the United States placed where the dot of the “i” should be. It brings to mind the handwriting of a gushing young teenager so filled with dreams of her heartthrob that she dots the “i’s” of his name with hearts. Perhaps Rubio is similarly overwhelmed with a feeling of patriotism that can be properly expressed only by outlining the jagged edges of our country each time he stamps his name. Either way, Rudy Giuliani will never be able to question Rubio’s love of America, as he did Obama’s.

However juvenile it may seem — and maybe that is partly the point, as a way of pushing his youth-oriented message — Rubio’s mark is unlike those of either of his Republican presidential competitors, both of whom have joined the race with symbols resembling fireball emojis in their emblems.

Text

Much of the text on Rubio’s page is written in the language developed by online media outlets. Scrolling down the left side of the page reveals a column of “Must Watch” videos, titled with overstatements like “Obama Is The Worst Negotiator In Modern History,” or open-ended questions meant to draw you in, like “What Kind of Country Will We Be?”

Rubio is smart to present the content of his site in a way that mixes lighter personal stories like “How I Became a Republican” with his stances on hard issues like Iran’s nuclear policy. It’s rare, in this hyperdistracted Internet age, that the average website visitor comes bounding onto a candidate’s website to read long blocks of text about his or her foreign policy beliefs.

That being said, when you look closely, Rubio doesn’t offer much detail on how he would deal with certain issues. We know he’s against abortion, stands with Israel, and wants to slash the budget. But beyond that, there’s not much detail, especially in the way of policy.

Plus, whatever happened to that whole immigration thing?

Social media

Rubio gets a gold star for being the candidate with the most extensive collection of social buttons thus far. Just look at all those ways to connect with the candidate: Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr. He also sent more than 70 images and videos on Snapchat the evening of his announcement.

Just … ignore the fact that Rubio has only 45 followers on Pinterest. The Pinners will get around to supporting him after they’re done with their apocalypse prep boards.