Sex Party chooses print quality over quantity

In the lead up to the federal election, the controversial Australian Sex Party uses print to make the public pay attention to its policies.

Its print collateral includes policy cards that read ‘I Want You To Tick My Box’, placed in DVDs and vibrators in sex shops around the country, along with flyers and brochures delivered by members of the party in public places such as railway stations.

Robbie Swan, (pictured) spokesperson for the Sex Party, told Print21 that, at the time of writing, 300,000 items had been printed. “It’s probably not huge in comparison to Liberal or Labor but we’re only 12 months old,” he said.

But you get what you pay for and quality was another important factor. According to Swan, the items, printed by Pegasus Print Group in Sydney, have met the party’s standards. “I’ve never come across a better printer than Pegasus. We’ve spent a bit more money making the brochures look good because we think quality is something that people pay attention to,” he said. “There’s a benefit to having a smaller run of a high quality brochures because it gets a passed around a bit more.”

Instead of direct mail, Swan said that the party chose a more direct approach, which involves handing out leaflets in public.

“We did a lot of that [direct mail] in our bi-election last December with leaflets and letterboxing but we found that this time we simply didn’t have the people on the street to do that for an Australia-wide campaign,” he said. “We find we do a better response from giving then it to people ourselves.”