'Team Furey' ditches red backdrop and Liberal logo for byelection branding

The campaign signs for Liberal Party candidate Fred Hutton downplay the party's traditional red and were revealed by the party on Wednesday. (Peter Cowan/CBC)

The Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Party has shed its red for new branding ahead of the upcoming byelection in Conception Bay East-Bell Island — showing off largely white signs that feature candidate Fred Hutton's name but no party logo.

Alex Marland, a political scientist and politics professor at Acadia University, said the move might be a way to distance Premier Andrew Furey and the party from their federal counterparts, who have dropped in the polls in recent months.

"There's a lot of brand equity in these parties, and those colours symbolize a lot. So when you see a party moving away from the colours, it tells you that they think that there's a problem," Marland told CBC News from Wolfville, N.S.

"It shows that they're having some concerns within the Liberal party about their affiliation with the federal Liberal brand."

Posters also featured Furey's name in the place of a party logo, which Marland said could be the party capitalizing on his individual popularity. In a December survey from Narrative Research, 35 per cent of people surveyed said they prefer Furey as premier, as opposed to 26 per cent for PC Leader Tony Wakeham and 18 per cent for the NDP's Jim Dinn.

The switch to showcasing the premier over the party isn't unprecedented in Newfoundland and Labrador, said Marland, who noted that PC politicians of the late 2000s often identified themselves as part of Danny Williams' team as opposed to the party they represented.

Political scientist Alex Marland says the new signs could be a sign the provincial Liberal party wants to distance themselves from their federal counterparts in the public eye. (Peter Cowan/CBC)

"In this case, I think it's fairly obvious. The Liberals feel that they've got, you know, a lot of strength behind the premier, so they're going to try to promote his name. And they feel that the affiliation with the Liberal brand itself is a weakness at the moment," he said.

Furey insisted Wednesday that there is no intent to separate the provincial party from the federal party with the new branding but did say the parties are distinct from one another.

"The two have been separate organizationally and operationally for quite some time. [Justin Trudeau] has been good to this province, but it's a different party and we here as provincial Liberals have our own brand, our own look and feel," Furey told reporters.

Campaign signs revealed on Wednesday prominently display Premier Andrew Furey's name, but show the Liberal party's name in a much smaller font. (Peter Cowan/CBC)

Hutton, who was announced as the Liberal candidate on Wednesday, has been in the public eye for over 20 years as a prominent former journalist.

Marland said he believes the party hopes his name recognition will help him win the byelection, but he added that doesn't always work out.

"We tend to think that people who have a lot of name recognition and public figures really have the best chance of winning. And the reality is quite a bit of research shows that's not the case at all," he said. "In fact, the people who have the best chance of winning are municipal politicians who then move up to the next level."

Portugal Cove-St. Philip's town councillor Tina Neary is running for the Progressive Conservatives, while Kimberly Churchill will represent the NDP.

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