An advertising expert believes political parties should do away with billboards as they're a waste and a "visual pollutant".
Political billboards have been up for a few weeks now as the race to the Beehive heats up, with the election just 46 days away.
Political hoardings play a major role in getting names, faces and political messages into the public eye.
But advertising expert Mike Hutcheson told AM on Monday a lot of the messages on the billboards are repeated from the past.
He questioned how political parties are expected to get their message across in just a few words.
"Having done a number of national campaigns and also local body campaigns, I think it's actually extravagant and a waste, it's actually a visual pollutant," he said.
"It's like personalised plates. How can you get a philosophy in a few words? It's often banal, often trivial. If you look back over the last 20 or 30 years, they just repeat messages from way, way back. There doesn't seem to be a big lexicon that these people draw on."
Hutcheson said the best billboard he had seen was from the UK from the late 1970s with the slogan "Labour's not working".
He told AM the key to a billboard is it has to be simple, be able to be read in two-and-a-half seconds and have a clear message while adding it's not essential to have a face on the hoarding.
"There are four things you've got to have. You have got to have a credible candidate, it's much, much better if they are photogenic, you have to have the money to actually push your message and you have to have a machine that goes around backing it up," he said.
"For example for Labour, which is 'in it for you' is actually not a bad line, but I don't know what they're in it for. It's now probably up to the candidates either on a local basis or on a national basis to say this is what we're in it for."
Hutcheson told AM a billboard also needs to have something that Kiwis stands for.
"The cool thing about New Zealand is, regardless of whether you came here on a waka 800 years ago or sailing ship 300 years ago, what brings you to the furthest away country in the world from any other country? It's hope and courage," he said.
"No politician deals to that. We should be about innovation rather than correction."
AM had all the major political parties' billboards in the studio on Monday, except for National who didn't send one in when asked by AM and Hutcheson believed The Opportunities Party (TOP) had the best one.
"He [TOP leader Raf Manji] is an attractive man and he's very clever. I think that he is undersold and I think the 'Fresh Voice' is good because his is a good voice."
Watch the full interview with Mike Hutcheson in the video above.
