The single biggest ad of the election—ever, for that matter—is running in Las Vegas.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign is running the first-ever political ad on the Sphere, the gargantuan new music arena east of the Strip. The 90-second animation, which the Harris campaign tells Fast Company will run through Election Day, includes the campaign’s Harris-Walz logo, a portrait of Harris, visual elements like stars, stripes, and “Vote” stickers, and core campaign messaging like “Vote for Freedom,” “Vote for a New Way Forward,” and “When We Fight We Win.” The Sphere, which opened in September 2023, also happens to be the largest screen in the world—making this the biggest political ad ever.
If a presidential campaign is a fireworks show, the final week before Election Day is the grand finale. Ads run in saturation mode up until their expiration date, and this ad’s a doozy. With a total 580,000-square-foot surface, the Sphere dwarfs any other single ad the campaign has designed, and it provides a canvas like no other for showing off the campaign’s visual identity. (As a point of comparison, the largest standard-size billboard is 672 square feet, according to Lamar Advertising.)
The Harris campaign brand started off as a temporary logo that drew from President Joe Biden’s campaign identity after Biden had dropped out of the race. A new, simple Harris-Walz wordmark was introduced after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz joined the ticket. What initially launched as a simple text-only logo has grown into a more dynamic brand with stacked, repeating text, creative merch, a campaign font book of various typefaces for different occasions, and patriotic motifs including supersize stars and red-and-white stripes. It’s all on display on the Sphere, with a flashing reminder to vote by November 5.
Scott Starrett, design director of Tandem and an advisor to Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York (who didn’t work on the Harris Sphere ad), calls it “really impressive.” He tells Fast Company, he assumes it’s “the most extensive use of motion graphics by a candidate in the history of the modern campaign,” adding, “It’s always encouraging to see campaigns make a deeper commitment to communication design, visual or otherwise.”
“If we’re in a ‘vibes-based’ election, as so many have suggested this cycle, perhaps an elaborate effort on this scale could inspire some voters seeking more entertainment in their politics,” he says. “On one side of this race, you have extremely online low-fi ‘edge lord’ comedy and MS Paint meme culture; and perhaps on the other side, the Harris campaign is making a point about the value of investing time and consideration into their expression on the big stage. Either way, for the sake of our country, I would hope the time and attention the Harris-Walz team puts into communicating thoughtfully is received better than isolating a group of Americans and calling them garbage . . . but you never know.”
The unprecedented ad is also an outsize strategy to reach potential voters in Nevada, a swing state that is currently a toss-up. “In the campaign’s final days, this Sphere activation will help the Harris campaign turn out critical Nevadans and help deliver the state for Vice President Harris on November 5,” the campaign said in an announcement. The ad began its run in advance of a Las Vegas rally set for Thursday, which will feature appearances by Jennifer Lopez and Maná.
The Harris campaign is flush with cash having crossed the $1 billion threshold earlier this month, and though the campaign didn’t respond to a question about how much the ad costs, a week-long campaign on Sphere costs around $650,000.
Earlier this month, the yellow animated Sphere smiley face showed off an “I Voted” sticker as a nonpartisan message to mark the first day of in-person early voting in one of the battleground states that could help determine the outcome of the election.
Democrats have tried other creative advertising in the city too, with the Democratic National Committee skywriting “Vote Kamala” over the Raiders-Steelers game. In a place with as many lights and distractions as Las Vegas, going bigger and bolder is a key way to get voters’ attention. When it comes to advertising tactics, the Harris campaign Sphere ad is precedent-setting—even for Vegas.